FAR-Part13-5-Sole-Source-JA - TEPS - Fully Signed - 1 (002)_ Fully Redacted.pdf

Version – March 2017 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

JUSTIFICATION REVIEW DOCUMENT

FAR SUBPART 13.5 SIMPLIFIED PROCEDURES FOR CERTAIN COMMERCIAL

ITEMS – SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL

Program/Equipment: Technical, Engineering, and Professional Support (TEPS) services for the Army Housing Division, Deputy Chief of Staff, (DCS, G9)

Authority: Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Items, 41 U.S.C. 1901 as implemented by FAR Subpart 13.5.

Amount: $531,775.00

Prepared by: DSN: 450-2265 Walter L. Williams Date: 04 March 2020 Contract Specialist Email: walter.l.williams24.civ@mail.mil

Contracting Officer: DSN: 450-2264 Stephen D. Noethen Date: 04 March 2020 Email: Stephen.d.noethen.civ@mail.mil

Technical: DSN: 260-1289 Wendy McIntosh Date:

TEPS Program Manager Email: wendy.l.mcintosh6.civ@mail.mil

Requirements: DSN: 225-6964 Paul Christensen Date:

Chief, Government Owned Housing Branch, Housing Division Email: paul.e.christensen.civ@mail.mil

Reviews: I have reviewed this justification and find it adequate to support sole source.

Program Manager:

Typed Name: Wendy McIntosh

DSN: 260-9741

Signature:

Legal Counsel:

Typed Name: Kevin Cox

DSN: 450-2153

MCINTOSH.WEN

DY.L.

Digitally signed by

MCINTOSH.WENDY.L

Date: 2020.03.10 16:51:45 -04'00'

COX.KEVIN.DEN

NIS

Digitally signed by

COX.KEVIN.DENNIS

Date: 2020.03.10 17:12:43 -05'00'

FAR Subpart 13.5 Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Items – Sole Source Justification and Approval

1. Contracting Activity: Mission and Installation Contracting Command – Fort Sam Houston, Texas (MICC-FSH)

2. Description of Action: The Army Housing Division of the DCS, G-9 requests a five-month firm fixed price bridge contract with the Concourse Group, LLC, the incumbent contractor currently providing Technical and Professional Engineering Support (TEPS) under contract W9124J-19-P-0056. This bridge contract is to provide the DCS, G-9, Army Housing Division with Housing facility support services in the following areas:

Engineering, Analysis and Research; Review and editing of DD forms 1391 (Military Construction Project Data) to ensure projects mitigate Q3/Q4 facility conditions; and, Program Objective Memoranda (POM) and Budget Estimate Submission (BES). The Government projects an award on or before 28 March 2020 utilizing Operations and Maintenance, Army (OMA) funding.

An Acquisition plan is not required because this procurement does not meet the threshold at Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement 207.103(d)(i)(B).

3. Description of Supplies/Services: The contractor shall provide data analysis and technical updates of the Installation Status Report (ISR), Headquarters, Installation Information Systems (HQIIS), Real Property Planning and Analysis System (RPLANS), and Enterprise Military Housing (eMH) databases, and shall provide dedicated support to the DCS, G-9-Installation Services Housing (ISH) division to support Strategic Readiness Update (SRU), Army Strategic Readiness Assessment (ASRA), and the development of various senior leader briefings (including but not limited to: Assistant Secretary of Defense, Installation, Energy and Environment (ASD, IE&E) Brief, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Comptroller Brief, Military Construction (MILCON) Staffer’s Brief, and Program Objective Memorandum (POM) Unaccompanied Housing (UH) and Army Family Housing (AFH) Exhibits.) The Contractor shall conduct analysis of all inventory databases (ISR, HQIIS, RPLANS, and eMH) by providing an in-depth review of buildings, building types, condition, age, and compare the various databases to identify data anomalies across the databases. The Contractor shall review key program metrics (inventory, requirement, condition, improvement and investment requirements based on Army housing standards and requirements and provide an assessment of these metrics with suggestions for facility improvement.

