NMR Waiver Final Rev 2 redacted.pdf

Federal Aviation Administration

Memorandum

Date: 06/26/2026

To: Memo for File

From: Karina Espinosa, ACQ-590

Subject: NMR waiver

1. Introduction:

Per 49 U.S.C. 40110(d)(2), the Small Business Act does not apply to FAA procurements. Therefore, the Small Business Administration’s Nonmanufacturer Rule, and its waiver process, does not apply to the FAA. Nonetheless, the Contracting Officer, in conjunction with the FAA’s Small Business Program, made a similar determination to address and ensure appropriate consideration of the language found in AMS Clause 3.6.1-7(b)(2) and NAICS Code 541519 ITVAR exception’s requirements, which are conceptually related to the Nonmanufacturer Rule.

In accordance with AMS Guidance T.3.6.1.A.1(e), the Contracting Officer requests that FAA Small Business Office (AAP-20) approve the following individual, and class, waivers of the Nonmanufacturer rule for recompete solicitation 697DCK-25-R-00016 for the SAVES program (hereafter the “Contract”). The Contract has a minimum ordering obligation of $1,000 per Contract holder. The Government has no obligation to order additional supplies or services or issue additional delivery orders to the Contractor beyond the minimum ordering obligation specified. The exercise of the option period does not re-establish the contract minimum. The anticipated maximum cumulative ceiling amount of all contracts to be awarded is $4,100,000,000.00. The ceiling is cumulative among all IDIQ contracts awarded under the Solicitation. This is a supply contract with the designated supply contract NAICS code 541519 exception ITVAR Information Technology Value Added Resellers. Any services offered under the contract are incidental to the purchase of hardware or software.

This Strategic Sourcing for the Acquisition of Various Equipment and Supplies (SAVES) contract is for Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Hardware (HW) and Software (SW) and is a DOT wide strategic sourcing contract administered and managed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Offices of Acquisition and Business Services (ACQ) and Information and Technology Services (AIT).

The requested Nonmanufacturer waivers will apply to the entire Contract, and cover the following wide range of products: Software, network infrastructure components (servers, switches, storage arrays, and network devices), personal computing devices (workstations, laptops, tablets, thin clients, notebooks, and similar items), computer peripherals and accessories, audio/visual equipment, and miscellaneous equipment (large screens, touch screens, scanners, projectors, desktop printers, multi-functional devices (MFD)), and software to support the above mentioned hardware. This is not an all-encompassing list of products that may be ordered under the SAVES contract, and these waivers would likewise apply to all similar types of products ordered under the contract (see attached Statement of Work for more details).

This Contract DOES NOT include: non-COTS software items, software development for COTS items, web development and web design services, software operations and maintenance (O&M) services, alterations to a physical site (e.g., wiring, electrical, plumbing, construction), level of effort (LOE) support services including full time equivalent employees with a yearly period of performance (i.e. option years).

2. Market Research

This multi-item acquisition will have more than 50% of the estimated contract value composed of items manufactured by other than small concerns. Small business resellers must provide Letters of Authorization (LOAs) from 12 required Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), who manufacture the products that will be ordered under the future Contract, in order to be technically acceptable under this Lowest Price Technically Acceptable solicitation (the list is below):

Adobe Cisco Dell F5

HPI

Lexmark Okta ProofPoint Red Hat ServiceNow Splunk Tanium

A review of Sam.gov for each of these 12 companies revealed they are not small business manufacturers. There are an additional 728 potential OEMs, found in Attachment 6-Schedule B, who manufacture products that will be ordered under the future Contract. Under this Contract, the FAA will maintain a portfolio of approved brand-name IT Solutions that supports the FAA’s mission demands in which IT solutions be delivered securely and cost effectively while meeting the agency's diverse business requirements. This portfolio applies to the FAA Enterprise Architecture via the IT Standards Technology Product List/Roadmap that supports National Airspace System (NAS) and Non-NAS functions, multiple LOBs, and critical programs, and is identified in Attachment 6 “Schedule B CLIN_OEM list.” Therefore, the OEM list represents approved products available for use within the FAA Environment and are required under the Contract.

3. Contracting Officer Determination

No small business manufacturer or processor can reasonably be expected to offer software or hardware products of these 741 OEMs meeting the brand-name specifications of the solicitation because they are only manufactured primarily by large business OEMs.

Therefore, the Contracting Officer requests the FAA Small Business Office (AAP-20) approve an individual waiver for the software products listed above in Section 2 of this memo, and any hardware products not covered by the class waivers below, under the Contract. Class waivers from the SBA, found at https://www.sba.gov/document/support-non-manufacturer-rule-class-waiver-list, already approved waivers for the vast majority hardware under the Contract (see below):

334111 Commercially Available Off-the-Shelf laptop and tablet computers

3/9/2020 85 Fed. Reg.

13692

334210 Data Communications Equipment (e.g., Bridges, Gateways, Routers) Manufacturing

2/12/1997 62 Fed. Reg.

334118 Printers, Computer, Manufacturing 8/8/1991 56 Fed. Reg.

37648

334111 Mainframe Computers and Peripherals Manufacturing

***THIS WAIVER COVERS ONLY PERPHIRAL EQUIPMENT

WHEN PURCHASING A MAINFRAME COMPUTER***

8/28/1991 56 Fed. Reg.

42524

334111 Commercially available off-the-shelf laptop and tablet computers.

03/09/2020 85 Fed. Reg.

13692

The Contracting Officer requests that the FAA Small Business Office (AAP-20) likewise adopt the entirety of the SBA-issued class waivers, found at https://www.sba.gov/document/support-non-manufacturer-rule-class-waiver-list.

Contracting Officer

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