FOE_FWS_PDF.pdf

Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity Pursuant to FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C)

1. Identification of the Agency and the Contracting Activity:

Contracting Activity: Customer Agency:

General Services Administration (GSA) U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) 5275 Leesburg Pike Office of Assisted Acquisition Services (AAS) Falls Church, VA 22041 7th & D Streets, SW, Rm. 6109 Washington, DC 20407

2. Nature/Description of Action being Approved:

Approval is sought for the GSA, FAS, AAS Division to award a firm fixed price service order under Washington Interagency Telecommunications System (WITS) 3 contract GS11T08BJD6001, to Verizon Federal, Inc. located in Ashburn, VA.

3. A description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs (including the estimated value):

The GSA is interested in improving efficiency by helping other Federal Agencies save money and reduce space. The purpose of this project is to obtain solutions to support Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) new Headquarters facility technical infrastructure including: facility cable plant, LAN, IP telephony/VOIP, Audio/ Visual, facility security, and local telephone services. Professional services associated with implementing these solutions will include provisions for design, project management, delivery, installation as well as commissioning services.

Total Workplace is designed to enable agencies that otherwise lack the necessary upfront funds required to move into new space to leverage the Acquisition Services Fund’s (ASF) cash position to implement right-sizing and mobility within their operations. In this arrangement, GSA FAS will purchase furniture and IT commodities to lease to other executive agencies as part of the effort to facilitate the space consolidation.

Due to the infrastructure changes onsite, and the fact that this is the pilot for the Total Workplace initiative, not every element of this requirement was realized until after the work had begun, and, in the case of this order, after all the orders for this initiative have expired. In particular, for this addendum FWS requires that a portion of their existing AV infrastructure be reprogrammed to meet their requirements. The system was installed by Verizon and their subcontractor KLC, with Crestron AV infrastructure programming performed by Duracom. FWS requires the AV programming of three of their conference rooms redone to provide the functionality listed below. Additionally, FWS requires that eight of the existing spaces where video displays are currently installed be modified to provide video/audio content connectivity to the display devices. The solution must seamlessly integrate with the existing AV infrastructure that Verizon installed at the FWS HQ office.

4. Identification of the Statutory Authority and the Supporting Rationale:

In accordance with FAR Part 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C). The order must be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and efficiency because it is a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the contract, provided that all awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order.

a. The customer provided GSA a Statement of Work (SOW) for the WITS 3 contractors to propose solutions for. GSA forwarded these requirements to both

Verizon and Level 3. GSA utilized the “lowest priced, technically acceptable” evaluation criteria. GSA evaluated the entire list of CLINs/prices proposed by both vendors. Upon award to Verizon on April 4, 2014 and subsequent review of the initial proposal, the customer made the decision to upgrade some of the proposed AV equipment in an effort to support the elimination of workspace and provide a more efficient work environment.

b. The original order provided that the contractor would use the existing cable trays and J-hooks. However, the environment changed after award. The timeframe to complete the work and the period of performance wasn’t changed, but additional work is still needed.

c. It is recommended that this requirement be procured as a logical follow-on in the interest of economy and efficiency. This change in requirement is due to changes in site design and recently discovered portions of this procurement. The additional time required to solicit bids for this additional work, evaluate responses and verify CLINs/prices would take an unnecessarily amount of extra time.

Additionally, the risk of selecting a different contractor to complete the project would cause a disruption/delay in completing the project, and would cause problems with identifying the source of any warranty or quality issues.

d. FWS is looking for an efficient, effective, and sustainable workplace and an increase in productivity across the overall space, all at a cost savings to the Govt.

Total Workplace takes aim at these goals by offering collaborative conferencing systems with environmental controls, resource sharing, easy to use interfaces and state of the industry technologies. The primary goal of designing collaborative systems is achieved by leveraging existing IP based technologies and resources to connect users and groups, allowing them to manipulate and share content/ideas in real-time, regardless of their physical location. Through the use of IP based videoconferencing, large interactive displays, and other collaborative tools, users can present ideas, edit content and finish deliverables within a single conference with both internal and external participants. This is the definition of an efficient and effective collaboration environment. Most of the proposed conferencing systems incorporate the same technologies across the space, providing the requisite level of efficiency and redundancy. Though some of the spaces vary in size, technology resources such as videoconferencing codecs with multisite capabilities may be shared among conference rooms. This reduces footprint and leverages technology investments, producing a significant cost savings to the Govt. Applying consistent, easy to use interfaces allows occupants to be instantly productive regardless of the space in which they are working. This solution also provides a level of environmental controls for both natural and electrical lighting. These controls may be manipulated by the end user or via the LAN where administrators may account for usage, time of day settings, and configure automatic changes such as end of day protocols.

Total Workplace reduces travel requirements, provides environmental controls, agility and scalability, redundancy and efficiency; all factors that contribute to greater cost savings and sustainability to the Government.

5. A determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the

Government will be fair and reasonable:

GSA has already determined the prices of the supplies and services under the WITS 3 contract, including rates for services offered at fixed hourly rates, to be fair and reasonable at the contract level. The proposed rates will be verified to confirm that they don’t exceed the WITS rates. The level of effort and the mix of labor and products proposed will be evaluated to determine that the total price is reasonable for the effort. The Govt. will seek additional discounts off of the established rates under the master contract.

6. A description of the market research conducted among schedule holders and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted:

The Govt. anticipates the award of a task order to the incumbent contractor, Verizon Federal, Inc., on a non-competitive basis under their current WITS 3 Schedule Contract GS11T08BJD6001. It’s anticipated that no cost savings would be achieved by competing this requirement for the additional supplies/ services, taking into consideration the cost associated with additional administrative burden. As such, no additional market research was performed for this order. In accordance with FAR 16.505(b) the Exception to Fair Opportunity will be posted on FedBizOpps within 14 days after award for a minimum of 30 days.

7. Any other facts supporting the justification:

There are no other known facts.

8. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or over-come any barriers that led to the restricted consideration before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made:

In an effort to ensure adequate competition for future requirements, GSA will ensure that all additional requests for additional or upgraded services and/or supplies in support of this Total Workplace project on behalf of FWS will be initiated and executed in accordance with the Fair Opportunity process outlined in FAR Subpart 16.505.

9. Approval:

Based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the procurement in support of the FWS Total Workplace project in accordance with, and pursuant to FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C).

Daniel Keith Higgins Contracting Officer

NCR FAS