The Contractor shall analyze DD1391s, industry trends for Green Building Construction, industry Environment Protection Agency (EPA) and construction standards, and housing life cycle economic analysis. From this analysis, the Contractor shall provide recommendations on the value and feasibility of incorporating industry innovations into the Army construction, design and improvement program. The Contractor shall assess and evaluate AFH and UH housing standards. The resulting reports shall clearly illustrate changes in Federal standards as are currently identified in AR420-1, DA memorandum Subject: Barracks Construction Standards. The Contractor shall review the database that hosts the DD1391 forms on a monthly basis and provide review and analysis no later than the last day of each month. Uploaded DD1391s are generated at the Garrison level and are cyclical in nature.

The Contractor shall provide assistance in the following areas: housing budget development and Planning, Programing, Budget and Execution (PPBE) processes;

housing facility investment programs, and preparation of the annual President’s budget submission. The Contractor shall perform the following tasks IAW the annual Secretary of Defense Budget guidelines, formats, and the Facility Investment Strategy (FIS) 2015.

The Contractor shall assist in the Government development of the supporting program documents for housing investment projects, draft and final budget submittals and draft and final budget documents. The contractor will provide data input from various databases (RPLANS, HQIIS, ISR, eMH) for the Government development of the finalized Budget Exhibits. The Budget Exhibits are as follows: Unaccompanied Private Housing Training Party Budget Exhibit; Unaccompanied Housing Permanent Party Privacy Accommodation Exhibit; and the Unaccompanied Housing MILCON Schedule.

Period of Performance: 28 Mar 2020 to 27 Aug 2020 Total Value: $531,775.00

4. Authority Cited: Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Items, 41 U.S.C. 1901 as implemented by FAR Subpart 13.5.

5. Reason for Authority Cited:

The services being procured are considered 100% commercial in nature because they’re readily available within the commercial marketplace and are commonly sold to customers other than the US Government. As such, the Simplified Acquisition Threshold increases to $7,000,000; the value of this procurement is $531,775.00, FAR Part 13 rules apply to this acquisition.

There is only one responsible source available to provide these services, as the requirement is written currently. This is evidenced by the lack of qualified technical proposals submitted in response to Request for Proposal W9124J-20-R-TEPS which was posted on the beta.sam.gov website on 10 Feb 2020. Six offers were received, but one was considered late and was not evaluated. The remaining five offers were evaluated against the criteria stated in the FAR Clause 52.212-2 addendum. None of the five offers presented key personnel who met the requirements stated in the Key Personnel minimum table of the PWS. However, the incumbent is successfully providing services, which meet the needs of the customer. It is noted, however, that the evaluation criteria were different for the previous acquisition, which allowed the offeror more flexibility to meet the requirements. In the current acquisition, the evaluation criteria did not afford that same flexibility. The incumbent did not articulate their staffing plan in a manner which meets the minimum criteria. Ultimately, all offerors were found technically unacceptable, despite the fact that the incumbent did propose and is currently successfully providing services.

Additionally, award of this contract falls under the allowance for unusual and compelling, as defined in FAR Part 6. This sole-source action is unusual because, normally, the requirement would have been met through the resulting action of a competitive acquisition. Such a competitive acquisition was attempted by soliciting the requirement on 10 Feb 2020 through the beta.sam.gov website. The incumbent contractor disagreed with the evaluation criteria and the use of Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) as a criterion for determining the contractor to which the award would be made. As part of their disagreement, the incumbent contractor submitted a pre-award protest to the GAO (B-418517) on 26 February 2020, merely minutes before the solicitation closed.

The protest challenges the agency’s use of LPTA and asserts that the RFP is unduly restrictive, based on the use of LPTA. The agency is compelled to award this sole-source action in order to avoid a lapse in essential services while this protest is investigated, and, if corrective action is taken, allow time for the corrective action to be accomplished.

Failing to approve this limited competition justification would severely restrict DAG-9’s ability to provide cutting-edge engineering solutions to solve the army housing crisis.

This could result in soldiers and families not being provided acceptable housing solutions which could result in health, welfare, and safety concerns, which are unacceptable.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition:

a. Effective Competition: Because this is a sole source action, effective competition is not applicable. It should be noted however that comprehensive market research was conducted in anticipation of the re-compete action, and the results (as discussed in paragraph 8, below) indicates there will be sufficient competition for the subsequent follow-on requirement.

b. Subcontracting Competition: A subcontracting plan is not required in accordance with FAR 19.702(b)(1), as the proposed contract action will be a sole source requirement awarded to the incumbent contractor, The Concourse Group, LLC, who is a small business under the desired North American Industry Classification System code of 541611, Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: Market research results indicate that the follow-on requirement will generate adequate competition. This is further reinforced by the fact that six vendors submitted proposals and are highly interested in this requirement. The subsequent contract following this sole-source action will be competed among the commercial marketplace where substantial competition is fully expected.

