Final Signed DE_SWDC Extension_Value Increase J and A_Redacted.pdf

5. Statutory Authority Permitting Other than Full and Open Competition (FAR Part 6.303-2(b)(4)). The proposed action is authorized under 10 U.S.C. 3204(a)(1), which states, “the property or services needed by the agency are available from only one responsible source or only from a limited number of responsible sources and no other type of property or services will satisfy the needs of the agency.”

This is implemented by FAR 6.302-1 (a)(2), which states “When the supplies or services required by the agency are available from only one responsible source, or, for DoD, NASA, and the Coast Guard, from only one or a limited number of responsible sources, and no other type of supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements, full and open competition need not be provided for.”

6. Demonstration of Contractor’s Unique Qualifications or the Nature of the Acquisition Requires use of the Authority Cited (FAR Part 6.303-2(b)(5)). Northrop Grumman is currently coordinating and leading the execution of all work contained within Section 4 of this document under SWDC task orders. The scope contained within this J&A was solicited for response within Request for Information (RFI) MDA21BCRFI02 that was posted on May 5, 2021; however, the market research continues to show (see Section 7) only Northrop Grumman being capable of completing the work within the specified time-frame.

In addition, the product lines under the M&S portfolio are executed in accordance with a product road map, which is anchored to the elicited and solicited needs of the stakeholder community under the approved MDA M&S intended use categories. Although features are released on an incremental basis as part of the agile paradigm, the overarching capability or epic can span several releases with a significant portion of the systems engineering and architecture work being completed on the front end. Transition of work prior to the delivery of the capabilities outlined in Section 4 of this document could result in an unfavorable impact to cost, schedule, and performance that will negatively impact stakeholder missions and objectives.

7. Description of Market Research Conducted (FAR Part 6.303-2(b)(6), (8) and (10)).

MDA/DE conducted market research in accordance with FAR part 10. The team released a RFI/Sources Sought published under MDA Specialized Development, Sustainment, and Operations (MDA21BCRFI02) in SAM.gov, May 5, 2021. The RFI received two responses:

one small business (Raft LLC) and one from the incumbent large business (Northrop Grumman). The small business did not meet any requirements. The large business met all requirements. As a result, it was determined that Northrop Grumman continues to be the only contractor capable of executing the requirements.

8. Determination of Fair and Reasonable Cost (FAR Part 6.303-2(b) (7)). In accordance with FAR 15.402 and due to thresholds for requiring cost and pricing data in accordance with FAR 15.403, the Procuring Contracting Officer (PCO) shall ensure all supplies and services ordered under this contract are procured at a fair and reasonable price. As necessary, the Contractor will submit formal price proposals with certified cost or pricing data and sufficient information to support the accuracy and reliability of estimates. Pursuant to ensuring prices are fair and reasonable, the PCO will obtain information from sources other than the Contractor (e.g. forward pricing rate agreement information from Defense Contract Audit Agency and Defense Contract Management Agency. In turn, the Contractor’s proposed costs/prices will be reviewed by experienced technical and price analysts, as well as reviewed by Government contract specialists.

9. Any Other Facts Supporting the Use of Other Than Full and Open Competition (FAR Part 6.303-2(b)(9)). The Government has invested 15 years and over $700M in the development, fielding, testing, and sustainment of these systems in support of the MDS to date.

Sources other than the Northrop Grumman Corporation would have to acquire extensive knowledge, experience, and technical data to successfully fulfill these requirements. Specific MDS capability delivery milestones currently exist for these systems and any delay would negatively impact deliveries of capability required to fulfill a stated warfighter requirement.

Any cost and time delays to the Government to reconstitute this experience, the learning curve, and the technical data documentation would result in unacceptable time delays in fulfilling the Agency's mission. Therefore, it is deemed appropriate to use other than full and open competition to acquire the requisite services.

l0. Actions Taken to Remove Barriers to Competition (FAR Part 6.303-2(b)(ll)). The DE Program Office is taking the following steps to categorize the myriad of software development activities under the SWDC portfolio in order to prepare for the future competition. Specifically, DE is completing the following activities:

a. The development programs underneath the M&S Operations portfolio are in the process of transitioning to the Scaled Agile Framework to support adaptation to a value stream approach.

This is a key initiative that will provide engineering consistency across all product lines and will more closely align to industry best practices and standards.

b. The M&S Operations technical leads continue to pursue opportunities to comply with the Modular Open Systems Approach to modernize the code base to limit the cost and risk of application sustainment and maintenance activities associated with legacy products having high source lines of code values. This results in more stable applications that reduce the dependency on tenured personnel that are required to research and resolve issues that are causing unexpected behaviors during operation.

c. The M&S Operations team continues to invest in product line automated test and integration suites that are evolving to include secure code scanning. This enables immediate testing of code upon check-in that is augmented with daily and weekly regression testing to identify issues earlier in the lifecycle. The Government has the appropriate data rights to this library of boundary and regression test scenarios, which will support any potential transition in the future.