RFP 27-26 TMS & CAT Platform

The City of Somerville seeks proposals to procure a comprehensive TMS/CAT system for use by City of Somerville employees and external translators.

The City seeks to address these challenges by procuring a comprehensive TMS/CAT system ("System") to improve our translation workflow, efficiency, consistency, and localization process while maintaining the flexibility to work with in-house and contracted translators.

The City of Somerville seeks proposals to procure a comprehensive TMS/CAT system for use by City of Somerville employees and external translators. The goals of this system are to:

• Scale the growing demand for translation services
• Improve translation quality, accuracy, consistency
• Enhance efficiency and reduce translation processing time
• Allow flexible sourcing for translators (in-house, LSPs, contracted etc.)

The City intends to award one contract to an applicant.

Requirements

• Customizable translation memory and term base specific to the City of Somerville
• Workflow automation, notifications, and customization of workflows that include required human-in-the-loop workflows, machine translation post-editing (MTPE), final review, desktop formatting, and approvals
• Ability to customize how translation memory and artificial intelligence (AI) is leveraged on a project-by-project basis (in addition to human translators)
• Document management including customizable, automated file naming conventions and versioning
• Web integration (Drupal)
• Intuitive, user-friendly translation and project management interface
• Automated tracking of workflow stages and deadlines
• Full capability to support the top languages in Somerville (those listed above in section 2.2), with the ability to expand to other languages. This includes languages written right-to-left and other diverse writing systems and scripts.
• Automated desktop publishing (DTP) for multiple file types and various scripts/languages
• Importing existing resources including term bases, translation memories, and bitext
• Quality assurance mechanisms and tests to audit translation accuracy, cultural appropriateness, visual layout
• Transcription and captioning for audio/visual content
• Onboarding, training, and technical support throughout contract lifecycle
• Training and support materials for external LSPs that the City invites to the City account
• Provide a dedicated customer service representative and training/technical personnel to manage the City account, respond to requests from the City, and provide timely onboarding, training and technical assistance

Proposal must include

• A video demo showing how your System meets the requirements listed in the System, Workflows, Automations section. The video demo should be maximum 15 minutes.
• Use case examples of government clients or organizations with a similar size and scope as the City of Somerville that have adopted your System.

Up to three finalists may also be invited to a live demo and Q&A with City staff, lasting no more than 60 minutes long.

Submission method

Submit one (1) sealed proposal package (with two sealed envelopes, one for the price and one for the technical proposal); it must be marked with the solicitation title and number and must be original. If you are submitting your proposal online via Bidexpress.com, then you do not need to also submit a sealed proposal package. Email is not an acceptable method of submission of bids.

Envelope 1 Non-Price Technical Proposal shall include (1) original and one (1) electronic copy. Envelope 2 Price Proposal shall include one (1) original and one (1) electronic copy. Electronic copies are to be submitted on USB drives and are to be saved in Adobe Acrobat format.

Late proposals will not be considered and will be rejected and returned.

A complete Proposal must also include a cover letter signed by an official authorized to bind the Offeror contractually and contain a statement that the proposal is firm for ninety (90) days.

Evaluation

For each proposal, the Committee will assign a rating of Highly Advantageous, Advantageous, Not Advantageous, or Unacceptable to each of the corresponding comparative evaluation criteria.

The City will award the contract to the most responsive and responsible Offeror whose entire proposal (technical and price) is deemed to be the most advantageous.

Contract term

• Anticipated Contract Award 12/30/26
• Est. Contract Start Date 01/01/27
• Est. Contract Completion Date 12/31/27
• Est. Renewal Years 2-year optional renewal