Expression of Interest (EOI) – Re-advertised. 

Consultancy Services for the Build test and deployment of a Management Information System for NIRDA R&D 

Reference Number: 83439701

1.    Introduction

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is a federally owned international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations. The GIZ Office in Kigali covers GIZ’s portfolio in Rwanda and Burundi. GIZ Rwanda/Burundi implements projects on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Union and other commissioning authorities in the following priority areas: Sustainable Economic Development, Good Governance, Climate and Energy, Digitalization, Extractive Governance and Peace and Security in the Great Lakes Region.

1.1 About NIRDA

The National Industrial Research and Development Agency (NIRDA) is a government institution that has been mandated with a mission to enable a generation of industrial innovators to become competitive through technology monitoring, acquisition, development, and transfer & applied research.

NIRDA seeks to enable a generation of industrial innovators to become competitive through technology monitoring, acquisition, development and transfer, and applied research. NIRDA will accomplish this through the creation of a creative and collaborative space comprised of two facilities.

Private sector: Host and provide world-class lab and niche testing services for private industrial entities while also creating a platform for them to access critical resources, especially skilled talent. In addition, the facilities will promote opportunities for collaborative industrial research so as to promote the development of new products and services aimed at boosting industrial innovation, competitiveness and productivity.

Young Innovators: Provide a collaborative stage for young innovators in the life sciences sector, to encourage the development and conversion of ideas into marketable products and services. Furthermore, the Facilities will provide incubation services and essential networking, mentorship opportunities and entrepreneurial educative courses/skills for young innovators, focusing on the commercialization of products and services and technology transfer to existing industries while at the same time promoting the creation of future industries within the sector.

Academia: Linkages between academia and industry are the backbone for continued innovation and industry. Therefore, the Facilities will collaborate with existing academic institutions to not only provide the required skill sets essential for the development of new ideas and products but also engage in collaborative joint industrial research with the private sector.

Technology acquisition, commercialization, and transfer: NIRDA supports partner enterprises in selected value chains to help them improve their competitiveness through the acquisition and commercialization of appropriate technologies.

NIRDA supports the replication of successful pilot projects by many private enterprises, and links enterprises with global technology trailblazerstoo create sustainable enterprises that will stimulate economic development in Rwanda.

The GIZ project "Digital Solutions for Sustainable Development" (DSSD) has a mandate to advise Rwandan institutions on the implementation of the Smart Rwanda Master Plan (2016-2020) and its priority projects. The project also aims to promote the development of digital solutions in collaboration with sector ministries, local and international private companies, research institutions and civil society. 

The Digital Solutions for Sustainable Development project entered a new phase in 2021. In addition to digital solutions that are being developed together with the Rwandan partner authorities, more vulnerable groups such as the rural population, women and people with disabilities are to be involved in the digital transformation in line with the approach Leave no one behind.  One project objective is to develop initiatives to promote digital participation in collaboration between public and private stakeholders. The assumption here is that those digital skills, combined with target-group-specific digital services, will enable a large proportion of the population to be part of the digital transformation and use these services. To reach the target groups effectively, use leveraging effects and develop user-centric services, stronger cooperation between public and private actors is being promoted. This will contribute to developing and offer services in a systematic and coordinated manner.

One of the key beneficiaries of the digitization efforts from the Digital Solutions for Sustainable Development project (DSSD) is The National Industrial Research and Development Agency (NIRDA). NIRDA is now in the close working relationship with DSSD on several digitization efforts and one of them is in this regard.

1.2 Context

The National Industrial Research and Development Agency (NIRDA) is a government institution that has been mandated with a mission to enable a generation of industrial innovators to become competitive through technology monitoring, acquisition, development, and transfer, as well as applied research.

To achieve its mandate, NIRDA has two laboratories, a Life Science and STEM for Industry Laboratory, focusing on industrial applied research activities. The research activities conducted by the laboratory generate diverse types of data, which must be well-kept, easily tracked, and shared.

