State Department RFI: Visa Support and Solutions Services 4.0

Notice ID: 19AQMM24R0204

Related Notice: RFI-2024-VSS

The purpose of this Sources Sought Notice is to conduct market research to understand available service sources and identify businesses capable of supporting the U.S. Department of State (DOS) Bureau of Consular Affairs, Visa Office, Visa Support Services 4.0 requirement.

Scope.  VSS 4.0 requirements span a broad spectrum of services critical to national security and facilitating legitimate international travel.  The Government seeks vendors with experience transitioning and managing large, diverse workforces and that can rapidly identify and implement innovative approaches and methodologies that support evolving VSS services, solutions, and requirements.  The scope includes, but is not limited to:

• National Security Services
• Customer Service
• Management Services
• Logistics, and
• Site Support

Each of these services is essential to maintaining the integrity and efficiency of visa operations.  Appendix C provides a high-level work breakdown of the anticipated required services for each major service category.

Background.  The Government is designing VSS 4.0 to modernize visa processing services, taking a customer-centric approach that adapts to the evolving global landscape and ongoing Government digital transformation goals.  The Government operates two service centers (“the Centers”):  the Kentucky Consular Center (KCC) in Williamsburg, KY, and the National Visa Center (NVC) in Portsmouth, NH.

Contracted services will take place at one or both Centers with oversight and technical direction by onsite Department of State officials.  VSS currently apportions visa processing responsibilities to NVC and KCC, including through hybrid workplace presence, as described directly below; however, the Government seeks innovative solutions to improve interoperability and maximize efficiencies through workload management, and seeks consistently increasing interoperability over the next five to ten years:

• KCC: Diversity Visa (DV) and Non-Immigrant Visa (NIV) pre-processing (case creation, document review, case management, etc.) and DV case scheduling.
• NVC: Immigrant Visa (IV) pre-processing (case creation, document review, case management, etc.), IV case scheduling, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) processing, overseas post support duties, and certain Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
• Both Centers: Biometric validation (facial recognition), fraud prevention units (FPUs), and inquiry management (written and telephone, public and Congressional).

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