GSA seeks ideas for shipping SaaS

WHAT: The General Services Administration is looking for ideas on how to evolve its current supply chain management services that handle federal agencies' shipping needs.

WHY: GSA's Center for Transportation Management (CTM) provides agencies with a software as a service solution standardized freight transportation. The system, branded by GSA as TransPort Integrator (TPI) and hosted and managed by IBM, is based on a commercial, off-the-shelf solution from JDA Software.

The system supports core transportation functions such as freight rates procurement, planning and execution. According to the agency, freight bills are settled in Pay Port Express (PPE), a GSA-branded solution serviced by Citibank. PPE is based on Syncada platform and is integrated with TPI.

Through its Request for Information, GSA wants to find a commercial service for transportation management to support planning and execution of the freight shipments for the federal civilian agencies. It's looking for a commercial-off-the-shelf product, or suite of products, specifically tailored to support transportation management functions. It expects some amount of customization will be needed, but for the most part, the RFI, said "a significant part" of the requirements can be met through typical configuration.

It also wants cost estimates based on recommended solutions and implementations, including lifecycle costs (one time and out-year) for a successful implementation and support of a complete transportation management process.

Click here to read the RFI.