Currently, all laboratory functionality is paper-based, time-consuming and requires several staff to accomplish simple tasks. This has caused three major challenges:

• lack of efficient management of resources and processes,
• Inadequate communication with the clients and stakeholders,
• Inefficient control of laboratory documentation. 

Lack of efficient management of resources and processes

NIRDA is in possession of two laboratories; one is NIRDA STEM for Industry (S4i) laboratory situated in Kigali (camp Kigali), and NIRDA life science laboratory (NIRDA-LSL) located in Huye District and managing these two laboratory resources and processes is quite challenging.

Controlling inventories, equipment and facilities are difficult because of the paperwork involved. This causes delays in procuring reagents and consumables, maintenance, and equipment calibration in both laboratories.

Additionally, sampling and sample handling (testing services) in the NIRDA life science laboratory is chaotic due to the amount of paperwork and individual signatures needed to process a test, and this excludes the tests from the STEM lab, which is not operational.

Finally, monitoring of activities that take a long period of time, like prototyping (product development) and incubation which often need real-time reporting to be able to track the non-conforming works and/or improve the processes is often affected because the paper-based reporting that makes process control a nightmare for the lab technicians/specialists.

Inadequate communication system with the clients and stakeholders

Clients often need updates on the services offered by the laboratories, the procedures required to get these services, how to apply for these services and follow-up on different requests made. However, this has proved difficult and slow because of the current system's inefficiencies.

Inefficient control of laboratory documentation                         

Running laboratories requires making updated documents (forms, methods, instructions, SOP, etc.) accessible to users (depending on accessibility rights) plus real-time data and information sharing; however, due to the current paper-based system, it is limited.

• Rationale/Objective

The National Industrial Research and Development Agency (NIRDA) needs to have a system that will improve laboratory research productivity and efficiency by organizing and keeping track of data associated with samples, experiments, Laboratory workflows, and communication between NIRDA and its clients. These clients include start-ups, innovators, industries, individuals, and public institutions partnering with NIRDA.

A digitized Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) would be a more efficient and effective remedy to the inefficiencies in service delivery being faced by the laboratories, as mentioned above.

The services we envision to improve include but are not limited to the following:

• Client interface with Nirda R&D
• Catalogue of services from all the laboratories for payment and consumption
• Business workflows between the clients and Nirda
• Web access to the platform

The system will also ease client communication by easing access to information.

The proposed system should also interface with other systems already used by NIRDA and be an open-source customizable platform secured, allowing integration, interoperability, and android compatibility. Have interlinked modules that work together to make the entire system more manageable and easier to understand and operate.

The system should enable automated data recording, reporting, and computing with extensive data extraction, collection, and processing functions.

The System should be layered but not limited to the following proposed components:

1. Online services 
   • List of services, descriptions, and cost
   • The client fills out a form with information
2. Service Request

• Ensure everything here is automated

3. Contracts management to help in the payment process
4. Payment integration
5. Results for tests and work done at Nirda labs
6. Analytics (requests, contracts, amounts daily, monthly and yearly)
7. Notifications (Email, SMS)

2.    Tasks to be performed by the contractor

The bidder is required to plan, organize, and facilitate the initial phase that will guide the development and deployment of the Management Information System for Nirda.

The initial phase will include the built test and deployment of this system's forward and client-facing interface to allow Nirda to showcase services to clients and serve them.

2.1 Specific tasks to be performed by the contractor:

This assignment aims to have a competent consulting firm or consultants with experience in designing and implementing software solutions to implement the Management Information System for Nirda. The consulting firm will perform the following tasks:

