National Consultant for the Development of IT tool to generate Supply Chain Documentation, Kampala, 03 Months

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UNICEF - United Nations Children's Fund

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Application deadline 1 year ago: Thursday 21 Jul 2022 at 20:55 UTC

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Contract

This is a Consultancy contract. More about Consultancy contracts.

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, a fair chance

Uganda is one of the over 190 countries and territories around the world where we work to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease, and discrimination place in a child’s path. Together with the Government of Uganda and partners we work towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, the objectives of the Uganda National Development Plan, and the planned outcomes of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework.

Visit this link for more information on Uganda Country Office https://www.unicef.org/uganda/

How can you make a difference?

Background

As part of the implementation of the UNICEF programme of cooperation with the Government of Uganda, UNICEF regularly procures supplies required for agreed-upon activities and distributes them to implementing partners. In all these cases, delivery documentation becomes a critical element to ensure integrity of the supply chain. Availability of proofs of delivery and clear transport instructions are important for accountability and reporting purposes.

UNICEF manages its procurement transactions through its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system (SAP based), which includes also a warehouse management module for inventories controlled by UNICEF. As per the current configuration of the UNICEF ERP system, authorized officers issue goods by generating Release Orders in the system, as the document that signifies the authorization to issue goods from UNICEF warehouse to a given partner.

The subsequent document in UNICEF ERP system is a system waybill, which allows for the consignee to acknowledge (sign for) receipt of the goods. Each pair of RO/waybill is generated for a single consignee; in turn, each of those consignees requires a separate record in the customer master.

Over the years, UNICEF Uganda has created and maintained a consignee master list in the ERP system that is sufficient for the regular programme operations (ie when deliveries are made to districts, line ministries, central-level partners or NGOs). However, when emergency deliveries are required, it is sometimes deemed more appropriate for UNICEF to deliver to the lowest level in the supply chain, such as schools, health facilities or other service delivery points. The high number of possible service delivery points make it virtually impossible to maintain a complete consignee list of all possible recipients, especially given the unpredictability of emergency scenarios and the dynamic nature of these low-level entities.

Justification

In the above context, it is apparent that the standard supply chain documentation generated from UNICEF ERP system to support the release and distribution of supplies is not suitable/sufficient for situations where distribution is required down to the last mile. As a result, manual documentation must be prepared, typically in emergency situations, which is highly time-consuming and creates a dangerous bottleneck for actual emergency response

With this background, and as endorsed by the Uganda CO Innovations Governance Committee, UNICEF Uganda Office would like to develop a tool which facilitates the immediate and automated generation of all necessary supply chain documentation following a distribution request, irrespective of the number of delivery points, source of supply and whether the consignees are in the ERP system or not.

Key Application Features

  • Stand alone, i.e., not integrated with ERP or any other UNICEF or Government system
  • Maintenance (update of master data, changes to waybill design, troubleshooting) should be feasible with very limited ICT knowledge
  • No specific restrictions on platform/software to be used, but must be compatible with standard MS Windows operating system and MS Office applications
  • Must include a simple user interface for Waybill and TOR/Cost Estimate generation
  • All reports should allow for export to Excel
  • All output documents to have a unique identifier

Scope of Work – Major Tasks

  1. Develop a customized tool that can generate automated waybills
  • The tool will use the following inputs:

  • Excel-based distribution plan containing product description, quantity, and recipient (consignee)

  • Pre-defined rules for unique identification of waybills

  • Pre-loaded master tables for possible delivery points (consignees) in Uganda

  • Users can access waybills issued historically, for amendment or reprinting of waybills
  • Users can produce pre-agreed reports
  1. Develop a customized tool that can generate Transport Order Requests or Cost Estimates for transport
  • The tool will include master tables (with relatively stable data) for:
    • District names and distances to central delivery locations
    • List of likely Last Mile Delivery points
    • Truck capacity
    • Transport LTA holders
    • LTA transport rates
  • For each TOR, the user will enter manually (with dropdown menus) other variables, such as: pick up location, truck type, selected transporter, number of trucks, primary district, number of drop-offs, etc
  • Maintenance of master data tables should be easy for the layman
  • TORs or Cost Estimates to be uniquely identified following pre-agreed numbering logic
  • TORs and Cost Estimates can be retrieved for amendment or reprinting
  • Users can produce reports and analytics
  1. Develop reporting functionality with Report samples
  2. User Testing and feedback adjustments/ Changes
  3. Development of training/maintenance materials
  4. Ad-hoc Support for 3 months (Optional)

