GEX EBUS EFO - Redacted.pdf

Source Selection Information See FAR 2.102 and 3.104

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

DLA CONTRACTING SERVICES OFFICE PHILADELPHIA

700 ROBBINS AVENUE

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 19111-5092

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

Upon the basis of the following justification, I hereby approve the issuance of the contractual action described below using an exception to fair opportunity, pursuant to the authority cited herein.

1. IDENTIFICATION OF AGENCY AND CONTRACTING ACTIVITY:

Agency Requiring Activity:

Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Information Operations Enterprise Data Solutions Portfolio Defense Automatic Addressing System (DAAS) 5250 Pearson Road

WPAFB, OH 45433

POC: Gary Wooddell Phone: 937-343-8437 Email: gary.wooddell@dla.mil

Contracting Activity:

DLA Contracting Services Office- Philadelphia 700 Robbins Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19111-5092 POC: Daniel Washington Phone: 215-737-2587 Email: Daniel.washington@dla.mil

2. NATURE AND DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTION BEING APPROVED:

Pursuant to FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), the action being approved is an exception to the fair opportunity process. This justification authorizes the use of other than full and open competition to award a firm-fixed price task order for the GEX Electronic Business (EBUS) Program Support.

This acquisition will be a sole source award under the GEX Core Task Order SP4709-18-F-0004, which was competitively awarded via the J6 Enterprise Technology Services (JETS) contract vehicle. The GEX Core contract Task Order RFQ provided instruction that all subsequent task orders would be issued on a sole source basis to the GEX Core Task Order awardee. The GEX Core Task Order was awarded to Northrop Grumman on November 13, 2017.

mailto:gary.wooddell@dla.mil

3. DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES OR SERVICES REQUIRED TO MEET THE

AGENCY’S NEED/ESTIMATED DOLLAR AMOUNT:

The GEX Electronic Business (EBUS) Program Support task order requires contractor support in the area of day-to-day production operational support of the Global Exchange (GEX), the Defense Logistics Management Standard (DLMS) data translation processing, and Message Queuing (MQ) support which is used as the underlying enterprise service bus of the GEX environment.

This task order is required to allow the DAAS to continue uninterrupted GEX production operations support vital to DoD’s mission to modernize and transform the financial capabilities across the DoD. The estimated dollar value of this firm fixed price task order is $7,220,338.80 with a period of performance from April 1, 2020 through March 31, 2021.

4. IDENTIFICATION OF THE EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY (SEE FAR

16.505(b)(2)) AND THE SUPPORTING RATIONALE, INCLUDING A

DEMONSTRATION THAT THE PROPOSED CONTRACTOR’S UNIQUE

QUALIFICATIONS OR THE NATURE OF THE ACQUISITION REQUIRES USE OF

THE EXCEPTION CITED:

Per FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B), an exception to the fair opportunity process is justified because only one awardee is capable of providing the GEX services required at the level of quality required because the GEX services are unique and highly specialized. The GEX provides unique, specialized services to the entire DoD community and is a critical application for the Department. Northrop Grumman, and their Contracting Teaming Arrangement (CTA) partner Rainbow Data Systems, Inc., the current GEX contractors, are the only contractors that currently have the capability to provide GEX skilled resources who can support the GEX services required by the Government. Awarding to another contractor with no GEX experience would lead to mission failure, causing a disruption in transactional flow across the Department.

The GEX is utilized across all DoD agencies and is important in the total technical environment of the Government as it provides data translation and data routing capabilities across DoD, as well as to the Department of Homeland Security, Department of the Treasury, and the General Services Administration (GSA). The GEX infrastructure is a homogenous environment where the data translation and integration efforts run as part of the GEX infrastructure. All components of the GEX work in tandem as a single software solution, where the GEX coordinates the processing workflow across the numerous data translation maps. The data translation maps require data be provided by the GEX in order to properly and accurately translate the data. The tightly coupled design of the infrastructure allows the GEX to process extremely high data volumes in a very efficient manner. Due to the homogenous nature of the environment, the data translation and integration requirements can overlap with GEX core software changes. As a result, the Government has a need for Northrop Grumman (and CTA Rainbow Data who is currently providing all other GEX services, to perform the data translation and integration requirements. To fulfill a customer requirement, there often has to be both a data translation map developed and a GEX core update completed, which includes items like customized data reporting, data marts, data translation and validation routines that utilize the GEX core communication functionality. Both actions (data translation and GEX core software) must be worked via a single effort to ensure that the solution is consistently developed and delivered as a single, integrated solution. If the single developer, Northrop Grumman (and CTA Rainbow Data), is not used, then the data integration items would not work properly with the GEX core, resulting in an unusable environment and mission failure. This would result in software components that cannot be integrated together, the data integration maps would be unable to communicate with the GEX software, the audit trails within the GEX software would be broken with negative impact to system auditability. In order to overcome these issues, the Government would need to procure additional services to integrate disconnected services into a single solution, which would negate the benefits and efficiencies of having a single, integrated software solution. These types of issues would lead to an immediate, negative impact to the Warfighter when transactions stop flowing because solutions cannot be properly integrated together into a single system.