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted on 9 July 2019 by the Mission

Installation Contracting Command – Fort Sam Houston (MICC-FSH). The market research consisted of a review of the mandatory sources, as defined in FAR Part 8, along with a Source Sought Inquiry, which was posted on the (then) Federal Business Opportunities website on 5 Feb 2019. The sources sought inquiry resulted in 19 vendors expressing interest in the requirement; all 19 provided capability statements. The capability statements were reviewed by the requiring activity. On 14 Mar 2019, the requiring activity indicated that six of the nineteen were potentially capable of providing the required services. One of the six vendors was determined to be a large business. This resulted in the determination being made for the requirement to be set-aside as a 100% small business set-aside. No viable multiple-award contract vehicles were determined to be suitable for this requirement. The resulting RFP was published on the beta.sam.gov website, which produced proposals from six interested vendors, one of which was determined to be late. This market research indicates that there are multiple companies in existence which could be considered qualified to perform the required services; however, the contracting office needs to reevaluate the acquisition strategy and determine the best evaluation criteria, given the pre-award protest.

9. Interested Sources: As indicated in paragraph 8 (above), there are multiple vendors interested in the TEPS follow-on requirement. A combined synopsis solicitation (W9124J-20-R-TEPS) was posted on the beta.sam.gov website on 10 Feb 20. Six responses, one late, were received from interested vendors on 26 Feb 20. However, of the five timely proposals received, none were deemed technically acceptable or capable of meeting the TEPS requirement. However, Concourse Group, the incumbent, performance has been satisfactory to date.

The results of the solicitation are depicted below:

Contractor Name

Small Business Under NAICS

541611

SB Categories Capable

Concourse Group, LLC

Yes

None. Traditional SB.

No

J-3 International Yes Exp date: 28 Jan 21

SDVOB, VOB

No

RER Solutions Yes WOSB, SDB, EDWOSB Exp date:14 Jan 21

Syndetix, Inc

Yes

VOSB, SDVOSB (Exp date: 22 Jul 20), RONIN Staffing LLC (Late Proposal) Yes WOSB, EDWOS, SDB (Exp date: 19 Jun

20)

Not evaluated

GLOCOMS, Inc Yes SDB, HUBZone joint venture Exp date: 23

Jan 2021

10. Other Facts: None.

11. Technical Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Typed Name: Wendy McIntosh

Title: Program Manager

12. Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Typed Name: Paul Christensen

Title: Chief, Government Owned Housing Branch, Housing Division

13. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated cost or price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable. This determination will be made using price analysis, historical data, and other fair market price comparisons, as necessary.

As a part of this basis, certified cost or pricing data is not required because the item and/or services being acquired are considered commercial.

Stephen D. Noethen Contracting Officer

14. Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Signature

NOETHEN.STEPHEN.

D.

Digitally signed by

NOETHEN.STEPHEN.D.

Date: 2020.03.10 15:33:29 -05'00'

NOETHEN.STEPHEN

.D.

Digitally signed by

NOETHEN.STEPHEN.D.

Date: 2020.03.10 15:33:54 -05'00'

MCINTOSH.WENDY.

L.

Digitally signed by

MCINTOSH.WENDY.L

Date: 2020.03.10 16:52:26 -04'00'

CHRISTENSEN.PAU

L.E.

Digitally signed by

CHRISTENSEN.PAUL.E.

Date: 2020.03.10 17:04:30 -04'00'

Approval

Based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the procurement of Technical, Engineering, and Professional Support (TEPS) Services for the estimated amount of $531,775.00 on an other than full and open competition basis pursuant to the authority of 10 U.S.C.2304(c)(1), as implemented by 41 U.S.C.

1901 as implemented by FAR Subpart 13.5. The approval is subject to availability of funds, and provided that the services or property herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.

NOETHEN.STEPHEN.

D.

Digitally signed by

NOETHEN.STEPHEN.D.

Date: 2020.03.11 08:03:56 -05'00'