1. A review of all business processes related to all components of the Management Information System for Nirda (Attached to this ToR is business processes).
2. A collection of expounded diagrams of all the subcomponents under each Management Information System for Nirda For example, under physical inventory management (specify the subcomponents), Under commodity receipt management, specify the subcomponents, and so on for all components.
3. Provision of a revised list of channels to access the Management Information System for Nirda for the various business processes based on the required mode of operation.
4. In partnership with Nirda and GIZ, design iterations for the proposed building of all the Management Information System for Nirda components and their roll-out.
5. The system will be designed with an agile approach with components deployed in iterations, all functionalities do not have to be operational for the system to be ready for deployment, therefore iterations must be designed for vertical integration.
6. Produce a revised system architecture with specific component detail and processes, like data management, flows, disaster and risk recovery, encryption modules, etc.
7. Design, build, test, iterate, improve, and deploy the Management Information System for Nirda with all components working seamlessly.
8. Conduct a risk assessment of each component of the Management Information System for Nirda and document a mitigation strategy for all identified risks for business continuity.
9. Ensure data protection and data security as well as privacy based on Rwandan data protection standards of the entire Management Information System for Nirda
10. Design APIs and integrate the entire Management Information System for Nirda to external interfaces for SMS notification, email notification and payment operators.

Work package1: Review business processes and design iterations

A review of all business processes related to the Management Information System for Nirda (The business processes are attached in Annex 1 of this ToR). 

The Consulting Firm will work with NIRDA and GIZ to review iterations for the seamless rollout of the system. 

Work package 2: Build, Test and Deploy System

Build, test, and deployment of the Management Information System for Nirda. 

The Consulting Firm should design and follow a series of iterations (designed in work package 1) to build the system and follow the iterations in an agile manner that the product owner from NIRDA guides. All functionalities must not be operational for the system to be deployed. Therefore, iterations must be designed and deployed incrementally. 

Work package 3: Integrations

The consulting team must consolidate all source code and user knowledge about the Management Information System for Nirda and ensure the interoperability of all components with the existing government of Rwanda, such as, for example, payment operators, among others.

• Ensure and prepare the PSRP to connect with IPPIS, NIDA database, and any other systems as required by the product owner (MIFOTRA).
• Ensure the overall data protection and privacy is implemented with grade encryption and data is segregated based on user base cases and team requirement standards. 

Work package 4: Training and Capacity building

Training and capacity building of the NIRDA and GIZ teams on using the systems.

• Documentation of all modules of the Management Information System for Nirda
• Risk, disaster, and recovery measures, as well as a business continuity plan for the Management Information System for Nirda
• Detailed definition of the target group and their needs for training
• Define formats of the training/ of the training sessions
• The curriculum includes the training objectives and content used during the training.
• Design of training materials and exercises
• Timeline of the training.

2.2 Organization and Supervision Arrangements:

The Consulting Firm/Consultants will work daily with NIRDA and GIZ Technical Team under the direct supervision of the R&D department at Nirda.

Reporting Requirements

The Consulting Firm/Consultant must report directly to the Public Sector Innovation division at GIZ and provide a briefing to NIRDA.

The following reports shall be submitted in English:

Inception Report

This report shall be given two (2) weeks after the commencement of the assignment, detailing but not limited to the approach and methodology, a proposed work plan for undertaking the assignment, and implementation timeline scheduling of the assignment. It should be submitted in three (2) copies to the assigned Project Manager.

The Phases Completion Reports

This report shall constitute a summary of the accomplished work for each phase and shall reveal in detail the milestone achieved and the work plan for the coming phase. The report shall also identify the problems encountered during the implementation of previous phases and the suggested measures and needed help from the Client to facilitate the next phase of work. This report should be submitted after each phase.

Training Report

The Training Report will contain all the details about the training conducted to the designated technical team with specific topics done under the Consulting Firm/Consultants Supervision. The report will also contain all the related materials, diagrams and manuals used in training and for future reference.

The Draft Final Report

This report will elaborate on all activities undertaken during assignment execution, including all project documentation. This will include all the system and software development documentation and manuals.

The Final Report

The final report shall incorporate comments/ feedback from NIRDA and GIZ on the draft report.

2.3 Milestones

The contractor is requested to provide an implementation plan for the project, including the following milestones:

Period of assignment: from July 2023 until December 2023.

3.    Concept

In the tender, the tenderer is required to show how the objectives defined in Chapter 2 (Tasks to be performed) are to be achieved, if applicable under consideration of further method-related requirements (technical-methodological concept). In addition, the tenderer must describe the project management system for service provision.

