80NSSC21A0009 Tab 13 Siemens Industry Software Inc JOFOC final 4.22.2021_Redacted.pdf

JOFOC-2021-008

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NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA)

NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC)

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION (JOFOC)

For 80NSSC21Q00 /Siemens Industry Inc. Software Ordering Contract

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity, and specific identification of the document as a “Justification for other than full and open competition.”

This document is a justification for other than full and open competition prepared by the procuring agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the contracting activity, NASA Shared Service Center (NSSC) Enterprise License Management Team (ELMT)

2. The nature and/or description of the action being approved:

This justification provides the rationale for contracting by other than full and open competition to award a sole-source single award Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) with Siemens Industry Software Inc. (SISW) for continued agency-wide purchasing of Siemens Electronic Design Automation (EDA) (formerly Mentor Graphics) new software licenses, software maintenance/subscriptions for existing licenses, and SISW products for training services. The Period of Performance will be for one-year base period and four one-year option periods.

The NASA Shared Service Center (NSSC) awarded a BPA, 80NSSC20A0011, to Mentor Graphics in August of 2020. Mentor Graphics was purchased by Siemens in March of 2017 but were still operating under the name Mentor Graphics as a subsidiary. As of January 1, 2021, Mentor Graphics has fully merged with SISW along with all of their assets. SISW has confirmed that all Mentor Graphics product assets are now Siemens EDA in the SISW product offerings. All part numbers, product descriptions, unit prices, terms and conditions will remain the same. The scope and period of performance are identical to 80NSSC20A0011. There is no expansion of scope from what the NSSC originally awarded in August 2020 under this blanket purchase agreement.

3. A description of the supplies or services required, to meet the Agency’s needs (including the estimated value):

SISW provides Siemens EDA software and hardware design solutions that enable engineers to develop electronic products more efficiently. The majority of NASA Centers utilize SISW software products in support of mission projects.

Among the suite of software tools offered by SISW Siemens EDA, ModelSim is a family of digital simulation environment software products that enable development of digital systems to be implemented in Applications Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) and Field

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Siemens EDA software is used across NASA in support of several mission requirements.

SISW is the only source that can provide maintenance and technical support for its products, and some unique and essential capabilities of the software used by NASA as described below.

This replacement BPA for SISW software includes annual software maintenance for existing software being used by NASA engineers and scientists to support multiple programs and projects throughout the Agency. It also includes the ability to purchase new software licenses offered by SISW as well as training. There is a significant installed base of SISW software products in use across the agency. From FY16 – FY19, NASA spent an average of annually for Siemens EDA products (formerly Mentor Graphics) software to include maintenance and training.

SISW is the developer and manufacturer of SISW Software and associated products. As the copyright holder for SISW software, SISW is the only vendor with access to the SISW code capable of modifying, updating, and maintaining the software in accordance with industry standards. Another vendor could not modify the software without express permission from SISW. As such, SISW is the only authorized provider of the software maintenance.

The Siemens EDA product family provides software applications that realize all aspects of board level electronics design. These range from preliminary analysis, schematics, circuit layout, physics-based circuit simulation, digital design simulation, and performance analysis. ModelSim suite enables a full life-cycle development environment with device libraries available from all major programmable device manufacturers. This functionality is highly leveraged by NASA engineers supporting various programs and projects throughout the Agency. A unique functionality of SISW software is the ability for PCB/Schematics to pair seamlessly with other software and translate older designs forward, as competing products do not offer this capability. Many of the designs which NASA has archived and has available are older than competing products themselves. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has 30+ years of intellectual properties and designs that they are still able to access due to the unique capability provided by this software.

If the Agency had to select an alternative to SISW’s Siemens EDA products, the change in solutions would adversely impact NASA’s ability to meet various mission requirements. See Section 9 below for specifics.

The investment in and benefits of SISW’s Siemens EDA products is demonstrated by the following examples of center utilization:

MSFC uses SISW Xpedition PCB/Schematic tools as their primary electronics design tool.

MSFC’s implementation is an enterprise installation such that all electronic designers have access to common libraries, tools, templates, etc. that create a common design environment where all designs are created in similar ways. MSFC creates engineering models, test articles, quality models, and finally flight hardware that has flown on missions including those from the Space Shuttle era through the Space Station era, several satellite programs, and several designs for the program.

A notice to the Government Point of Entry (GPE) website (beta.sam.gov) was published on 4/1/2021 for the SISW. BPA for Electronic Design Automation products and services, in accordance with FAR Subpart 5.2. This posting informed potential sources of NASA’s contract file notice of intent to award a sole-source single award BPA to SISWfor Electronic Design Automation products and services. The results of this synopsis are summarized in Section 10 below and will be included in the official.

