ID02120052-22_PCR_25_LSJ_OAA_Part_II_final_with_signatures_8.17.2015.pdf

Limited Source Justification

I. Agency and Contracting

Activity Requesting Activity

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Contracting Activity

General Services Administration Assisted Acquisition Services Division 26 Federal Plaza, Room 20-100 New York City, NY 10278

II. Description of Action

This contract action is for a sole source award of a modification to International Business Machines (IBM), 6300 Diagonal Highway, Boulder, CO 80301 for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Office of Academic Affiliations (OAA) solution to accommodate Workers without Compensation (WOC).

Description of Supplies/Services

The requesting activity has an awarded requirement for the design, development, testing, training, deployment, hosting, help desk support, and also operations and maintenance (O&M) services for an enterprise Human Resources Information System (HRIS) that will replace the legacy 50+ year old Personnel Accounting and Integrated Data (PAID) which is nearing its end of life. The new system, being provided by IBM, will provide VA Human Resource (HR) Specialists with personnel action processing capabilities, and both HR Specialists and all VA employees with benefits administration and compensation management capabilities. This enterprise system was designed to serve the entire VA and over 300,000 personnel.

The VA’s Office of Academic Affiliation’s (OAA) recent need to provide these services to Workers Without Compensation (WOC) was first addressed in Modification 020.

Modification 020 included the purchase of the required Oracle software licensing and maintenance as well as the IBM services to design, configure and test the core application functionality for the VA’s OAA processes for the WOC population.

This second part of the OAA’s WOC requirement covers the additional business requirement enhancements to the PeopleSoft core product including the ability to capture document attachments within the application which are required to support the business process. This change includes costs for enhancements to the VA IT architecture platform to provide the memory and storage capacity needed to support the document volume and incremental system resources needed to maintain the transactions and supporting documents on HR Smart. These changes to the HR PeopleSoft HCM application will enable a comprehensive system capture of electronic file attachments leading to improved efficiency and effectiveness of HR transactions and reporting purposes. The original system, when proposed and awarded, was to accommodate 320,000 users. The addition of the WOC requirement increased the user size to 370,000. The enhancements, included as part of this modification, will allow for the necessary storage, memory and volume needed to support these additional users.

Given the time constraints to acquire the software licensing at reduced vendor pricing while the requirements for the application enhancements were finalized, the WOC requirement was processed in two parts. The VA anticipates no further requirements for the OAA WOC, other than those described as part of this modification.

If these services are not awarded, the software and services acquired in the first part of the VA’s OAA’s WOC requirement, (Modification 020), cannot be implemented and utilized by the WOC population.

The total estimated value of this requirement is $3,771,420.00 which provides for service through 2022. The pricing is Firm Fixed Price (FFP) for each year of the service for this requirement. Annual funds (FY15) in the amount of $899,652.00 are provided and will be used for this effort for the current FY15 requirement. Out-year requirements will be funded with appropriate fiscal year dollars.

Authority Cited

FAR 8.405-6(a) (1)(i)(B) only one source is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the services are unique to the source (IBM).

IV. Reason for Authority Cited

The current contractor, IBM is the developer of the proprietary HRIS SSC solution VA is currently utilizing.

This action provide for improved overall business processing of personnel actions. Outlined below are the relevant factors relating to this effort:

a. The VA requirement is within scope as it provides the capture and storage of file attachments being created in the HR system and will contribute to the overall improvement of business process transactions.

b. The current Contractor, IBM is the developer of the “proprietary” HRIS SSC solution VA is currently utilizing. IBM solely owns and license’s the PeopleSoft based solution and is hosting the solution at its facilities.

c. Breaking out the services and purchasing them through multiple contracts would significantly increase the program risk and cause potential mission failure for program solutions. This approach presents a very high risk of interoperability and configuration control issues across the multiple contracts.

d. VA currently does not have the programmatic skills or subject matter expertise in the area of product application development.

This acquisition is being conducted under the authority of the Multiple Award Schedule Program. This justification is prepared in compliance with 8.405-6(a) (1) (i) (A), which authorizes the limiting of sources when “only one source is capable of proving the service.”

Based on the requesting activity’s needs, the intent of this procurement is to minimize cost and transition risk to meet critical mission requirements. IBM has all the necessary labor skill categories to meet the requirements.

VI. Efforts to Obtain Competition

Market research was conducted, details of which are included in the market research section of this document.

VII. Actions to Increase Competition

No actions were taken as this is a one-time upgrade with follow on operations and maintenance that must be performed by the developer of the system.

VIII. Market Research

In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 10.002 (Market Research – Procedures), the Government’s technical representatives conducted market research in June 2015. Market research consisted of a review of the GSA Connections II contract and the Veterans Technology Services Government-wide Acquisition Contract (VETS GWAC), and also VA’s Twenty-One total Technology (T4) program to identify potential sources that could fulfill VA’s requirements for HRIS SSC. The Government determined that there are no other qualified sources to perform this work nor at this level of security. IBM is the developer of the HRIS SSC solution using the Oracle PeopleSoft HR product and the solution is proprietary. Attempting to replace this vendor, its hosted locations, or its trained and productive personnel already in place will create an undue and unnecessary disruption to productivity and present inherent delays.

VIII. Interested Sources

(See paragraph VI, Efforts to Obtain Competition).

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

8/12/2015

Mark Ricciardi Date PM, OIT, PD, Department of Veterans Affairs

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

8/12/2015

Mark Ricciardi Date PM, OIT, PD, Department of Veterans Affairs

XI. Contracting Officer’s Certification

I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief, that the order represents the best value to the government and the anticipated cost to the government will be fair and reasonable. Based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve a sole-source modification to IBM, for the business requirements enhancements for the VA’s Office of Academic Affiliation’s Workers Without Compensation population.

8/13/2015

Charles Ade Date Contracting Officer

XII. Concurrence

I concur with the Contracting Officer’s determination.

Joe Urbanik Date Deputy Director

Jo-Ann Lee Director Date

Theresa Ramos Competition Advocate Date