Note: The numbers in parentheses correspond to the lines of the technical assessment grid.

Technical-methodological concept

Strategy (1.1): The tenderer is required to consider the tasks to be performed with reference to the objectives of the services put out to tender (see Chapter 1 Context) (1.1.1). Following this, the tenderer presents and justifies the explicit strategy with which it intends to provide the services for which it is responsible (see Chapter 2 Tasks to be performed) (1.1.2).

The tenderer is required to present the actors relevant for the services for which it is responsible and describe the cooperation (1.2) with them.

The tenderer is required to present and explain its approach to steering the measures with the project partners (1.3.1).

The tenderer is required to describe the key processes for the services for which it is responsible and create an operational plan or schedule (1.4.1) that describes how the services according to Chapter 2 (Tasks to be performed by the contractor) are to be provided. In particular, the tenderer is required to describe the necessary work steps.

Project management of the contractor (1.6)

The bidder is required to explain its approach to coordination (1.6.1) with the GIZ project. GIZ will provide one contact person for the contractor. The explanations of the bidder shall consider the following minimum standards to be met by the contractor:

• The provision of at least one contact person for GIZ
• The existence of substitution management
• Daily availability by email and or phone (on workdays)
• The response to emails within 24 hours
• Weekly availability for a physical or virtual meeting
• Weekly progress reporting (written)
• The submission of quality-assured deliverables at least three workdays before the approval are due to be made (all deliverables need approval from GIZ)
• The selection, preparation, training and steering of the experts assigned to perform the advisory tasks.

The management of costs and expenditures, accounting processes and invoicing in line with the requirements of GIZ.

The tenderer is required to draw up a personnel assignment plan with explanatory notes that lists all the experts proposed in the tender; the plan includes information on assignment dates (duration and expert months) and locations of the individual members of the team complete with the allocation of work steps as set out in the schedule (1.6.2).

4.    Personnel concept

The tenderer is required to provide personnel who are suited to filling the positions described, on the basis of their CVs (see Chapter 7), the range of tasks involved and the required qualifications.

The below specified qualifications represent the requirements to reach the maximum number of points in the technical assessment.

Team leader (Project manager)

Tasks of the team leader

• Overall responsibility for the advisory packages of the contractor
• Coordinating and ensuring communication with GIZ, partners and stakeholders
• Personnel management, identifying the need for short-term assignments within the available budget, as well as planning and steering assignments and supporting local and international short-term experts.
• Regular reporting in accordance with deadlines
• Perform tasks within the scope stated in section 2 (the specific tasks will be defined depending on the requirements of each individual project)

Qualifications of the team leader

•  Education/training (2.1.1): University qualification (Master or equivalent) in computer science, IT or relevant field
• Language (2.1.2): not applicable
• General professional experience (2.1.3): 10 years of professional experience in ICT sector
• Specific professional experience (2.1.4): 6 years in data analytics and architecture; experience in designing complex IT architectures
• Leadership/management experience (2.1.5): 3 years of management/leadership experience as a project team leader or manager in a company
• Regional experience (2.1.6): 4 years of experience in projects in Africa (region), of which 3 years in projects in Rwanda (country)
• Development Cooperation (DC) experience (2.1.7): not applicable
• Other (2.1.8): Knowledge and experience in the fields of Configuration management for business workflow tools web based applications with evidence in their CV from previous roles

Key expert 1 – Tester (ETL specialist)

Tasks of key expert 1

• Write test data scripts based on ETL mappings.
• Execute data scripts and detailed analysis of the scripts.
• Create strategies and test cases for applications that use ETL components.
• Data mining and detailed data analysis on data warehousing systems
• Execute formal test plans to ensure the delivery of data-related requests.
• Provide input and support big data testing initiatives.
• Define and track quality assurance metrics such as defects, defect counts, test results and test status.

