2025-newJA_RWS Renewal_Redacted.pdf

Justification and Approval (J&A) for Other Than Full and Open Competition

CONTROLLED UNCLASSIFIED INFORMATION

August 2023 CONTROLLED UNCLASSIFIED INFORMATION Page 2 of 5

I. Agency and Contracting Activity.

Justification for Other Than Full and Open Competition Contracting Office:

AFLCMC/PZITB 1940 Allbrook Ave, Bldg 1, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433

Responsible Organization:

AFLCMC/WLCL Mobility Directorate, KC-46 Division, Sustainment Branch, 2590 Loop Rd. W, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433

II. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

This is an individual justification and approval (J&A) for Other Than Full and Open Competition; there is only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. This J&A is for the purchase of a Production License instance of SDL Contenta Publishing Suite Software. The software is required for use on the KC-46 program to operate, maintain, update, and distribute Interactive Electronic Technical Manual (IETM), both on the aircraft and in ground support activities. The aircraft software requirements have already been developed and approved at the Critical Design Review. As a result, the requested SDL software is the only software available to the Government that meets the configuration requirements of the KC-46 contract. SDL Contenta Publishing Suite Software is proprietary to RWS.

III. Description of supplies/services required to meet agency needs.

The KC-46 Tanker Division currently has a requirement to maintain a Type 2 IETM hosted on a Common Source Database (CSDB) to be used to manage all aircraft-specific Technical Manuals (TM) and to procure sufficient numbers of the LiveContent electronic Technical Order (eTO) viewer licenses needed to view the IETMs on the flight deck of 179 aircraft as well as more than 2,637 technician electronic Tools (eTools)/laptops. Attachment 8 of the KC-46 contract (FA8625-11-C-6600), entitled "Air Force Technical Manual Contract Requirements", requires the contractor to utilize AIA S1000D compliant solutions, per TO 00-5-3 TO Life Cycle Management. RWS designs,develops, and supports eTO viewer software solutions for use with S1000D compliant Type 2 IETMs. Under this proposed sole-source contract, RWS will provide a Production Developers license. This requirement is referenced inthe KC-46 System Specification, Section J, Attachment 1 of the KC-46 contract. Below is a breakdown of the costs associated with the current planned procurement of a Production license:

SDL Contenta, S1000D, XPP Production License Annual CY Renewal

CY Qty of Licenses Annual Maint Fee per License / Total Annual Maint Fee 5% Annual Maintenance Progression

CY25 1 $ $ $

CY26 1 $ $ $

Totals 1 $ $ $

IV. Demonstration that the contractor's unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited above.

A.Only One Responsible Source: This proposed acquisition is for highly specialized software supporting a major aircraft system. In a competitive acquisition environment, the Government awarded a ACAT 1 Engineering,Manufacturing, and Development (EMD) contract to The Boeing Company for the new KC-46A Pegasus multi-role tanker aircraft in Feb 2011 which included the development of highly sophisticated S1000D Specification-

August 2023 CONTROLLED UNCLASSIFIED INFORMATION Page 3 of 5 compliant Type 2 IETM requirements for the aircraft and for use by flight and maintenance personnel supporting this aircraft. Although market research indicates the availability of similar viewing software which can display the data in similar fashion from suppliers other than RWS; it is RWS's proprietary architecture of their specific software and how it interacts with other software installed on the aircraft that makes it unique. This architecture uniqueness is why other viewing software packages are not simple "plug and play" alternatives and would require extensive rework or development of new processes in order to replace the RWS software. Additional testing effort would also be required to test the restored capability using another supplier's software to meet airworthiness certification and complete the necessary documentation. If this proposed acquisition for the RWS software is not approved, the resultant impacts to the KC-46 Program would be an unacceptable new development or rework of aircraft and laptop interfaces cost estimated to be > $2M and loss of ability to provide maintenance support for the KC-46 fleet with potential grounding of the aircraft. This proposed acquisition removes all the rework/new development risk, eliminates the additional rework/new development cost, and eliminates the new integration effort completely because the deliverable is a complete fully operational solution. This solution is in the best interest of the Government and best utilizes public dollars.

Subsection 1. The EMD contract did not specify any specific software solution for the development and subsequent viewing of the KC-46 IETM; so The Boeing Company made a business decision to utilize SDL commercial software to view the KC-46 IETM on the aircraft and on flight/maintenance laptops. Even though this business decision was a Boeing Company decision, there are direct impacts to the Government. Contract FA8625-11-C-6600, Section J, Attachment 8 entitled "Air Force Technical Manual Contract Requirements" (TMCR) requires the Government to provide electronic Technical Order (eTO) viewer software to the contractor as Government Furnished Equipment (GFE). However, the contract does not specify the software for viewing the Type 2 IETM; therefore, Boeing down-selected to the SDL Software for integration into the KC-46 system and the Government would furnish this software as GFE. Afterwards, HQ Air Mobility Command (HQ AMC) down-selected to this same viewing solution and mandated it for all affected Military Airlift Fleet (MAF) aircraft acquiring or converting to S1000D compliant IETMs.

SDL SOFTWARE HAS BEEN USED DURING THE PRELIMINARY DEVELOPMENT OF THE KC-46 SOFTWARE PACKAGE AND IS THE SOLUTION PRESENTED AND APPROVED AT CRITICAL DESIGN REVIEW (CDR) IN JULY 2013; as well being the mandated viewing solution by HQ AMC in the same year. Based upon Government approval of their proposed software eTO viewing solution, Boeing began development of the aircraft architecture and the KC-46 IETM in 2012.

