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INTRODUCTION

Professional Services Branch (formerly Contract Administration Branch) is one of two branches under Engineering and Construction Division within Fort Worth District Corps of Engineers. The other is Design Branch which includes various sections by design discipline (Electrical Section, Mechanical Section, Architectural Section, etc.). The Design Sections perform inhouse design and provide technical support as needed for administration of Architect-Engineer (A-E) designs obtained through contract.

Professional Services Branch is composed of the following Sections:

Professional Services Branch is involved in:

Military Projects Section includes Project Managers dealing with in-house and A-E contract designs. This space is dedicated primarily to the needs of the A-E in the performance of design and other services and interaction of the A-E with the Project Manager.

ARMY TRANSFORMATION

The Army has adopted a new philosophy aimed at procuring Military Construction faster and more economically. This process will when fully implemented will drastically modify how we do business. The following links provide more information on the process

SELECTION OF THE ARCHITECT-ENGINEER (A-E)

The A-E selection process is a competitive process based on qualifications. The process is addressed by the following link: A-E SELECTION PROCESS

PREPARING THE A-E FEE PROPOSAL

Preparation of the fee proposal can be a frustrating process for the A-E firm and the Government if the A-E does not have a good understanding of a few basic requirements. The process is address by the following link: Preparing the Fee Proposal

PRODUCTION OF PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS

Cost/Specs Section

DESIGN AUTHORIZATION

Design of Military projects requires design authority and funding. For Army MCA Projects HQ, USACE issues a Design Directive to provide that authorization to Corps Districts. These directives indicate the Program Amount (PA) of the project which relates directly to funds available for construction and indicates the extent of design autorization. For example, at early stages of project execution, design autorization in the MCA Program will typically be limited to Code 3 which authorizes only 15% Project Definition documentation, preparing a parametric estimate and District electronic submittal of a budget estimate (ENG FORM 3086). In this situation, the budget cycle may be able to influence the PA before it is locked-in. In some instances, if the 15% Design process indicates a project is under-funded, increasing the PA may require slippage of the project to another year. A Code "T" has recently been created for use in the Army Transformation Process. The following link provides a description of Army Design Authorization Codes.

PRODUCTION OF PLANS

Critical to the design process is use of Computer-Aided Drafting and Design (CADD). The Government plans to solicit bids for construction of the project via an electronic format without printed plans and specifications. All work to be accomplished, e.g., design work, surveying work, drawings, and details to be provided shall be accomplished and developed using computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) software and procedures conforming to the following criteria:

The A-E shall ensure that all delivered CADD digital files and data (e.g., base files, reference files, cell/block libraries) are compatible with the Government's target CADD system and operating system, hereby defined as Bentley Systems MicroStation (some projects require AutoCadd) running on Microsoft Windows XP, and adhere to the standards and requirements specified herein. The term "compatible" means that data are in native digital format (i.e., .dgn, .dwg) and can be accessed directly by the target CADD system without translation, preprocessing, or postprocessing of the digital data files. It is the responsibility of the A-E to ensure this level of compatibility. CADD work shall be in accordance with A/E/C CADD Standards:

A/E/C CADD Standards

CADD files shall be named by the A-E based upon the optional convention in the Tri Service CADD Standards. The convention includes a 3 digit project identifier code to be obtained from the Project Manager.

The following file provides the Fort Worth District Border Sheet in Bentley Microstation format:
Fort Worth District Border Sheet

TOPOGRAPHIC SURVEY AND GIS

Army installations within boundaries served by Fort Worth District utilize Bentley Microstation with the exception of Fort Bliss which utilizes AutoCad. Air Force Installations served by Fort Worth District utilize AutoCad. The Army has become sensitive to providing as-built data to support the Installation GIS database. Hence, CESWD has adopted the policy set forth in the following link to require construction contractors to supply GIS data for building corners and other key exterior features. See this Link. Topographic survey requirements and Installation GIS requirements should be addressed in the Project Management Plan by the Corps of Engineers Project Manager.

Corps of Engineers Design Criteria

Review of A-E Design Documents Design Submittals and Reviews

Electronic File Transfer

In the course of the design process it may become advantageous to electronically transfer files between the designer and the Government. E-mail within Fort Worth District has a total size limitation including enclosures of approximately 5 megabites. Additionally, some file types can not be sent by e-mail and will be deleted by the firewall. To overcome these limitations, we have established an "FTP" site where large files can be uploaded and downloaded. Use of the site requires:

Contact your Project Manager for instructions on site use. The site is available to Corps personnel as well as external users. However, the directory structure is designed to prevent third parties from uploading and downloading without Corps personnel participation. External users can not download from the directory they are permissioned to upload to and vice versa.