Qualifications of key expert 1

• Education/training (2.2.1): University qualification (Master/Bachelor or equivalent) in computer science, IT or relevant field
• Language (2.2.2): not applicable
• General professional experience (2.2.3): 4 years of professional experience in the ICT sector
• Specific professional experience (2.2.4): 3 years in data warehouse development with evidence in their CV from previous roles
• Leadership/management experience (2.2.5): not applicable
• Regional experience (2.2.6): not applicable
• Development Cooperation (DC) experience (2.2.7): not applicable
• Other (2.2.8): Knowledge and experience in the fields of of data modeling, ETL development, data cleansing, OLAP design, application development, production automation, system and database administration with evidence in their CV from previous roles

Key expert 2 – DevOps Engineer

Tasks of key expert 2

• Write test data scripts based on ETL mappings.
• Execute data scripts and detailed analysis of the scripts.
• Create strategies and test cases for applications that use ETL components.
• Data mining and detailed data analysis on data warehousing systems
• Execute formal test plans to ensure the delivery of data-related requests.
• Provide input and support big data testing initiatives.
• Define and track quality assurance metrics such as defects, defect counts, test results and test status.

Qualifications of key expert 2

• Education/training (2.3.1): University qualification (‘Diploma’/Master/Bachelor or equivalent) in computer science, IT or relevant field
• Language (2.3.2): not applicable
• General professional experience (2.3.3): 3 years of experience in software engineering design, architecture and implementation in total
• Specific professional experience (2.3.4): 3 years of experience in key integration platforms & pattern/ DevOps with evidence in their CV from previous roles
• Leadership/management experience (2.3.5): not applicable
• Regional experience (2.3.6): not applicable
• Development Cooperation (DC) experience (2.3.7): not applicable
• Other (2.3.8): not applicable

Short-term expert pool 1 with minimum 2, maximum 2 members – Front-end developers (2 Developers)

For the technical assessment, an average of the qualifications of all specified members of the expert pool is calculated. Please send a CV for each pool member (see below Chapter 7 Requirements on the format of the bid) for the assessment.

Tasks of the short-term expert pool 1

• Handle the general appearance of the PRSP as required.
• Ensuring that the PRSP appearance conforms to mobile compatibility.
• Help back-end developers with integration between the front and back end.
• Harmonizing the connectivity between the front and the back-end interfaces

Qualifications of the short-term expert pool 1

• Education/training (2.6.1): University qualification (Master or equivalent) in computer science, IT or relevant field
• Language (2.6.2): not applicable
• General professional experience (2.6.3): 5 years of professional experience in the ICT sector
• Specific professional experience (2.6.4): 3 years inthe development of business intelligence dashboards, including web applications
• Regional experience (2.6.5): not applicable
• Development cooperation (DC) experience (2.6.6): not applicable
• Other (2.6.7): 3 years inthe development of business intelligence dashboards, including web applications

Short-term expert pool 2 with minimum 2, maximum 2 members – Back-end Developers (2 Developers)

For the technical assessment, an average of the qualifications of all specified members of the expert pool is calculated. Please send a CV for each pool member (see below Chapter 7 Requirements on the format of the bid) for the assessment.

Tasks of the short-term expert pool 2

• Be involved and participate in the overall application lifecycle.
• Main focus is on coding, debugging and ensuring that the overall application is bug-free.
• Collaborating with the front-end developers and other team members to establish objectives and design more functional, cohesive codes to enhance the user experience.
• Build high-quality reusable code that conforms to scalability demands.

Qualifications of the short-term expert pool 2

• Education/training (2.7.1): University qualification (Master or equivalent) in computer science, IT or relevant field
• Language (2.7.2): not applicable
• General professional experience (2.7.3): 5 years of professional experience in the ICT sector
• Specific professional experience (2.7.4): 3 years in back-end software development
• Regional experience (2.7.5): not applicable
• Development cooperation (DC) experience (2.7.6): not applicable
• Other (2.7.7): Knowledge and experience in the fields of development of business applications and electronic document workflows with evidence in their CV from previous roles

Soft skills of team members

In addition to their specialist qualifications, the following qualifications are required of team members:

• Team skills
• Initiative
• Communication skills
• Socio-cultural skills
• Efficient, partner- and client-focused working methods
• Interdisciplinary thinking

The tenderer must provide a clear overview of all proposed short-term experts and their individual qualifications.

