JOFOC_MH_Monitoring.pdf

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity:

Agency: U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Requirement Activity: Office of Risk Management and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Manufactured Housing Programs

Contracting Activity: OCPO / NPH

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

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (The Department or HUD) regulates the design and construction of manufactured housing. The National Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974 (the Act), implemented in June 1976, established the framework for the preemptive Federal Standards and the related manufactured housing regulatory programs (HUD programs) in use today. A copy of the Act can be obtained from the Contracting Officer upon request and is located on HUD’s website:

https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/housing/rmra/mhs/mhshome. HUD administers several manufactured housing regulatory programs, of which monitoring the performance of cooperating agencies is one. HUD generally implements the monitoring portion of its program through two sets of regulations: (1) 24 CFR 3280, Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards (the Standards), which is a nationally preemptive set of standards for the design and construction of these homes (commonly known in this industry as the HUD Code); and (2) 24 CFR 3282, Manufactured Home Procedural and Enforcement Regulations (the Regulations), which generally govern the enforcement of the HUD Code. HUD uses Contractors to assist in the implementation of the program.

HUD’s role, with contracted assistance, is critical to assuring that the quality of the home is maintained and that consumer complaints with manufacturer service are appropriately addressed.

This role has also been broadened by a trend in the industry to apply innovation to the factory-built home, employing more creative designs and utilizing new products and year-over-year increases in the number of approved designs, operating plants, and floors produced. This serves to enhance the role of HUD and its monitoring and inspection agent, as they are continuously called upon to respond to questions and concerns regarding designs and construction evaluated in accordance with the performance-based Standards.

HUD administers the program, supported by agreements with 35 State Administrative Agencies (SAAs) and contracts with various private firms and non-profits. HUD’s effort to obtain the services of qualified Contractors reflects its commitment to safe, durable, and quality housing. To cover the costs of administering this program, home manufacturers in this program are charged a monitoring fee (currently $100 per section or floor) in exchange for certification labels that are issued by HUD through the monitoring contractor. Currently there are six (6) Design-Approval Primary Inspection Agencies (DAPIAs) and twelve (12) Production Inspection Primary Inspection Agencies (IPIAs), both public and private, approved by HUD to conduct design review and quality assurance oversight and inspections. Eight (8) of the twelve (12) active HUD-approved agencies are units of State government and the remaining five (5) are private for-profit corporations, as listed on HUD’s website: https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/housing/rmra/mhs/mhshome/sfh/mhs/mhsid.cfm.

The fees for this label are used to fund this program.

Other services include alternative construction reviews, special investigations and studies, regulatory specialist services, and customer feedback.

The services required enable HUD to execute its statutory obligations for the HUD programs and include the production and distribution of HUD-required certification labels that must be placed on each transportable section of a manufactured home in order to ship the home from the factory.

Without the required services, HUD would not be able to effectively regulate conformance with the Act's requirements and HUD regulations and home manufacturers would not be able to produce and ship any homes. This would stop the ability of this industry to meet critical housing demands for a portion of the nation's most vulnerable population.

While HUD would not incur any direct costs from a break in service, the impacts on the nation's need for housing and the lack of ability to meet critical housing needs may create other unintended consequence costs to the government.

The purpose of this action is to award a bridge contract to the recent incumbent contractor, The Institute for Building Technology and Safety, Inc., (IBTS). This bridge contract will be in place to continue services while the requirement is being competed full and open.

3. Description of the supplies or services required, including an estimated value:

The requirements of this procurement address the principal tasks for the monitoring and administration of the DAPIAs and IPIAs programs and the performance assessments of the SAAs.

The estimated value of the services to be performed during the 12-month bridge is approximately $5,461,396.00. The bridge will consist of a six-month base period and three (2-month) option periods. The option periods will be exercised only if needed to accommodate the continuance of services and/or a transition period.

4. Statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition:

FAR 6.302-1, 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(1), Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements.

5. A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited:

Services are currently being provided under Contract No. DU100H-13-C-03 with the Institute for Building Technology and Safety, INC. (IBTS). The contract was awarded on a competitive basis and the company was determined to be the overall best qualified to perform the services. The Contractor is and has been involved with the Design-Approval Primary Inspection Agencies (DAPIA) and Production Inspection Primary Inspection Agencies (IPIAs) and the State Administrative Agencies

(SAAs) program for over thirty (30) years. The depth and breadth of knowledge demonstrated by the contractor during the performance of the current contract makes them uniquely qualified to perform the services during the 12-month bridge. This unique experience includes the knowledge and ability to procure and distribute certification labels that allow the industry to build and ship homes, without which would effectively shut-down production of the homes. The contractor’s experience is unique because the contractor has extensive knowledge of working with HUD’s national building code (24 CFR 3280) in the areas of code administration and enforcement for several decades. In addition, this is a unique federal regulation because building codes are typically administered at the local level.

