In a request for proposals (RFP) released April 13, the Sonoma County Water Agency (Sonoma Water) is looking for a new computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) and “related services.” The county wants to hear from companies “interested in providing system configuration, deployment, and related data migration and business process integration services” for its CMMS Replacement Project, according to the RFP. It cautions, however: “This is not a bid process.” Among the takeaways:
- Sonoma Water delivers drinking water to more than 600,000 residents of Sonoma and northern Marin counties. The agency is also charged with upkeep of more than 75 miles of streams across Sonoma County and operates numerous facilities to minimize any flood risk. The agency also runs eight sanitation districts and zones. Sonoma Water seeks a CMMS that meets its “functional needs, provides mobile capabilities,” and can be implemented “with training and documentation provided.” Long-term CMMS objectives include capturing “asset data attributes” for agency assets above and below ground. A new CMMS should support managing those assets to maintain them at lowest lifecycle cost with expected service levels. This system will replace the existing CMMS, which uses IBM’s Maximo, and should have 30 to 40 total users.
- Sonoma Water’s project overview is that it has “multiple systems for managing and maintaining asset information,” and this project will involve the implementation of “asset management practices to integrate the available information to enhance the decision-making process for managing these assets.”
“Sonoma Water’s vision is to improve its process to accomplish reliability centered maintenance, business system interconnectedness, and improve asset management enterprise-wide,” the agency said in a statement in the RFP. “Sonoma Water is seeking strategies to reduce labor required for asset maintenance, record keeping, researching asset history information, benchmarking, reporting key performance indicators, more comprehensive fiscal decision making, assurance of regulatory compliance, justification for rate increases to the public, and other pertinent enterprise asset management functions.” - The agency seeks an “integrated commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) packaged CMMS solution” needing few modifications. This strategy, per the RFP, is aimed at minimizing total cost of ownership, optimizing system utilization, boosting response times, and reducing errors, manual labor and the use of spreadsheets and stand-alone systems. Sonoma Water also hopes to “expedite system implementation” and offer the most effective, efficient path to ongoing maintenance and support. Integrated modules or functional areas chosen for the project include asset inventory and record tracking; field ability/mobility; inventory management; reporting and dashboards; and GIS.
- The agency’s business objectives in this implementation include public safety, health, security and economic well-being for customers and stakeholders; making information widely and readily available; automating repairs and maintenance; increasing productivity while reducing errors; and standing up a system that meets technology and architecture plans while integrating information from other systems. Here, Sonoma Water also wants to be able to manage, track and report the performance of linear/distributed and facility/equipment assets.
- Responses must detail similar work previously done, with at least three references; statements of qualifications and personnel lists; a list of any subcontractors; a costs breakdown including hourly rates for personnel; a description of project approach — not sales literature; and a staffing plan with estimated hours. On functionalities, respondents must describe how their system IDs assets, which operating systems can access the system via mobile, what information is available via offline modes; flexibility and historical readings in performance tracking; how labor and expenses are associated to work orders; and a comprehensive description of query reports.
- The precise start date, duration and value of a contract aren’t stated. Responses to the RFP are due by 2 p.m. May 11.
