NNG15SD20B-026.pdf

Control Number TAC-20-57879

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics

Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, New Jersey 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed action is for a firm-fixed-price delivery order to be issued under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V Government Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) for brand name Xerox Copier Service and Lease with Maintenance and Repair Services for VA’s Board of Veterans’ Appeals (BVA).

3. Description of Supplies or Services: BVA bears the responsibility for the review of benefits claims determinations made by local VA offices and issues decisions on appeals. As such, BVA requires a quantity of 30 Xerox Brand Multifunctional Device (MFD) and maintenance services. The Contractor shall provide for the lease of a quantity of 30 Xerox MFD (27 black & white and three color) with the built-in capability and functionality for coping, scanning (black & white/color) with black & white and color print, networking and facsimile capabilities. An on-site Account Associate is also required for the maintenance and repair for all equipment provided under this effort.

The Contractor shall provide a 12-month lease of Xerox brand black & white MFD and color MFD to BVA, 425 I Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001. Each machine must be properly set-up and configured by the Contractor. The Contractor shall provide training on the proper operation of the MFDs. The Contractor shall program the MFD with fully functional fax machines, network printers and network scanners capabilities. Additionally, the Contractor shall provide on-site support for the maintenance and repair services for all equipment provided under this delivery order. All Xerox MFDs shall be equipped with Personal Identity Verification reader capability. Hardware shall be delivered within 10 days of award. The period of performance for the lease shall be 12 months from date of award, with three 12-month option periods. The overall period of performance shall not exceed 48 months.

4. Statutory Authority: Pursuant to FAR16.505(a)(4), the following brand name requirement is being justified and approved as an exception to fair opportunity under the statutory authority of Section 41 U.S.C. 4106(c)(2) as implemented by FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), entitled “Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized.”

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: Based on market research as described in section 8 of this justification, it was determined that limited

Brand Name Xerox Copier Service and Lease with Maintenance and Repair Services competition is available among resellers of the required Xerox Copier Service and Lease with Maintenance and Repair Services.

BVA is the administrative tribunal within VA that determines whether U.S. military Veterans are entitled to claimed Veterans’ benefits and services. Appeal cases can be brought to the BVA from the Veterans themselves, their dependents, or their survivors. The appeals process within VA is a complex, non-linear procedure, which is set in law and is unique from other standard appeals processes across the Federal and judicial systems. Final decision on appeals are made by the Board based on the entire record in the proceedings and upon consideration of all evidence and applicable laws and regulations. With that said, an unique feature of the VA appeals process is a continuous open record that allows the Veteran or survivor to submit new evidence at any point during the process, which means that VA generally issues another decision considering any new evidence, which in turn protracts from the decision timeline and includes an enmormous amount of documentation for each appeal. The BVA’s mission is to conduct hearings and decide appeals for Veterans properly before the Board in a timely manner. In Fiscal Year 2018, the Board issued over 90,000 decisions for Veterans and their families, which is the highest number of decisions issued by the Board since 1988.

When a Veteran or survivor applies for VA benefits and/or submits claims, the entire process can take up to two years in order to get through all of the interviews, assessments, and the compilation of documentation. During this time, the Veteran and/or survivor may have no source of income, no home and may have some form of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, which might make it impossible for them to function, hold a job or even know where to go for help. When the appeal is submitted into the BVA, its law clerks must thoroughly review all documentation, draft case files and notes and perform research to assist the Judges in forming their decisions.

Along the course of the appeals process the Veterans/survivors might need to compile additional documentation, for example, they might obtain further medical exams, psychological assessments, and other investigations in order to support their claim. Approximately, 257 cases are in process daily. BVA has 1,200 employees;

at least 80 percent are law clerks and administrative personnel writing case files and processing hearing documentations. All of the case files with the necessary back-up documentation for each case is printed out as a hardcopy for the Judge and Veteran or survivor. Currently, all of this documentation is printed/copied through the use of leased Xerox MFDs within BVA.

Due to the emormous volume of documentation that is acquired for each Veteran’s case, any disruption in services if another brand name MFD was utilized would cause BVA to lose immense efficiency in supporting our nation’s Veterans’ claims.

The burden of downtime to install new non-Xerox MFDs, connect them to the network for over 1,200 employees and obtain security approval for onsite personnel could take at least three months. As of February BVA will be without support which is not acceptable. This is an immense risk to the Government as undue delays will occur for those Veteran claims already being worked through the claims process and cause a lag for incoming Veterans claims. Since approximately 257 cases are worked on daily that would cause 7,710 Veterans having added delays to their cases, which would manifest into an unacceptable backlog for BVA. VA’s goal is to process appeals as quickly as possible because BVA’s mission directly impacts the life of the Veterans and/or their survivors.

Additonally, only Xerox or a reseller can perform the necessary onsite maintenance and repair services for the Xerox MFDs due to Xerox’s proprietary platform.

Extensible Interface Platform (EIP) acts as a secure embedded web service that leverages to expose functionality and services to the user through the local control panel interface. The Xerox MFDs utilize this platform to secure access to the printer.

Additional security can be enforced at the printers and can provide the capability to lock the printer’s local user interface. The Xerox MFDs come standard with the EIP platform. No other vendor besides Xerox or a reseller has access to the proprietry platform that would allow for the successful maintenance and repair of the MFDs and no other brand is compatible with or interoperable with Xerox’s EIP proprietary platform. Other vendors are not authorized access to Xerox’s proprietary design and source code, nor is it for sale. Specifically, any other brand name MFDs would not be able to communicate with the existing brand name item within the BVA’s current printer infrastructure.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in section 8 of this justification. Based on this market research it was determined that limited competition is available among resellers for brand name Xerox. In accordance with FAR 16.505(a)(4)(iii)(A)(1), this justification will be provided with the solicitation to all appropriate NASA SEWP V GWAC holders. Furthermore, in accordance with FAR 5.301, 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(D), and 16.505(a)(4)(iii), the award notice for this action will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities website and this justification will be made publicly available within 14 days of award.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: To remove or overcome barriers to competition in future acquisitions for this requirement, the Government's technical experts will continue to perform market research to determine if there are any suites of support available that will enable future requirements to be competed.

8. Market Research: VA technical personnel conducted market research in December 2019, which consisted of a review of similar products and services, including Ricoh, Seiko and Konica-Minolta. As a result of the market research, the technical experts determined only Xerox, or a Xerox reseller can provide the required brand name Xerox Maintenance and Repair Services due to Xerox’s propriety EIP Platform, as other vendors are not authorized access to its proprietary design and source code. Based on reviews of these products, the Government’s technical experts determined that none of these products can meet the Government’s requirements previously discussed in paragraph Section 5 of this Justification. Based on this market research, the Government’s technical experts have concluded that only Xerox brand name MFD’s will meet BVA’s requirements and avoid additional delays for the Veterans seeking claims.

Additional market research was conducted by the Government in November 2019, wherein the Contract Specialist utilized the NASA SEWP V GWAC Provider Lookup tool and identified several sources capable of meeting VA’s needs. Specifically, 21 verified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business that were identified as resellers of brand name Xerox Copier Service and Lease with Maintenance and Repair Services that hold current GWACs; therefore, VA does anticipate limited competition for this action.

9. Other Facts: None.