The Government provided the SDL LiveContent viewing software as GFE to Boeing in 2013 following the procurement of 128 individual SDL LiveContent licenses. Therefore, this acquisition will be a follow-on contract for the continued use of the SDL Production Development instance of this highly specialized software required to support 179 KC-46A aircraft at 11 Main Operating Bases with hundreds of flight and maintenance personnel.

Subsection 2. LiveContent viewer software is proprietary and is only available from SDL/XyEnterprise, Inc. The LiveContent viewer software is used for viewing of the data contained within the KC-46A IETM which is then exported as a contract deliverable. LiveContent viewer is compliant with the S1000D specification which is a requirement of the KC-46A Tanker contract. In addition to the KC-46A contract this requirement is also levied in TO 00-5-3 TO Life Cycle Management, paragraph 3.26.2 "All new major acquisition programs shall acquire Technical Orders (TO's) in a Type 2 Interactive Electronic Technical Manual (IETM) database format (see definitions) IAW S1000D, International Specification for Technical Publications Utilizing a Common Source Database, and MIL- STD-3048, USAF Business Rules for the Implementation of S1000D. Per MIL-STD 3048, this includes the development of project business rules in support of the program's S1000D implementation." Subsection 3. The KC-46A Program Office believes that award to any other source would result in substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition and unacceptable delays in fulfilling the Air Force's requirements.

a)The approximate cost of >$2M for duplication efforts that would not be recovered through competition is directly proportionate to the amount of rework and/or new development of software processes associated with this proposed acquisition resulting in a different eTO viewing software. Boeing developed the KC-46IETM over a two year plus period based on the C-17 S1000D Type 2 IETM which used the same SDL viewing solution (Version 5.3) as to development effort and costs. The development of the C-17 IETM was managed under a Contractor Logistics Support (CLS) contract totaling more than $3.5M annually for a period of over five years and the C-17 IETM was subsequently fielded in the summer of 2014. The Program Office estimate of >$2M (for the KC-46 rework) is

August 2023 CONTROLLED UNCLASSIFIED INFORMATION Page 4 of 5 conservatively based upon the ability to share 50% of the rework data between Boeing Seattle (KC-46) and Boeing Huntington Beach (C-17).b)The approximate unacceptable delay in schedule of >24 months for duplication efforts that would not be recovered through competition is also directly proportionate to the amount of rework and/or new development of software processes associated with this proposed acquisition resulting in a different eTO viewing software. Boeing developed the KC-46 IETM over a period of two plus years. The extensive rework by Boeing would require, minimally, the same amount of time already expended to date in the current development effort. This delay will also impact the delivery of production aircraft to the field that will lack maintenance support of the IETM thereby reducing the warfighter's ability to accomplish their critical missions.

Subsection 4. Accordingly, SDL/XyEnterprise, Inc., is the only firm capable of providing the supplies/services described above without the U.S. Air Force experiencing substantial duplication of cost (or unacceptable delay) that could not be recouped through competition.

V. Description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under

FAR 5.202 applies.

RWS is the only known source to provide the requested software needed to meet the Government's unique aircraft interface requirements. In 2011, once the KC-46 IETM viewing solution was known, the KC-46 TO program, in conjunction with the C-17 TO program, Boeing Technical Publications Department, and HQ AMC conducted market research for the best eTO viewing software available meeting the Government's unique requirements. Boeing investigated three possible solutions before selecting SDL based upon it's capacity to process the largest amount of data in an expeditious manner. HQ AMC selected the SDL viewer from two other suppliers based upon aircraft maintainer feedback as to usability and ease of navigation. C-17 TO program relied on their TO contractor to select their viewing solution based upon interface capabilities with their newly developed CSDB, SDL again proved to be the best solution in all of these cases. The market research revealed the SDL software could only be purchased fromSDL/XyEnterprise through one of their sales representatives. The company contact information is:

SDL XyEnterprise LLC 201 Edgewater Drive, Suite 225Wakefield, MA 01880

POC: ( @ . ( -

VI. Determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

The Contracting Officer will determine a fair and reasonable price. This determination will be made based upon the results from various tools such as historical pricing information, reviewing other contracts for similar work (C-17 and E-3 AWACS programs in particular) and if needed, contacting the cognizant Defense Audit Agency. Note: The C-17and E-3 AWACS programs have previously purchased and installed this software.

VII. Description of the market research conducted and the results, or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted.

As described in Section VI above, market research, in accordance with FAR Part 10, was conducted by synopsis of the acquisition, advising industry of the pending acquisition and soliciting inquiries from interested parties.

VIII. Any other facts supporting the use of Other Than Full and Open Competition.

NONE

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IX. List of any sources that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition.

See Section VI above.

X. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisitions for the supplies or services required.

AFLCMC/WLCL will continue to monitor the industry by conducting research consisting of internet searches,trade journal reviews, and attending industry conferences. Future actions will be under Full & Open competition procedures to the maximum extent practicable.

XI. Certification by the Contracting Officer.

As evidenced by my signature above, I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

XII. Certification by the technical/requirements personnel.

As evidenced by my (our) signature(s) above, I (we) certify that any supporting data contained herein, which is my (our) responsibility, is both accurate and complete.