Warehouse Management System Replacement

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (FS) Fire and Aviation Management – Information Management (FAM-IM) is issuing a Request for Information (RFI) and is considering a solicitation for a Warehouse Management System (WMS) Replacement system. All solutions of Commercial Off the Shelf (COT) software, Modified Off the Shelf (MOT) software, Niche Off the Shelf (NOT) software, or Custom Built software are options being sought; COT software is preferred.

No solicitation resulting from this RFI is guaranteed; this is only researching options that are available. The FS requires a warehouse management and inventory system designed to support the unique requirements of the National Interagency Support Cache (NISC) system. The NISC manages all items that comprise the National Fire Equipment System (NFES) for fire/all hazards incident use.

This inventory includes items such as: firefighting tools, personal protective clothing and equipment, fire shelters, pumps, hose, specialized incident communications equipment, forms, and training materials. The WMS will manage $225-250 million in inventory and refurbish many items that are used multiple times during a fire season. Currently the median average is 350 to 400 users use this system.

There is a need to have the ability to scale up and scale down license volume due to Fire and Non-Fire season activity and Congressional budgetary constraints. The Interagency Cache Business System (ICBS) is a web-based application used to manage the inventory of National Fire Equipment System (NFES) supplies housed in fifteen (15) interagency incident support caches with interest to expand more Caches across the US.

NFES supplies are used for fire suppression, non-fire (“all-risk”) incident response, non-emergency planned events and training activities. ICBS is a mission-critical component of interagency response capability and has been in production use since 2008.