7. A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

The Contractor shall be required to submit a proposal to be evaluated and negotiated by the Government. Prior to execution of the contractual instrument, a price analysis will be performed. The price analysis will ensure that the final agreed-to price for the contract action is fair and reasonable.

As NASA has historical contract information from previous BPAs with SISW Siemens EDA (formerly Mentor Graphics) for software licenses and maintenance, there are no anticipated issues that would circumvent a fair and reasonable price determination. The Contracting Officer will determine price reasonableness during the proposal evaluation process prior to contract award, based on comparing proposed product pricing to NASA historical product prices, the Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE), and to commercial pricing as well. A comparison of discounts proposed for the new BPA will be compared to discounts offered under previous NASA BPAs, NNX14MC66Z 80NSSC17A0004, and 80NSSC20A0011to ensure that NASA receives a streamlined ordering vehicle with similarly discounted prices for SISW Siemens EDA products.

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

A review of General Services Administration (GSA) Advantage was performed, and the requisite software maintenance and support is not available via GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts.

A review of NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) contracts was conducted as well, and even though there are multiple Value-Added Resellers (VARs) on SEWP who offer some SISW Siemens EDA products, SISW provided a sole source letter explaining why this BPA could not be awarded to one of these SEWP contractors.

SISW requires the terms of this agreement to be directly with NASA and not through a third-party vendor.

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

The following data is provided for estimated cost and other rationale as to the extent and nature of the harm to the government if this contract is not awarded.

There are several considerations that must be made that would be involved in replacing a software package of this magnitude, widespread use, and capability:

A primary issue would be with the translation and migration of library data. The libraries at MSFC consist of 30+ years of Intellectual Property, approximately 35,000 parts, thousands of symbols, footprints, pad stacks, legacy designs, design reuse capabilities, and manufacturing capabilities both in-house and externally. The same would apply to GSFC who has 10+ years of library data including legacy parts and schematics. This task would be a huge labor impact due to having to start from scratch moving to new tools.

The NASA user community has a wealth of knowledge and expertise with the SISW Siemens EDA tools that would require hundreds of hours of training in not only key software capabilities but much of the peripheral software used in simulation, validation, programming, etc. There would be a large learning curve to switching to a new tool.

There are several capabilities that SISW Siemens EDA offers that are unique.

Hyperlynx analysis tools are the standard for high speed analysis integrity and thermal analysis. Many other EDA vendors use these tools in addition to their tools.

PCB/Schematics pairs with other software to translate older designs forward, as competing products do not offer this capability.

Training of support personnel would also be required. It would be an upfront cost and would take years of use before the level of current expertise could be realized.

Most SISW Siemens EDA software at NASA is in a maintenance mode which is less costly than new licenses. The costs of buying all new licenses for another tool with the same capabilities would be more expensive that maintaining the Siemens EDA licenses NASA already has.

Acquiring alternatives to SISW Siemens EDA software products would involve the purchase and installation of new product(s) and possibly a combination of several products from different vendors to achieve similar basic capability. The cost of changing platforms would cost the agency an estimated not including the significant time it would take to transition the various NASA programs that would be impacted as well as the potential for lost data and the ability of backward compatibility with legacy designs. To replace SISW Siemens EDA, training cost and investment would be substantial, implementation and testing would result in adverse impact on labor and data, and project objectives and milestones supporting mission critical requirements would be negatively impacted. The NASA technical users are always looking for better software to meet their requirements but so far SISW Siemens EDA is the only software that fully fulfills the NASA requirements.

The NSSC is partially terminating BPA 80NSSC20A0011 for convenience to prevent Contracting Officers from awarding new call orders against it. The NSSC will not exercise any options on existing call orders and once the last outstanding call order has its period of performance lapse, the NSSC will fully terminate BPA 80NSSC20A0011.

10. A listing of the sources, if any, that expressed an interest in writing in the acquisition:

A notice of NASA’s intent to award this sole-source action was synopsized on the GPE website (beta.sam.gov) per FAR Subpart 5.2 (See Section 6 above).

No other companies have authority to provide NASA with the favorable licensing terms a consolidated BPA with SISW would. Only SISW can reinstate expired Siemens EDA licenses and provide maintenance and support for their products.

The synopsis was posted on 4/1/2021. If any companies express interest in the procurement as a result of the synopsis discussed in section 6, the Contracting Officer will address its interest and whether it can comply with the government’s requirements and document the information in the official contract file. At the present time, however, no other sources have expressed an interest in this acquisition.

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

The Agency will continue to examine the market in the future for alternative solutions or new sources before executing any subsequent acquisitions for the same requirements. Due to the nature of the expressed requirement, there are no known actions which the Agency may take to give consideration to other manufacturers for the requirements described herein.