Directory structure is relatively simple:

Download & Upload from the ftp site can be accomplished with a conventional web browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator

Connect to FTP site with conventional Browser

A-E Contractor Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) Payments

The Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 signed by the President on April 26, 1996 requires the use of EFT for all Federal payments, with the exception of tax refunds, starting January 2, 1999. A form must be completed, signed and mailed to Millington, TN for processing. FAX copies will not be accepted. The A-E must include his Vendor Number on the form which is used as the tracking number for all actions. The form is used to set up EFT or to change the financial institution or account number. Viewable and printable forms as well as instructions for this process can be found at the following link which contains individual links for viewable form, printable form and form instructions: EFT

CD ELECTRONIC ADVERTISING AND AMENDMENT PROCESS

Fort Worth District utilizes paperless advertising to solicit bids for construction. Plans and specs must be downloaded from a Government website with plans issued as raster (picture) files and specifications converted to Adobe Acrobat pdf files. Electronic files shall be produced by the A-E as described herein and provided to potential bidders by the Government in a read only format. The Government uploads electronic bid sets to the Government Web for potential bidders to download. The converted CADD raster files (files with a ".cal" extension) will be readable utilizing Maxview Reader and text files will be readable utilizing Adobe Acrobat Reader (".pdf" extension).

The ".cal" and ".pdf" files produced by the A-E will require the A-E to either purchase computer software for this purpose if he does not currently have this capability or satisfy this requirement through a subcontractor. The A-E is responsible for ensuring that resulting plots from cal and pdf files are identical to plots from the parent CADD and Specsintact files.

Maxview products can be downloaded from the following link: Maxview The Reader is available at no cost and will include Maxview Author for a trial period of 30 days, after which it reverts to the free Reader. It is critical that the A-E view the cal files to ensure they correctly represent the CADD drawings. Although the MaxView Reader can not print cal files, unless viewed from an "svd" file, it does allow the cal drawings to be viewed.

From an Excel index file provided by the A-E, the Corps of Engineers will compile a Maxview index (svd) file using Maxview Author. The Excel index shall include columns for: the cal filename, including the .cal extension; the sequence number, if used; the sheet number; the sheet description. More on this electronic process and submittal requirements is described in a link below in a subsequent paragraph detailing submittal requirements for 100% design data.

The full version of the Maxview software package is Maxview Author. Author is only needed to compile the Maxview index (svd) file which the Corps of Engineers is doing in lieu of the A-E consultant. The Reader can not view cal files without a compiled index (Maxview "svd" file). The Reader is available at no cost. It is critical that the A-E have the capability to view cal files to ensure that the conversion process was completely successful. The MaxView Reader is distributed with our electronic solicitaions and can also be downloaded from the above Maxview link. The downloaded Reader is actually the full version for a trial period of 30 days. After that it converts to the basic Maxview Reader.

A specific file naming convention is required for CAL as well as CADD files. File Naming Convention for CAL files is as follows:

CAL file name convention

Design submittal requirements for 100% design data are significantly different because of the electronic advertising process. For specifics, see 100% Design Data.

Amendments to construction solicitations are also done in electronic format. Specification sections if revised are reissued in total with a convention that highlights changes. Revised plan sheets are also re-issued with a convention that highlights changes on the plan sheet. See the following link for Amendment & Final Contract Award Specifics. Procedures addressing incorporation of write-in amendment changes to plans, addition of contract number, etc for Contract Award Set are also provided at the preceeding link.

PUBLIC ACCESS TO ELECTRONIC SOLICITATIONS AND RELATED INFORMATION

The Corps of Engineers has migrated to a Federal Government site (https://www.fedteds.gov/) for public access to electronic solicitations. However, access to the FedTeds site requires a registration process and use of a password. Information regarding the site can be obtained from the following link:

http://ebs.swf.usace.army.mil/PDF/replacingEBS.pdf

Interested parties are advised that they should check the above website frequently if they are following a specific project. Contractors must download all solicitations and amendments from the FedTeds website; CD's are no longer mailed to potential bidders.

Miscelaneous Links