20-S-5702 RFI Posting 20 Feb 2020.pdf

RFI FA8650-20-S-5702

Digital Engineering Center of Excellence Request for Information (RFI)

1. Contracting Office Address

Department of the Air Force Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Materials and Manufacturing Contracting, AFRL/RXKMT (Attn: Meagan Frances Wooten) 2130 Eighth Street, Area B, Building 45 Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, 45433-7541

2. Background Information

This is a Request for Information (RFI) only, as defined in FAR 15.201 (e), to obtain information about capabilities and other market information for planning purposes. This RFI is not a request for competitive proposals; therefore, responses to this notice are not considered offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract.

Responses should include information identifying whether the responder’s firm is a small or large business. The size standard is 1,000 employees. The NAICS code for this potential effort is 541715 (Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except nanotechnology and biotechnology)).

Companies that respond will not be paid for the information submitted. No telephone calls nor meeting requests will be accepted regarding a bid package or solicitation. All information received shall be safeguarded from unauthorized disclosure. Please do not submit any classified information. Please do not submit proprietary information. Any submitted information will not be returned.

3. General Intent

The Air Force Research Laboratory, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Manufacturing and Industrial Base Technologies Division (AFRL/RXM) located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) is in the planning stage for a program to foster a collaborative innovation ecosystem supporting broad objectives for digital transformation. This is being done in collaboration with the office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology, and Engineering (SAF/AQR).

The Air Force (AF) and Department of Defense (DoD) Digital Engineering (DE) Strategies illuminate the priorities guiding digital transformation through informed decision making/greater insight through increased transparency;

enhanced communication; increased understanding for greater flexibility/adaptability in design/increased confidence that capabilities will perform as expected; and, increased efficiency in engineering and acquisition practices (Defense Engineering Strategy, 2018).

The objective of this effort is to establish a state-of-the-art, end-to-end, sustainable collaborative research consortium supporting digital transformation for the Air Force and the aerospace industry. This dynamic research consortium should facilitate participation from university, small business and other nontraditional research entities, to include university research projects, small nontraditional business and those businesses already conducting research with the government, as well as enable AFRL researchers and partner AF organizations to collaborate and contribute directly to research projects. This consortium shall also serve as an idea accelerator and technology incubator with large and small businesses to facilitate the maturation of digital engineering for rapid deployment to the warfighter and commercialization.

The Federal Government (DoD) anticipates a total program value of $250M distributed across ten fiscal years. The consortium manager will be included in this amount. The Air Force envisions cost share from the awardee, especially up to 50% on individual research projects.

4. Statement of Need

The primary objective and mission of this program is to accelerate the adoption of digital engineering practices and technologies across the AF/DoD acquisition and sustainment enterprise. Successful execution will result in meeting military priorities and defense needs while consistent with AF/DoD long term digital transformation goals:

formalize the development, integration, and use of models to inform enterprise and program decision-making;

provide an enduring, authoritative source of truth; incorporate technological innovation to improve the engineering practice; establish a supporting infrastructure and environments to perform activities, collaborate, and communicate across stakeholders; and, transform the culture and workforce to adopt and support digital engineering across the lifecycle.

AFRL and the broader AF require a provider to:

• Convene all relevant and willing stakeholders across industry, academia and Government within a stable and neutral public-private partnership with a mutually agreed upon membership structure and intellectual property rights regime that fosters active community engagement and collaboration.

• Coordinate the rapidly expanding digital engineering community to ensure that the right investments are being made to advance relevant technologies and that these advances impact AF acquisition and sustainment as well as a broad swath of industry.

• Catalyze the advancement of digital engineering practices across the lifecycle by investing time and resources to address community-identified challenges and sponsor-directed requirements.

• Foster and participate in the development of digital engineering practices across the DoD and its supporting industrial base.

AFRL seeks to obtain information from interested participants on their current capabilities to develop, populate and administer a consortium of up to 200 academic, Government, and industry interests to address current AF and Industry digital engineering challenges through collaborative research, workforce development, and knowledge sharing.

Expectations include:

• Technical: Ability to support a wide range of research topics pertaining to digital engineering o Development of teams to collaboratively work on a technical challenge and implement results.

o Generate annual and final reports for each technical program awarded.

o Submit data generated during the program to AFRL.

• Collaboration:

o Support interactions of consortium members to foster collaboration.

o Develop and maintain guidelines for the consortium that define how and when data/information should be shared so that collaborations can thrive.

• Financial:

o Establish and execute the financial management mechanisms for the program.

o Allocate funds received from the Air Force to the consortium members according to the budget and technical development plan.

• Administrative support:

o Provide a single point of contact to the financial officers of the consortium members and the AF.

o Facilitate meetings o Administer awards to consortium members, including ensuring that all contractual obligations are fulfilled.

o Accurately track and report financial and technical progress of awarded programs o Develop reports and presentations for AFRL about awarded programs

It is expected that this program will be awarded to a consortium using a Technology Investment Agreement, Cooperative Agreement or similar contracting assistance vehicle.