5.    Costing requirements

Assignment of personnel and travel expenses

Team leader: On-site assignment for 100 expert days

Expert 1: Assignment in country of assignment (Rwanda) for 98 expert days

Expert 2: Assignment in country of assignment (Rwanda) for 98 expert days

Short-term expert pool 1: Assignment in country of assignment (Rwanda) for in total 200 expert days

Short-term expert pool 2: Assignment in country of assignment (Rwanda) for in total 200 expert days

Total Number of expert days: 696 Expert days

Travel

No travel costs are foreseen as this is a local assignment.

Other costs

• Local Hosting infrastructure (servers, all data must be hosted locally)
• SMS integrations and other plugins
• Other system integration costs

6.    Inputs of GIZ or other actors

GIZ and/or other actors are expected to make the following available:

• Transportation on site with own project vehicle

7.    Requirements on the format of the tender

The structure of the tender must correspond to the structure of the ToRs. In particular, the detailed structure of the concept (Chapter 3) should be organised in accordance with the positively weighted criteria in the assessment grid (not with zero). The tender must be legible (font size 11 or larger) and clearly formulated. It must be drawn up in English (language).

The complete tender must not exceed 35 pages (excluding CVs). If one of the maximum page lengths is exceeded, the content appearing after the cut-off point will not be included in the assessment. External content (e.g., links to websites) will also not be considered.

The CVs of the personnel proposed in accordance with Chapter 4 of the ToRs must be submitted using the format specified in the terms and conditions for application. The CVs shall not exceed 4 pages each. They must clearly show the position and job the proposed person held in the reference project and for how long. The CVs can also be submitted in Eglish (language).

Please calculate your financial tender based exactly on the parameters specified in Chapter 5 Quantitative requirements. The contractor is not contractually entitled to use up the days, trips, workshops, or budgets in full. The number of days, trips and workshops and the budgets will be contractually agreed as maximum limits. The specifications for pricing are defined in the price schedule.

Submission of offer: The Expression of Interest should contain the following:

1. Technical Proposal:
   • A cover letter expressing your interest in this assignment
   • Technical proposal with a brief description of why you would be considered as the most suitable for the assignment, relevant expertise, and a detailed, clear methodology, on your approach to complete the assignment
   • CVs of experts proposed
   • Company registration certificate (RDB) in case of a company
   • VAT registration certificate
   • Latest tax clearance certificate
   • Proof of successful completion of related assignments.
2. Financial Proposal: indicates the all-inclusive total contract price, supported by a breakdown of all costs. The costs must be in RWF and VAT 

Please deposit your Expression of Interest in two copies in 2 separated envelops (technical & Financial offer), until latest 7^th June 2023 at 4:00PM, at the front desk of GIZ Office Rwanda / KN 41 St. / Nr.17, Kiyovu, P.O. Box 59, Kigali.  

Please you must write on each Envelop the following:

“83439701 -Technical/financial offer – MIS for for NIRDA R&D

GIZ reserves all rights

8. List of Abbreviation

AG                  Commissioning party

AN                  Contractor

AVB                General Terms and Conditions of Contract for supplying services and work

FK                   Expert

FKT                Expert days

KZFK              Short-term expert

ToRs              Terms of reference

BMZ                German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development

DSSD              Digital Solutions for Sustainable Development

NIRDA             National Industrial Research and Development Agency

GIZ                  Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit 

SDG               Sustainable Development Goals.

ToR                Terms of Reference

EoI                  Expression of Interest

SDLC             Systems development life cycle

MIS                Management Information System

BPMN             Business Process Model and Notation

   9.    Annexes

• Annex 1 & 2: Technical requirements & Non-Functional Requirements
• Technical assessment grid
• Self-declaration of eligibility form; the bidder will complete this form & submit it together with Technical proposal.