Alliance Outreach Implementation Plan
Gaining Use by State & Local Governments of the
Updated
Model Procurement Requirements Incorporating the Alliance
Interoperability Statement
March 31, 2004
I. Introduction
Accompanying this report is a copy of the updated Alliance Model Procurement Requirements that incorporates for the first time an interoperability statement. The statement was drafted by the Alliance’s Core Work Group and then modified last fall with input received from attendees at the September 24, 2003, Summit on Streamlining The Building Regulatory Process Through Interoperability. The Interoperability Statement was further modified in late winter by jurisdictions and representatives from the information technology community.
NCSBCS has taken the final input received by March 31 and incorporated it into the Model Procurement Requirements and posted the updated Model on the Alliance portion of the NCSBCS website for consideration by state and local governments.
This paper provides Alliance partners, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology who funded its preparation, with a plan for gaining the adoption and use of the Alliance’s now updated Model Procurement Requirements by state and local governments across this nation. This plan builds upon the recent endorsement of that model by Alliance partner, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO). (The NASCIO March 10, 2004, letter to NCSBCS noting their endorsement is attached.)
NCSBCS wishes to thank those jurisdictions and software firms that provided input on both the Model Procurement Requirements and the Interoperability Statement during their development and subsequent revisions. As noted in the report below, the now updated Model Procurement Requirements will shortly be placed on a CD-ROM Alliance Update Report that will be distributed in late April/early May to the nation’s governors, mayors and county commissioners for their review and consideration.
II. Outreach Implementation Plan
The objective of this plan is to gain maximum distribution and exposure to the updated Alliance Model Procurement Requirements that now incorporates an interoperability statement and to gain the adoption and use of the model by as many jurisdiction as possible in their upcoming procurements of information technology for use in their building regulatory processes.
The purpose of the Alliance’s Model Procurement Requirements and Interoperability Statement is to assist jurisdictions, that have not already acquired IT for use in their building regulatory processes or that are considering new procurements of IT, with a template from which they can draft their own RFP’s/RFQ’s to obtain such services.
The original model was developed in the summer of 2003 based upon a review of recent information technology (IT) procurement documents from a number of jurisdictions including: Fairfax County, Virginia; Los Angeles, California; Mecklenburg, North Carolina; San Jose, California; Ventura County, California; Columbus, Ohio; and State of Michigan.
At the time of its preparation, the original model did not include any statement or requirement that hardware or software be interoperable. It was noted by a number of jurisdictions that having such a requirement within the model would be extremely helpful. Therefore, in the fall of 2003, work began on preparing a draft interoperability statement.
As noted earlier in this report, the Alliance, with input from jurisdictions and the hardware and software community, made modifications to a draft interoperability statement originally presented at the New York City Summit on Streamlining the Building Regulatory Process Through Interoperability.
The statement now incorporated into the Model Procurement Requirements has been modified with such input to reflect the fact that, at present (March 31, 2004), no truly interoperable hardware or software is indeed available for purchase from the nation’s hardware and software industry. What is available, however, at this time from several firms is a suite of software products for various regulatory functions that exchanges data (e.g. building addresses, permit numbers, contractors names, etc.) among those packages and only those packages provided by that firm.
Also available at this time are several products provided by middleware firms that will provide bridges for transmitting some data between legacy software systems and new software packages being acquired by jurisdictions. The Alliance does not at this stage consider such products as being interoperable.
Given the state of the industry, the revised Interoperability Statement developed by the Alliance in January-March 2004 is more a performance statement (software/hardware procured under this solicitation by this jurisdiction SHALL …….). This statement will be subject to later revision by the Alliance as the nation’s software industry works together with the Alliance and the construction and building regulatory communities to develop XML schema that will establish true interoperability for the data being used under each of the following nine building regulatory processes: Licensing, Permitting, Plan Review, Inspection, Materials & Equipment, Maintenance & Reports, Compliance, Enforcement, Equipment Registration and Use Permitting.
To implement the Model Procurement Requirements and Interoperability Statement, the Alliance will undertake the following activities: