010_Brand Name Sole Source Justification_Apex Instruments Inc.pdf

Brand Name Sole Source Justification APEX Instruments

Sole Source Justification EPA Class Deviation RFO Part 13

This is a brand name sole source acquisition, pursuant to the requirements of RFO Part 13.

1. Agency: United States Environmental Protection Agency, Region III Contracting Activity: Contracts Branch, Region 3 Requisition: PR-R3-26-00537 Contractor: Apex Instruments Inc.

2. Nature and/or description of the action:

This action is a brand-name-restricted procurement conducted under the authority of RFO Part 13 for a new, firm-fixed-price purchase order. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 3 requires the acquisition of proprietary air monitoring equipment, software access licenses, and specialized consumables manufactured exclusively by APEX Instruments Inc.

The specific items required to fulfill this action consist of:

• (25) APEX Air Pro data starter packages

• (1) APEX Administrative Account

• (11) APEX Nitrogen Dioxide (NO₂) replacement cartridges

• (8) APEX Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) replacement cartridges

These brand-name items are required to support EPA Region 3 environmental monitoring initiatives, and no alternative brands or substitute products can satisfy the government’s minimum technical requirements.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services:

This procurement is for service renewals and matching proprietary consumables required to maintain uninterrupted data transmission, cloud functionality, and technical measurement capabilities for an existing fleet of deployed field assets within EPA Region 3.

The specific contract line items required to satisfy the mission include:

• APEX Air Pro Data Starter Package Renewal: The Contractor shall provide twenty-five

(25) one-year renewals of the APEX Air Pro Data Starter Packages. The renewals shall provide continued access to the applicable data services and functionality necessary for the operation and management of the APEX Air Pro sensor equipment. The period of coverage shall be for twelve (12) consecutive months beginning on the effective date of the renewal.

• Administrative Account Renewal: The Contractor shall provide one (1) one-year renewal of the APEX Pro administrative account. The administrative account renewal shall provide EPA Region III with continued administrative access necessary to manage the APEX Air Pro sensor equipment and associated program functions. The period of coverage shall be for twelve (12) consecutive months beginning on the effective date of the renewal.

• Nitrogen Dioxide Replacement Cartridges: The contractor shall provide eleven (11) A1- NO2-A Nitrogen Dioxide replacement cartridges compatible with the APEX Air Pro sensor equipment. The NO2 cartridges shall have a measurement range of 0-5,000 parts per billion (ppb).

• Volatile Organic Compounds Replacement Cartridges: The contractor shall provide eight

(8) A1-VOC-A Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) replacement cartridges compatible with the APEX Air Pro Sensor equipment. The VOC cartridges shall have a measurement range of 0-3000 parts per billion (ppb).

• Estimated total value: Total value estimated to be $41,000.00

4. Authority:

This single-source acquisition is conducted under the simplified procedures of FAR Part 13 and is authorized by FAR 13.106-1(b)(1)(i), as modified and mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Class Deviation (RFO Part 13).

In strict compliance with EPAAR 1513.170-1, the necessary facts supporting this noncompetitive procurement are tied to the circumstances outlined in FAR 6.302-1 (Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements). Specifically, the required supplies/services are uniquely available from Apex Instruments due to exclusive licensing rights, patent restrictions, or specialized proprietary technical criteria.

5. Describe how the contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited:

The nature of this acquisition requires the use of RFO Part 13 because EPA Region 3 has an established, active infrastructure of twenty-five (25) government-owned APEX Air Pro ambient air monitoring units. This procurement does not involve purchasing new, freestanding equipment; rather, it is a critical service and maintenance action for an existing operational asset fleet. Apex Instruments, Inc. is the only distributor in North America and holds the exclusive proprietary rights to the software, telemetry protocols, and hardware designs of this system.

No other contractor or product can satisfy the government’s requirements due to the following unique qualifications and technical constraints:

• Proprietary Data Pipeline and Firmware Encryption: The twenty-five (25) data starter packages and the single central administrative account rely on encrypted, closed-source communication protocols that link the physical hardware to the APEX cloud platform. Only Apex Instruments can provision and activate these renewals. Third-party software vendors cannot bridge into this proprietary environment, meaning any attempt to introduce an alternative platform would break the telemetry link and permanently halt the automated transmission of regional air quality data.

• OEM Patent and Mechanical Restrictions on Consumables: The A1-NO2-A and A1- VOC-A replacement cartridges feature proprietary mechanical keying, digital electronic pin layouts, and internal firmware handshakes unique to Apex Instruments.

Alternative manufacturers do not possess the technical specifications or legal licensing to produce cartridges that physically insert or electronically register within the APEX Air Pro housings.

• Maintenance of Calibrated Technical Baselines: The unique measurement ranges (0-5,000 ppb for NO₂ and 0-3,000 ppb for VOCs) are factory-calibrated by Apex Instruments to operate within the exact physical constraints and flow rates of the APEX Air Pro hardware. Utilizing unapproved third-party or generic sensor variants would compromise the rigorous data quality objectives (DQOs) mandated for EPA Region 3 enforcement and tracking programs, invalidating ongoing scientific studies.

Introducing any brand other than Apex Instruments would require the government to completely abandon its existing capital investment in the 25 APEX field units and purchase a completely new, parallel equipment ecosystem at a significant and unjustifiable expense to the taxpayer. Therefore, Apex Instruments is uniquely qualified, and its proprietary brand is the only source capable of fulfilling this requirement.

6. Describe the efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable:

Consistent with the requirements of RFO Part 13, market exploration and validation efforts were conducted to determine if other entities could fulfill this specific requirement or if authorized third-party resellers exist to provide competitive tension.

• Public Synopsizing / Posting: In accordance with RFO Part 5, this Brand Name Justification, will be posted via the government-wide point of entry at SAM.gov. This public notice allows any certified vendor or authorized dealer who believes they can meet the strict technical criteria and proprietary integration parameters to step forward and submit a competing quote.

• Database Queries: Government personnel cross-referenced active federal contract vehicles and small business registries to verify if any niche vendors could provide equivalent calibrated monitoring alternatives, confirming that zero substitute platforms possess the encrypted telemetry configurations required to link to EPA Region 3's existing hardware fleet.

7. The contracting officer determines that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable because a complete analysis of all costs using audits, commerciality, previous history, or other appropriate means will be fully utilized prior to award.

The contracting officer determines that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable based on a comparison to historical prices paid by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The identical Apex Instruments Starter Package configurations, sensor cartridges, and cloud administration software subscriptions were successfully procured under prior EPA actions, including Purchase Order Number 68HE0325P0034 and

68HE0324P0032.

The contracting officer will conduct a line-item comparison of the current quote against this historical data, adjusting for current commercial market conditions and inflation, to verify that the proposed pricing represents a fair market rate.

8. Description of the market research conducted (see FAR Part 10, Class Deviation RFO-2025- 10).

Market research for this requirement was conducted in accordance with FAR Part 10, satisfying the criteria of Class Deviation RFO-2025-10. A prioritized evaluation was performed pursuant to the commercial hierarchy rules, confirming that no existing governmentwide contract vehicle or commercial modification can satisfy the agency's unique technical requirements.

The market research confirmed that while alternative commercial air monitoring equipment exists, no other manufacturer can provide compatible renewals or consumables for EPA Region 3’s existing Apex Instruments infrastructure.

The specific market research methods and findings include:

Review of Commercial Air Monitoring Solutions: Market research evaluated alternative commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) ambient air quality monitoring platforms from major industry manufacturers (such as Aeroqual, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and YSI). While these companies manufacture high-quality gas detection units and data software, their products rely on entirely different physical dimensions, firmware protocols, and cloud data platforms. None can integrate with or manage the 25 government-owned APEX Air Pro units already deployed in the field.