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Desired competencies, technical background and experience

Required:

  • Proficiency in MS Office applications, including building automated solutions in MS Excel and MS Access
  • Ability to be a self-starter and to work with minimum supervision
  • Experience in a multi-cultural and gender sensitive work environment
  • Excellent communication skills, written and verbal
  • Strong interpersonal skills
  • Ability to work with a team as well as independently. Ability to interface, collaborate with technical staff and designers.
  • Prior background and work experience in UN environment desirable.
  • Understanding of the differences between multiple delivery platforms, such as mobile vs desktop, and optimizing output to match the specific platform. Familiarity with event-driven programming in Python or similar language.
  • Capacity in deploying and maintaining software remotely on a Linux or UNIX-like server.
  • Knowledge of environment and understanding of the constraints of working in a developing-world environment. This should include experience developing low-bandwidth applications in challenging work environments.
  • Ability to align technical goals with organizational strategic goals – that always will mean prioritizing organization’s mission over any technology.

Desired:

  • Experience in developing Web applications using Python, Django, jQuery, Open-Source frameworks with either PostgreSQL.
  • Experience in front end development technologies using HTML5, CSS, JavaScript/JQuery, JavaScript frameworks like Angular.js or React.
  • Experience in developing and consuming web services (SOAP, REST),
  • Experience in Setting up and Deploying cloud-based applications using Docker.
  • Working knowledge and experience Software development lifecycle, and methodologies (Agile).
  • Integration with diverse applications using integration frameworks, web services and APIs, search engine like Elasticsearch
  • Experience working in projects having integration with Cloud providers and products (Amazon, Azure, Rackspace etc.). Familiarity with basic system administration functions.
  • Experience on MongoDB / Redis and Celery a plus.
  • Experience with open-source projects a plus
  • Experienced in developing software as part of a distributed team using Git or Subversion, especially in an open-source environment.
  • Experience with Django web application framework or similar web application platform.

Conditions:

  • The UNICEF Uganda ICT Manager will supervise the development of the solution, in coordination with the Supply & Logistics Manager as the business owner
  • The consultancy will not include any other benefits such as DSA, travel costs or UNICEF transport
  • The consultant will work from own premises, and be available for regular meetings with UNICEF team in UNICEF Kampala office
  • Consultants are not paid for weekends or public holidays.
  • Consultants are not entitled to payment of overtime. All remuneration must be within the contract agreement.

  • No contract may commence unless the consultant provides a certificate of completion of a mandatory course on “Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse”. A certificate to be submitted with the signed contract should have been obtained in the last three months.

  • No contract may commence unless the contract is signed by both UNICEF and the consultant or Contractor.

  • Consultants will not have supervisory responsibilities nor authority on UNICEF budget and other resources.
  • Consultants will be required to sign the Health statement for consultants/Individual contractor prior to taking up the assignment, and to document that they have appropriate health insurance, if applicable.

  • The Form 'Designation, change or revocation of beneficiary' has to be completed by the consultant before the commencement of travel.

  • Clearance from DHR will be required for former UNICEF staff
  • Clearance from the Government required for civil servants

Application Procedure/Call for Proposals

Interested candidates are required to submit a technical proposal on how they intend to approach the work. The proposal should include a timeline, and methodology, based on the Terms of Reference. The proposal must also include detailed CV of the consultant, as well as a financial proposal, clearly indicating daily rate for professional fees. The financial proposal must be all-inclusive of all costs (consultancy fees and where applicable air fares, airport transfers, daily living expenses). This is an international level consultancy and competitive market rates should apply.

Evaluation of Candidate:

The Technical proposal is weighted at 75% and 25% for the Financial proposal.

The consultant will be competitively selected from a list of applicants based on their past experience of doing similar work.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

The competencies required for this post are….

View our competency framework at

http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/UNICEF_Competencies.pdf

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.

Remarks:

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Added 1 year ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: unicef.org