The GEX Core Task Order was competed under the JETS contract vehicle and awarded to Northrop Grumman (and CTA Rainbow Data). The use of another contractor would lead to mission failure given they do not currently have working knowledge of GEX source code and how to integrate data translation maps into the GEX software; such knowledge would require training from current GEX personnel and is necessary to effectively support the GEX environment.

GEX has been in production serving DoD systems for over 18 years and currently supports hundreds of unique Information Technology (IT) systems and over 38,000 specific data channels.

DAAS is responsible for the engineering and implementation of the GEX and supporting the integrations of new customer requirements on GEX. The GEX processing volumes are continuing to rise at a rate of 10-12% per year due to new efforts being deployed on the GEX such as Funds Balance with Treasury, Procurement Data Standard, and Purchase Request Data Standard. These new efforts and expanded data volumes require additional support personnel to handle the added growth. Due to the combined effect of numerous DoD components who are modernizing their infrastructure as well as their data standardization efforts, DAAS has recently expanded the GEX infrastructure footprint. As a result, additional contractor support is required for production operations of the new infrastructure.

Failure to award this requirement will result in major disruption to the DAAS mission as traffic volumes continue to grow. Without this additional support, GEX customers would have to deal with degraded production support with unwelcome downtime. As discussed above, Northrop Grumman (and CTA Rainbow Data) is the only source capable of providing the GEX services support required for production operations of the new infrastructure at the level of quality required because the GEX services are unique and highly specialized.

5. A DETERMINATION BY THE CONTRACTING OFFICER THAT THE

ANTICIPATED COST TO THE GOVERNMENT WILL BE FAIR AND REASONABLE:

As the Contracting Officer, I hereby determine that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable. It is anticipated that the Government will use various price analysis techniques including, but not limited to: (1) Comparison of proposed prices to historical prices paid; (2) Comparison of proposed prices with independent Government cost estimates; and (3)

Comparison of proposed prices obtained through market research for the same or similar items.

6. ANY OTHER FACTS SUPPORTING THE JUSTIFICATION:

N/A.

7. A STATEMENT OF THE ACTIONS, IF ANY, THE AGENCY MAY TAKE TO

REMOVE OR OVERCOME ANY BARRIERS THAT LED TO THE EXCEPTION TO

FAIR OPPORUNITY BEFORE ANY SUBSEQUENT ACQUISITION FOR THE

SUPPLIES OR SERVICES IS MADE:

The GEX Core Task Order was issued as a competitive task order under JETS, but only one vendor submitted an offer and was therefore the only source capable of meeting the Government’s requirements at that time. DLA plans to compete the follow on GEX requirement when the JETS GEX Core Task Order expires in November 2020. If another JETS vendor demonstrates their capability to support GEX requirements during the follow-on competition, DLA will award to the best value offeror. DLA will seek to award other GEX requirements competitively to the extent practicable and consistent with providing effective support to the GEX program.

8. CERTIFICATIONS.

Technical Certification: I hereby certify that the support data provided for which I am responsible and which form a basis for this justification are complete and accurate.

Tracy Frueauf DATE

COR

Strategic Vendor Management (J6TE)

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

Daniel J. Washington DATE Contracting Officer DLA Contracting Services Office (Philadelphia)

In accordance with FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(C)(2), I have determined that FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B) applies and I approve this justification.

Assunta Bonanno DATE Competition Advocate

DLA Contracting Services Office (Philadelphia)