AF_GEN_IV_IPV_RFI.pdf

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ANNOUNCEMENT

Defense Logistics Agency - Aviation, Richmond, VA

Air Force Industrial Product Support Vendor Gen IV

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

DLA-Aviation, Richmond is conducting market research to identify potential vendors that may possess the expertise, capabilities, and experience to provide industrial prime vendor (IPV) support to three Air Force Air Logistics Centers (ALCs): Warner Robins Air Force Base (AFB) (located in GA); Hill AFB (located in UT); and Tinker AFB (located in OK) and select Air Force Geographically Separated Units (GSUs) located worldwide. The current IPV contract covers roughly 42,000 National Item Identification Numbers (NIINs) across the three ALCs with an estimated 585 bench stock locations (BSL) in approximately 121 buildings with roughly 152,000 bins and approximately 1450 unique kits totaling approximately 28,000 kit line items. It’s anticipated that the scope of this follow-on effort will be reduced in both number of NIINs and bins. Current estimated number of NIINs is roughly 36,600 (see Attachment 1). Additions and deletions will occur before and after award. DLA will be the primary source of supply for approximately 78% of the NIINs although suppliers will be able to buy items commercially if DLA does not have stock available. Exceptions to the capability to buy around DLA are Critical Safety Items (CSIs), items that require a First Article Test (FAT), DNA Marked items, and any other item determined by the contracting officer. Items where DLA is the primary source of supply will be priced at the stock unit price as noted in the DLA system. It is anticipated that the remaining 22% of the NIINs will be commercially sourced. For commercially sourced items, the vendor will be responsible for supporting ALC demands with their supply chain separate from DLA. It is anticipated that for a subset of the commercially supported items, the supplier will provide support to all DLA customers worldwide in addition to supporting ALC demands. All material will be 100% owned by the contractor until the artisan removes the item(s) from the bin or a kit is built and placed in a central staging area. The performance expectation is for a 99.5% bin fill rate. A 9-month transition is anticipated from current Air Force owned stock to vendor owned stock through attrition of current stock levels. Current stock level at time of transition is planned to be approximately one month of usage per item. However, this may vary on an item level basis. There are some existing Air Force-owned items that the contractor will be required to attrite. Payment to the vendor will be based on a projection of customer support over the annual period divided by 12. Support projection will include a projection of monthly parts supplied to the Air Force and price associated with service CLINs. Quarterly reconciliations will be made to adjust to actual items supplied at the end of each annual period of performance. Financial adjustment will roll to the next year with the exception of the last year of the contract at which time an additional payment will be made, or credit will be collected. Currently there is a mixture of manual and automated vending/bins. It is anticipated that during the term of this contract that current manual bins will be transitioned to automated vending/bins. In that event, transition of material into the automated vending/bins and adjustment of processes will be a part of this contract. In addition, the overall management, ownership, procurement, and upkeep of automated vending bin locations will be the responsibility of the vendor. The overall goal of this acquisition is to increase automation, improve efficiencies, and enhance support to our customers. This agency anticipates a ten-year term for this contract. Anticipated item demand for this period is $1.25B with additions and deletions occurring. Via this Request for Information (RFI) DLA-Aviation’s intention is to leverage the commercial industry’s best practices and implement a solution which assures readiness, safety, and efficiency. The government expects a variety of options to consider including pros, cons, and risks.

Material Scope:

This initiative contains 36,000+ DLA managed (active and inactive) National Stock Numbers (NSNs) and commercially sourced stock numbers from the following Federal Supply Classes (FSCs):