However, this statute and regulation regulate all manufactured housing units nationally regardless of where they are built and where they are ultimately located.

The contractor has comprehensive knowledge of the entities involved in the production, transportation and installation of manufactured homes- manufacturers, retailers, installers, IPIAs, DAPIAs, State Administering Agencies, and local building code officials, as well as, in addressing issues arising from federal preemption. The contractor’s expertise in the manufactured housing construction and safety standards and their relationship with local building code officials enables its staff to identify and resolve such preemption issues quickly and effectively.

The contractor’s staff has achieved a unique body of knowledge, training and experience with a national building code program—the manufactured housing construction and safety standards. The replication of such program on a short notice could only be accomplished using experienced HUD internal staff at a much higher cost.

Without an extensive and reasonable transition period for phase-in and phase out between the incumbent and a new contractor, there is no other organization or source, with the exception of the incumbent that currently:

o possess the in-depth knowledge or familiarity with HUD’s National Building Code and Standards for Manufactured Homes; HUD’s Regulations to enforce those Standards; HUD’s Model Installation Standards; and the myriad interpretations associated with the Standards and Regulations needed to perform the monitoring functions required in fulfilling the requirement;

o is ready to implement monitoring procedures acceptable to HUD for review of designs, quality assurance manuals and overall performance of HUD’s Design Approval Primary Inspection Agencies (DAPIAs) and for the maintenance and storage of approximately 7.5 million approved documents in the electronic library;

o is ready to implement monitoring procedures acceptable to HUD to evaluate and audit the overall performance of HUD’s Production Inspection Primary Inspection Agencies (IPIAs) and their assessment of manufacturer’s quality assurance and quality control programs in every production facility;

o has monitoring procedures available that are acceptable to HUD to audit the performance of State Administrative Agencies (SAAs) to evaluate their effectiveness in enforcing the HUD Standards and Regulations;

o has the capacity to administer HUD’s label program and distribute and track approximately

150,000 labels which are expected to be issued to IPIAs during the 12-month contract bridge period.

o is familiar with the required integration between the required principal monitoring functions such as required by Principal Task Two- In-Plant Primary Inspection Agency (IPIA) Monitoring and Principal Task Three- DAPIA Monitoring. DAPIAs are required to approve manufacturer’s designs and quality assurance manuals when they conform to the Standards and Regulations, while IPIAs are to verify that the manufacturer can follow its approved QA manual and produce homes in conformance with the approved designs and the Standards.

When failures to conform are identified by the monitoring contractor or from any source, IPIAs and DAPIAs are required to work in close coordination to verify that all homes have been corrected and that designs have been revised as appropriate to prevent future recurrences of the problem(s). Both IPIAs and DAPIAs are responsible for assisting the Secretary and State Administrative Agencies (SAAs)-Principal Task Four in identifying classes of homes that may have been released by the manufacturer. Also, contractual activities such as issuing 150,000 labels to IPIAs; record keeping and reporting of label usage to HUD; state fee accounting and payment process requirements; and, review and preparation of Special Construction/Alternative Construction requests.

6. Description of the 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 Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 5.2:

A notice was published via FedBizOpps in accordance with 5.203(a) to announce that the Government intends to enter into a sole source contract for this short-term requirement.

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

The Contracting Officer will compare the contractor’s rates against the expiring contract rates; which were previously determined to be fair and reasonable, coupled with the Independent Government Cost Estimate to make a determination of price fair and reasonableness.

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

Market research was not conducted for this short term contract as the incumbent contractor is the only source who can provide services until the long-term competitive procurements can be awarded.

However, the Office of Chief Procurement Officer (OCPO) and Office of Risk Management and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Manufactured Housing Programs (OMHP) hosted an Industry Day Conference on November 16, 2017. Additionally, a Request For Information (RFI) was posted on November 23, 2017 requesting interested vendors to provide capability statements. Several responses from interested sources were received as a result of the RFI.

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

No other facts.

10. Sources, if any, that expressed an interest, in writing, in the acquisition:

The Institute for Building Technology & Safety (IBTS).

11. The actions the Agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required:

To remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required, the requirement documents will be carefully scrutinized to ensure that they clearly describe the requirements in order to encourage the broadest possible number of competitive responses from offerors. The follow-on for this requirement will be posted under two separate notices; one for DAPIA and the other for IPIA/SAA Monitoring Support Services. Both solicitations will be competitive without restrictions.

12. Contracting Officer’s Certification:

I certify that the facts and representations under my cognizance which are included in this justification and which form a basis for this justification are complete and accurate.