A2_JUSTIFICATION_AND_APPROVAL_Limited_Sources_FBO.pdf

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL – SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION PROCEDURE FOR

OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

Pursuant to FAR 6.304(a)(1), the justification must contain sufficient facts and rationale to justify the use of the authority. This justification will be posted on the Federal Business Opportunities within 14 days of contract award for Only One Responsible Source or within 30 days of contract award for any other authorities cited in Item # 4.

1. Contracting Office:

U.S. Department of Agriculture/OPPM/POD Acquisition Management Branch – Fort Collins (AMB-FTC) 301 S. Howes Street, Suite 321, Fort Collins, CO. 80521-2795

2. Description of Action:

This is a new firm fixed price requirement for Alfresco software.

3. Name of Suggested Contractor:

Zia Consulting 5525 Central Avenue Suite 200 Boulder, CO 80301

4. Description of Supplies or Services:

NRCS currently uses Alfresco for Document Management purposes, and requires an upgrade to Alfresco 5 and Production Performance Monitoring and Tuning Support to improve the capabilities of NRCS business needs for document management. For the Alfresco 5 upgrade, the vendor will provide foundational enhancements required for the upgrade, then upgrade the system through the test environment and production environment with NRCS specified validations as outlined in this SOW. For the Production Performance Monitoring and Tuning Support, the vendor will conduct performance monitoring, reduce clutter in logs, provide verification of SOLR indices and provide the necessary support for performance monitoring & tuning that meet the acceptance criteria in the SOW.

5. Authority Cited: (Check one authority that applies)

☒Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy the agency requirements: (10 USC 2304(c)(1) or 41 USC 253(c)(1); FAR 6.302-1).

☐Unusual and compelling urgency: (10 USC 2304(c)(2) or 41 USC 253(c)(2); FAR 6.302-2).

☐Industrial mobilization, engineering, developmental, or research capability; or expert services:

(10 USC 2304(c)(3) or 41 USC 253(c)(3); FAR 6.302-3).

☐ National Security: (10 USC 2304(c)(6) or 41 USC 253(c)(6); FAR 6.302-6).

☐International agreement: (10 USC 2304(c)(4) or 41 USC 253(c)(4); FAR 6.302-4).

☐Sole source acquisition of certain commercial items under the test program: (41 USC 428(a);

Section 4202 of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996; or FAR 13.501(a)(1)(ii)).

☐Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949: (40 USC 501, Section 201; FAR 8.405-6)

6. Reason for Authority Cited

☒Services can only be provided from the original source as this is a follow-on requirement for the continued provision of highly specialized services.

☐Award to any other source would result in substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition.

☐Supplies or services are needed immediately to satisfy mission requirements.

☒Additional Information:

a. What harm will come to the Government if the desired supplies or services are not provided on time?

There are over 3 million documents stored currently in the current DMS application that’s running on a previous version of Alfresco installed and configured with Zia Consulting support that needs upgraded to provide additional robustness to accommodate the continuous growth of the Documents storage. In addition, after the upgrade is performed, there is a need for support to monitor and tune the platform for optimal performance.

b. What harm will come to the Government if the desired contractor does not receive the award?

Zia Consulting has worked with NRCS since our initial installation of Alfresco. They have significant knowledge of not only Alfresco, but also with the NRCS operating environment including the infrastructure where Alfresco is hosted (NITC-HA) and our Document Management System (DMS). Zia Consulting employees were involved in our strategic planning for implementation of Alfresco to meet our business needs and they are very knowledgeable of how to implement the upcoming enhancements to Alfresco within our environment with little or no ramp up time.

Any contractor other than Zia Consulting will require significant time to become familiar with our DMS application, business needs and operating environment resulting in significant performance bottlenecks that could adversely impact the DMS users. Our DMS users may be unable to view the documents being uploaded in a timely fashion causing them to continue to try & upload the same documents over-and-over resulting in the unnecessary use of limited storage space and resulting in more time to index in a self-fulfilling loop.

7. Action to Increase Competition: (State what actions will be taken to increase competition before subsequent acquisition of the supplies of services is required)

Future competition will be considered when DMS rehosting to new applications are considered or significant major modifications are planned.

8. Market Research/Survey: (Describe the extent of the market survey conducted to identify qualified sources and the results thereof. “Market Survey” is attempts you made to ascertain whether other qualified sources exist. The survey may consist of written, telephonic, or World Wide Web inquires)

Because of the need to have specialized knowledge of our Document Management System (DMS), tuning of Alfresco within our NRCS operating environment, it is in the best interest of the government to utilize Zia Consulting for this follow-on work.

9. Procurement History:

This requirement has been competed previously as full and open competition on FBO and was awarded to Zia Consulting.

Certifications:

10. Technical Certification: (I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance included in this Justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief)

Technical /Program Official Signature: Date: 05/11/2016

Position Title: IT Program Manager

11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: (I hereby determine that the anticipate cost for this proposed contract action will be fair and reasonable)

☒Justification Approved ☐Justification Disapproved

Contracting Officer Signature: Date: 05/11/2016