1005, 1055, 1090, 1095, 1240, 1270, 1280, 1420, 1430, 1440, 1450, 1560, 1610, 1620, 1630, 1640, 1650, 1660, 1670, 1680, 1730, 2030, 2510, 2520, 2530, 2540, 2590, 2610, 2640, 2805, 2810, 2815, 2835, 2840, 2910, 2915, 2920, 2925, 2930, 2935, 2940, 2945, 2950, 2990, 2995, 3010, 3020, 3030, 3040, 3110, 3120, 3130, 3230, 3426, 3431, 3433, 3439, 3455, 3460, 3530, 3611, 3655, 3694, 3805, 3910, 3930, 3940, 3990, 4010, 4020, 4030, 4130, 4140, 4210, 4220, 4240, 4310, 4320, 4330, 4440, 4460, 4510, 4520, 4610, 4710, 4720, 4730, 4810, 4820, 4920, 4930, 4931, 4935, 4940, 5110, 5120, 5210, 5305, 5306, 5307, 5310, 5315, 5320, 5325, 5330, 5331, 5335, 5340, 5342, 5355, 5360, 5365, 5410, 5411, 5430, 5620, 5815, 5820, 5821, 5826, 5831, 5835, 5836, 5840, 5841, 5845, 5850, 5855, 5860, 5865, 5895, 5905, 5910, 5915, 5920, 5925, 5930, 5935, 5940, 5945, 5950, 5955, 5960, 5961, 5962, 5963, 5965, 5970, 5975, 5977, 5980, 5985, 5990, 5995, 5996, 5998, 5999, 6020, 6035, 6060, 6105, 6110, 6115, 6125, 6130, 6145, 6150, 6160, 6210, 6220, 6230, 6240, 6250, 6340, 6510, 6515, 6605, 6610, 6615, 6620, 6625, 6635, 6640, 6645, 6650, 6665, 6670, 6680, 6685, 6695, 6720, 6750, 6760, 6840, 6850, 6910, 6930, 7025, 7035, 7045, 7050, 7510, 7690, 8110, 8120, 8125, 8140, 8145, 8305, 8310, 8315, 8345, 8465, 9150, 9160, 9320, 9330, 9340, 9390, 9505, 9515, 9525, 9530, 9535, 9540, 9905

Others as noted. (See attachment 1 for a list of current NSNs). Additions and deletions may occur prior to solicitation and after award.

Anticipated Scope:

• The retail supply, management, storage, and distribution for bench stock required to perform programmed depot level maintenance at three Air Force ALCs: Warner-Robins AFB, Hill AFB, and Tinker AFB, and select Air Force GSUs.

• Collaboration with DLA and customer on projected and anticipated demands in order to ensure item availability. The successful vendor is expected to integrate with Air Force customer to provide forecasting, planning, and stocking of thousands of bins in hundreds of bench stock locations, over three ALCs.

• Procurement of items from DLA and commercial vendors, to include all actions related to acquisition planning, solicitation, evaluation, negotiations, contract award, contract administration, and contract management functions of all commercially sourced items.

• Palletizing, packing, marking, and labeling of all items for shipment to locations as required.

• Receiving bulk items and converting to single units of issue under a transition period and then as part of an automated bin solution as the Air Force phases in at the ALCs.

• Maintaining level of stock in each bin to meet a 99.5% bin fill rate metric at the time of Air

Force removal from the bin.

• Maintaining the ability to correct any failure of the 99.5% bin fill metric within 24 hours of failure notification; called Mechanic Wait Time (MWT).

• Ability to fully integrate with an Air Force supplied high-tech solution of automated bins to be phased in during the contract at all three ALCs.

• Assembly and distribution of kits of items as determined by the Air Force and DLA.

• A data management system that ensures tracking use at the point of sale for DLA and the Air

Force in support of auditability requirements.

• A solution to track and manage inventory plus provide a reliable reporting mechanism for capture of demand history.

• The overall management, ownership, procurement, and upkeep of automated vending bin locations will be the responsibility of the vendor.

• Provide bench stock item level support for AF GSUs by providing material within a given timeframe for shipment to GSUs from the three ALCs..

Request for Information (RFI) Questions: (Please answer in detail)

1. Please provide your CAGE, Company name, address, and all point of contact information.

2. Do you have the capability and financial resources to procure, in advance of payment, the items from an approved source of supply for this requirement? Does this requirement hinder your ability and what possible solutions would help alleviate the issue?

3. Would you consider partnering if you could not provide service at all three ALC’s? If working with sub vendors, how would the work be divided? Who would perform which tasks? What percentage of the work would the sub vendors perform? What risks/costs do you see with providing worldwide support for commercially sourced items?

4. What is the optimum length of a base contract and options to reduce costs and improve availability? Provide some information based on your experience supporting your recommendation.

5. What is the maximum length of time your firm would be willing to price active products at Firm Fixed Prices (FFP)? Provide information that would preclude long-term FFP of the items identified in this NSN list. Also provide your recommendation for a period of time for FFP items.

6. How many items could you reasonably expect to price in a 90-day period?

7. The intent is to attrite all Air Force owned stock before purchasing DLA or commercial items.

How would you determine the level of AF inventory and account for all items? How would you ensure Air Force items are used until exhaustion before purchasing new items? How would you ensure a seamless transition to purchase new items once the Air Force items attrite?