5. Program Information and Information Requested

Respondents are requested to describe their capabilities to execute these convening, coordinating, and catalyzing functions across four major lines of effort.

• Collaborative Ecosystem – What are the respondent’s experiences launching and managing a public-private partnership and demonstrated capabilities to serve as a public-private partnership member resource for networking and collaboration? What are the respondent’s demonstrated capabilities to effectively engage 200 or more academic, industry, and government members/partners and the broader DE community in the mission?

What staffing and facility resources does the respondent have in place to immediately support and manage a vibrant DE collaborative ecosystem?

• Technology Advancement, Transition, and Dissemination – What are the respondent’s experiences and demonstrated capabilities to plan, partner, execute, and disseminate technology development projects, manage intellectual property, and link those project outcomes to industry and DoD requirements and capability needs?

• Business and Management Leadership – What are the respondent’s demonstrated capabilities in leading community-driven requirements definition and strategic roadmapping in areas such as technology development, workforce development, and standards development? What are the respondent’s demonstrated capabilities to apply modern business principles to a public-private-partnership?

• Workforce Development – What are the respondent’s demonstrated capabilities to plan, partner, and execute timely, relevant education and workforce development programming?

6. Disclaimer

There is no guarantee that any submission in response to this RFI will result in a Government program. This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a solicitation.

Responders to this RFI will have no competitive advantage in receiving any awards related to the submitted topic area. The information submitted in response to this RFI may be used to help the Government further define its requirements.

If the Government develops a program that addresses any submitted or similar topic, the resulting procurement will address technology and business specific requirements as defined by the Government to achieve the required objectives.

7. Required Responses

Please submit one (1) paper response as well as an email to the AFRL/RXKMT Contracting Negotiator no later than 24 Mar 2020:

Meagan Frances Wooten

AFRL/RXKMT

2130 8th Street, Bldg. 45 Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433-7541 mailto:firstname.lastname@us.af.milMeagan.Wooten@us.af.mil 937-713-9839

Responses to this RFI are limited to 10 pages with one-inch margins using standard letter-size 8 ½” x 11” paper.

The page count includes any title page. Electronic format shall be in Word. The font size must be 10-point or larger. Multiple responses from a firm are acceptable.

mailto:firstname.lastname@us.af.mil

No telephone calls nor meeting requests will be accepted regarding a bid package or solicitation. Marketing information is NOT acceptable in the response. Endorsements from elected officials at the federal, state, and/or local levels are NOT acceptable in the response.

8. Operations Security (OPSEC) Requirements

All responses to this document shall follow appropriate OPSEC measures required for this particular effort. This is required in an effort to reduce program vulnerability from successful adversary collection of possible sensitive unclassified and/or proprietary information, and violations of export control requirements. Guidance can be provided by AFRL/RX Security as needed.

Program Protection Plan (PPP)

Any potential Critical Program Information (CPI) generated, as part of this effort, will be reviewed to determine the need for a PPP or to be included as part of an existing PPP.

Information Regarding Non-US Citizens Assigned to this Project

a) Employees requiring access to Military bases or facilities, and/or access to U.S. Government Information Technology (IT) networks in connection with the work on this agreement must be U.S. citizens. For the purpose of base and network access, possession of a permanent resident card ("Green Card") does not equate to U.S. citizenship. This requirement does not apply to foreign nationals approved by the U.S.

Department of Defense or U.S. State Department under international personnel exchange agreements with foreign governments. Any waivers to this requirement must be granted in writing by the Grant Officer prior to providing access. The above requirements are in addition to any other agreement requirements related to obtaining a Common Access Card (CAC).

b) For purposes of paragraph (a) above, if an IT network/system does not require AFRL to endorse a Recipient’s application to said network/system in order to gain access, the organization operating the IT network/system is responsible for controlling access to its system. If an IT network/system requires an U.S. Government sponsor to endorse the application in order for access to the IT network/system; AFRL will only endorse the following types of applications; consistent with the requirements above:

1) Recipient employees who are U.S. citizens performing work under this agreement.

2) Recipient employees who are non-U.S. citizens and who have been granted a waiver. Any additional access restrictions established by the IT network/system owner apply.

Foreign Participation: Not at Prime Recipient level.

Foreign Nationals (FNs) can be employed by the US Prime Recipient or Sub-awardee; however, FNs will be limited to Public Domain information unless the Recipient has obtained the proper License of Technical Assistance Agreement that authorizes disclosure of CMI and/CUI to foreign entities pursuant to the Department of State’s ITAR or Department of Commerce’s EAR.

Public Domain information is defined as information that is releasable to the general public and sometimes referred to as open source material. Examples include but are not limited to newspapers, magazines and information posted on the internet.