6_-_AIAA_Papers_JA_signed_Redacted.pdf

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

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLYUpdated: 15 Mar 16

NOTE: If a Justification and Approval was approved for the preceding acquisition, a copy of the approved J&A for the predecessor action must be included in the staff package for approval of the instant J&A. This applies to J&A staff packages that are submitted for review and approval at a level above the contracting officer. The predecessor J&A will be used as a reference document by the approving official.

Choose the funding level for this J&A Document:

< $700K > $700K and < $13.5M > $13.5M and < $93M > $93M

Contracting Activity: AFLCMC/PZIEC

Purchase Request / Local ID Number:

Program / Project (and PE, if applicable): American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) archive and meeting papers

Program Type (PEO or Other Contracting): Other Contracting

Authority (include full title): FAR 13.106-1(b) Soliciting from a Single Source & FAR 13.501(a) Sole Source Acquisitions

Estimated Contract Cost (including options): J&A Type: Class Individual

COORDINATION (AFFARS 5306.304(a) )

Date

APPROVAL (AFFARS 5306.304(a) )

Date

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLYUpdated: 15 Mar 16

I. Contracting Activity.

This justification and approval to request authority for Other Than Full and Open Competition supports requirements generated for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Library Council organization. The contracting activity for this requirement is the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC), Installation Contracting Section (AFLCMC/PZIEC). The purchase request supporting this contract action is

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

Due to the circumstances herein, the activity requests authority to acquire electronic access to the AIAA collection of electronic meeting papers and journals using Other Than Full and Open Competition as prescribed by FAR 13.106-1(b) Soliciting from a Single Source & FAR 13.501(a) Sole Source Acquisitions. This individual action will result in the award of a new Firm Fixed Price contract. This sole source requirement will be acquired from the following organization:

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)

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

The AFRL is the Air Force's only organization wholly dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of warfighting technologies for America's air, space, and cyberspace forces. Because AFRL projects cover such a vast spectrum of science and engineering topics, it is very difficult to predict from where the need for information will arise. Therefore, AFRL requires access to a comprehensive and authoritative source of scientific publications, citations, and references in the broad field of aerospace engineering.

AIAA is the principal society of the aerospace engineering and scientific community and the principal voice, information resource, and publisher for aerospace engineers, scientists, managers, policymakers, students, and educators. Each year AIAA sponsors more than 18 meetings that produce over 4,000 technical papers. They also publish numerous journals that are all pertinent to the work of AFRL. This contract would provide electronic desktop access for all AFRL scientists and engineers (S&Es) at all of the AFRL sites throughout the CONUS and selected overseas sites. The online version of the papers and journals allows access to full-text scanned images; it allows search by author, title, and conference. This resource is intended to supplement AFRL's collection of existing technical journals.

The type of appropriation that will fund this requirement is 3600 funding. The total cost for these one-time purchases will be

IV. Statutory authority permitting Other than Full and Open Competition.

13.106(b), Soliciting from a single source 13.501(a), Sole Source acquisitions

V. Demonstration that the contractor's unique qualifications or nature of the acquisition requires the use of the authority cited above (applicability of authority).

The AIAA electronic meeting papers and journals are a unique source for AFRL, not available from any other source, and they supplement the AFRL libraries' collections of aeronautics and astronautics books and journals for this subject area.

Sole source acquisition is justified because AIAA has exclusive copyrights to their data. They would not allow their data to be purchased from any other sources, nor do we have the option of going directly to other publishers.

Without this sole source acquisition AFRL researchers will be forced to conduct time consuming literature searches in print volumes from their site's library's existing collection, risking the use of dated information. For those items not currently held in the individual AFRL collections, staff must attempt to borrow the volumes from outside libraries. Having up to date, real

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLYUpdated: 15 Mar 16 time access to this database will ensure research and development dollars are not spent on wasteful, duplicative efforts. The information contained in these electronic journals is one of a kind research critical to the overall AFRL mission.

Given this information AIAA is the only firm capable of providing the supplies described above without the Air Force experiencing unacceptable delays and substantial duplication of cost that could not be recouped through competition.

VI. Description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable.

An intent to award sole source synopsis (FA8604-17-N-5047) was accomplished from 23 December 16 - 29 December 16 requesting any firms to submit a capabilities package indicating their ability to provide these required publications. No responses to the synopsis was received. The market research and synopsis confirms the scientific publications required by AFRL are only available from AIAA.

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

In accordance with FAR 13.106-3(a), the Contacting Officer shall determine that the proposed price is fair and reasonable.

The basis of this determination is anticipated to be based on FAR 13.106-3(a)(2)(ii) and FAR 13.106-3(a)(2)(iii). This has been previously procured by AFLCMC/PZI for the AFRL Consortium and the price shall be verified against Springer's current price lists, catalogs, or advertisements and by comparison to prices previously paid.

VIII. 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 and in accordance with FAR Part 10, market research was conducted by synopsis of the proposed acquisition, advising industry of the pending acquisition, and soliciting inquiries from interested parties.

AFRL closely monitors other organizations whose goal is to foster competitive titles. AFRL monitors the impact of the journals from various publishers through http://www.journalprices.com/. Scientific journals are assigned an impact factor which gauges the impact of a particular journal based on how often it is cited by other scientists. This and other websites allow AFRL to gauge the ability of other publishers to provide the technical information contained in the copyrighted AIAA papers and journals. To date, the AIAA papers and journals provide the sole resource for the data contained in their database; however, AFRL continually monitors their performance as well as other publications' potential to provide scientific information.

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

None.

X. List of sources, if any, that expressed interest in the acquisition.

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)

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

Steps that will be taken to remove barriers to competition include encouraging scientists and engineers to publish in other than AIAA's papers and publications; supporting Open Access (allowing anyone in the world access to articles for free) initiatives and developing institutional repositories where scientists would self-archive and make their research more widely available.

XII. Certification by the Contracting Officer.

The contracting officer's signature on the Coordination and Approval Document evidences that he has determined this

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLYUpdated: 15 Mar 16 document to be both accurate and complete to the best of his/her knowledge and belief in accordance with FAR 13.501(a) (1)(ii) and FAR 6.303-2(b)(12).

XIII. Certification by the technical/requirements personnel.

As evidenced by their signatures on the Coordination and Approval Document, the technical and/or requirements personnel have certified that any supporting data contained herein which is their responsibility is both accurate and complete in accordance with FAR 13.501(a)(1)(ii) and FAR 6.303-2(c).