8. The metrics of 99.5% bin fill rate and 24 hour Mechanic Wait Time are stringent requirements.

Can you provide costs associated with the bin fill metric and compare those costs to 99% bin fill rate and 98.5% bin fill rate? What is the cost of 8 hour MWT compared to 24 and 48 hour

MWT?

9. In your experience, is there a commercially acceptable level of support for bench stock, and if so, what is it and how does it drive cost reductions? How are inventory availability and cost reductions managed? How are usage levels and customer charges determined?

10. What would be required for you to maintain 99.5% bin fill rate if DLA is unable to provide a DLA sourced item?

11. How do you recommend managing First Article Test (FAT) items, Critical Safety Items (CSIs), DNA Marked items, Product Verification Testing (PVT) items, Shelf Life (S/L) items, or Production Lot Testing (PLT) items in a long term agreement? DLA may be the only authorized source for many of these items. How would you ensure that you meet the 99.5% metric?

12. What is additive cost associated with sale at point of use (at customer demand) vice sale taking place when the item is placed in the bin or kit built and placed in central staging area?

13. The Air Force currently has 585 bench stock locations in approximately 121 buildings with roughly 152,000 individual bins across all three ALCs. The Air Force is currently making efforts to reduce these numbers. The Air Force desires the level of detail to determine who, what, where, when for each item of use. Until the point the Air Force completes installation of an automated bin solution to track items, how would you manage usage, billing, and reporting to the government? Can you implement a solution to get to usage at the ALC level, the building level, the BSL level, the job level, or the mechanic level of item use? Can you provide estimates of the cost to get to each level of detail? What is your recommended solution to get to each level of detail? How would you audit your systems to ensure accurate accountability of this information?

14. This is a relatively volatile schedule of items. As workload at each ALC changes, there can be wide changes in the schedule and scope of items. What is an appropriate timeframe to account for adding a new item and stocking it at all locations? What do you recommend for a process when items are removed? How would you mitigate your risk to adding and deleting items?

15. The management and tracking of kitting is a critical portion of this effort. How would you perform this function? How would you recommend handling kit returns or partial kit returns to stock? Would you recommend building kits at a central location at each ALC or dispersed locations?

16. What do you envision as major risk areas for this effort and how would you mitigate those risks?

17. What are your concerns (if any) to the overall management, ownership, procurement, and upkeep of automated vending bin locations with one sole contractor of said automated vending bin locations?

18. How you plan to manage a workload at selected AF GSUs in which none of your personal would be stationed as it is to be supported from one of the three major ALCs? Where and how do you see title transfer of this material?

General Business Information:

19. Indicate your firm’s business size (certified small or large).

20. Which small business sub-category does your company qualify under (if any)? (8A, HubZone, Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, Woman-Owned Small Business etc.)

21. How would you track and enhance small business participation in an IPV effort?

22. To the extent applicable, how can we leverage commercial market practices most efficiently?

23. Please indicate if your firm is a manufacturer, non-manufacturer, dealer/distributor, or other

(explain). QSL certification is required for all offerors.

24. What FSC items do you provide to your current customer base?

25. Please provide any additional information you believe is relevant to this initiative.

Summary Information:

Additional items, suggestions, and comments are encouraged. Please submit your responses and comments no later than 01 October 2024 via email to the point of contact below.

An Industry Day Q&A is anticipated in November 2024 at Warner Robins AFB or Richmond, VA.

Please send your responses to the RFI questions to the following point of contacts via e-mail:

Email to: jennifer.dunn@dla.mil AND robert.napolitano@dla.mil

In the email’s subject line please enter “RFI response for AF GEN IV IPV CAGE {insert CAGE here}”

Disclaimer:

In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this RFI are not offers and cannot be accepted by the government to form a binding contract.

FAR 52.215-3, Request for Information or Solicitation for Planning Purposes, applies.

This RFI is issued for information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation.

The government does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this RFI or to otherwise pay for information received in response to this RFI.

All information received in response to this RFI that is marked proprietary will be handled accordingly.

Responses to the RFI will not be returned.

Information provided in response to this RFI will be used to assess tradeoffs and alternatives available to determine how to proceed in the acquisition process.

Responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI.

Primary Point of Contact:

Jennifer Dunn (804) 617-7818 Program Manager

Alternate Point of Contact:

Robert Napolitano (804) 279-6382 Contracting Officer