Supplier and Reseller Verification: Inquiry was made directly with Apex Instruments, Inc.

regarding their distribution model for services and parts. The OEM confirmed that the data starter package subscriptions and the administrative account environment are proprietary, secure cloud systems managed and sold strictly by the manufacturer. Furthermore, the specialized A1-

NO2-A (0-5,000 ppb) and A1-VOC-A (0-3,000 ppb) cartridges are manufactured under proprietary patents, meaning there are no authorized third-party or generic substitutes available in the commercial marketplace.

Conclusion:

Based on these findings, market research under FAR Part 10 demonstrates that Apex Instruments, Inc. is the only commercial source capable of providing the exact software renewals and matching proprietary consumables necessary to meet the government's minimum technical and operational needs.

9. Other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition.

Supporting Facts:

The following technical and administrative realities demonstrate that selecting any alternative brand would cause severe operational disruption, data fragmentation, and an unrecoverable duplication of federal funds:

A. Unacceptable Duplication of Equipment and Integration Costs:

Procuring an alternative multi-pollutant sensor platform would render the agency’s pre-existing inventory of Apex Instrument nodes completely obsolete. Competing sensor modules cannot be physically or electronically integrated into the existing framework.

Furthermore, the EPA has already spent significant technical resources mapping internal data ingestion scripts and API endpoints to parse raw CSV telemetry directly from the Apex Cloud Administrator Dashboard.

B. Loss of Data Continuity and Baseline Sanity:

The EPA is leveraging historical telemetry datasets captured by these precise sensor matrices. Ambient air quality monitoring relies heavily on consistent sensor response curves and known environmental cross-sensitivities.

Introducing a different manufacturer’s hardware at this stage would introduce uncontrollable variables into the dataset, invalidating past trend lines, breaking baseline consistency, and compromising the scientific integrity of the ongoing project.

C. Operational Field Bottlenecks:

Agency field technicians have already undergone specialized training to deploy, pull data from, and service Apex hardware. Crucially, the EPA’s current field QA/QC protocols are designed around the hot-swappable nature of Apex's pre-calibrated cartridges.

Forcing technicians to manage a bifurcated inventory of completely different sensor lines would require new SOP development, separate hardware calibration tooling, and extensive retraining, resulting in unacceptable project delays to critical monitoring missions.

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10. List sources that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition. If no sources expressed an interest in writing, indicate such.

No sources expressed such interest.

11. Include a statement of the actions, if any, the Agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition of the supplies or services required.

To remove or overcome barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition of similar ambient air monitoring supplies or software subscriptions, the Agency will take the following actions:

• Continuous Market Monitoring: The Agency’s technical and program management personnel will continuously monitor the commercial marketplace for emerging environmental sensor technologies. This includes reviewing independent performance evaluations, such as the EPA’s Air Sensor Toolbox and South Coast AQMD’s AQ-SPEC program, to identify alternative manufacturers that achieve comparable data validation metrics and field stability.

• API and Data Pipeline Standardization: In future database infrastructure upgrades, the Agency will prioritize the development of vendor-agnostic data ingestion pipelines. By standardizing cloud API inputs to accept generic JSON or CSV schemas, the Agency aims to reduce downstream software engineering dependencies on proprietary vendor dashboards, allowing alternative hardware to feed telemetry into central agency systems seamlessly.

• Modular Specification Drafting: For future program cycles or expanded monitoring networks, the Agency will draft performance-based statements of work rather than brand-specific configurations wherever operational constraints allow. This will include exploring open-architecture hardware nodes that can accept modular sensor components from multiple competing original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

Conclusion:

While Apex Instruments remains the only brand capable of satisfying the immediate requirement due to critical data continuity, pre-existing asset infrastructure, and specific factory-calibration mechanics, the Agency is committed to fostering competition in future lifecycle procurements as open-market technology evolves.

Technical Officer's Certification:

I, Loretta Hyden, certify that the facts and representations stated in this justification are complete and accurate which form the basis to award this requirement.

Loretta Hyden

Contracting Specialist Certification:

I, Erin Workman, certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and accurate which form the basis to award this requirement.

Erin Workman, Contract Specialist

Contracting Officer's Certification:

I, Kellee Haye, certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and accurate which form the basis to award this requirement.

Kellee Haye, Contract Officer