DeCA_NIS_JA_-_clean_Redacted.pdf

DeCA Network Infrastructure Services

JUSTIFICATION & APPROVALS FOR FAR SUBPART 16.5

ACQUISITIONS

Multiple Award Schedule (MAS)/ Multiple Award Contract (MAC) Orders under MAC/ Fair Opportunity – FAR 16.505, DFARS 216.505-70, PGI 216.505-70

Purchase Request Number: MPLSIT15274001 and MPLSEI1527402 Contract Number: HC1028-08-D-2005 Task/Delivery Order Number: TBD Procurement Title: Network Infrastructure Support Services Transition Contracting Office: Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO) Estimated Value: $ Authority: FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B)

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

Number:

Upon the basis of the following justification, I, as the Procuring Activity Competition Advocate, hereby approve this exception to fair opportunity pursuant to the authority of FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B)

1. REQUIRING AGENCY AND CONTRACTING OFFICE:

Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) 1300 E Avenue, Building 11200 Fort Lee, VA 23801-1800

DISA/DITCO, PL8312

2300 East Drive, Building 3600 Scott AFB, IL 62225-5406

2. NATURE/DESCRIPTION OF ACTION(S): This acquisition is for a new, Firm-Fixed-Price task order to Harris IT Services under their ENCORE II contract for Network Infrastructure Services in support of DeCA. The acquisition will be funded utilizing Fiscal Year 2015 Defense Working Capital Fund and Surcharge funds.

3. DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES: DeCA operates approximately 245 commissaries, 10 central distribution centers and 4 regional offices worldwide to provide a premier quality of life benefit to the armed services. To accomplish this mission, DeCA is dependent upon its global infrastructure to support its core mission of selling groceries through its retail point of sale system and services, and other business functions such as, debit and credit card transaction authorizations, “just in time” product ordering, shipping, receiving, invoicing and billing, email, and payroll and personnel management. The integrity and reliability of this infrastructure is paramount to fulfilling its mission objectives in a manner that prevents unauthorized disclosure of data and unauthorized access to the infrastructure and sensitive business, personnel and customer data.

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The Government requires technical and operational support services to maintain the global network infrastructure, including Network Operations Center (NOC), Information Assurance (IA), Computer Network Defense (CND), and Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) programs implemented across the enterprise, and managed within the Information Technology/Telecommunications and Network Division at DeCA Headquarters, Fort Lee, VA.

The Performance Work Statement sets forth DeCA’s objectives that must be met when acquiring the NOC support and maintaining the IA, CND, and CIP programs.

4 Month Base period of performance: October 1, 2014 through January 31, 2015; $ 1 Month Option Period One: February 1, 2014 through February 28, 2015; $ 1 Month Option Period Two: March 1, 2015 through March 31, 2015; $

Estimated total life cycle cost of $

4. SUPPORTING RATIONALE, INCLUDING A DEMONSTRATION THAT THE

PROPOSED CONTRACTOR’S UNIQUE QUALIFICATIONS OR THE NATURE OF THE

ACQUISITION REQUIRES USE OF AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY:

(a) Exception to Fair Opportunity. FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(B). Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized.

(b) Description of the Justification. The proposed contractor, Harris IT Services, has been the incumbent providing DeCA with Network Infrastructure Services for the past 10 years.

Harris maintains a staff of highly qualified personnel and has developed unique and extensive expertise that are critical to enable DeCA’s network infrastructure to meet its operational requirements in support of the Agency’s mission. A competitive acquisition for these services was solicited as a small business set-aside to select General Services Administration (GSA) IT Schedule 70 contractors on September 2, 2014. However, as a large business, Harris IT Services is ineligible to compete for this effort. As such, a transition from Harris IT Services to the incoming contractor will be necessary; an effort that DeCA has determined will take approximately 60 calendar days. As the existing task order expires on September 30, 2014, the time for award and transition to a new contractor is insufficient without DeCA incurring a break in service. Accordingly, this effort is to continue support services in order to allow sufficient time to transition to the new contractor. Given these constraints, Harris IT Services is uniquely qualified to provide the services required for the period of performance specified above. No other contractor will be able to transition and assume full performance in sufficient time to prevent a break in service.

(c) Justification:

(1) Minimum Government requirements. To prevent a break in service, full performance is required by October 1, 2014. As mentioned above, DeCA estimates that at least a 60 calendar day transition will be required for a new contractor to assume full performance. Given this constraint, as the incumbent, Harris IT Services is uniquely

Page 2 of 6 Pages positioned to assume full performance on October 1, 2014. The period of performance has been limited to allow sufficient time for award of the new task order and transition to the follow-on contract, with options available for potential contingencies (e.g. delays in source selection, pre and or post award protest(s) of the new award, etc.).

(2) Proposed sole source contractor. Harris IT Services has been the incumbent contractor providing the required services for the past ten years. As such, Harris IT Services is capable of providing the required services after expiration of the existing contract on September 30, 2014. Any other contractor would require a lengthy transition time that would lead to a break in service and complete lack of operational support for DeCA’s network infrastructure. Historically, this requirement has been competed; however, the unique circumstances of this acquisition render Harris IT Services, as the incumbent, the only source capable of meeting the current requirement.

(3) Discussion regarding cause of the sole source situation. The current task order was awarded through GSA’s regional office in Philadelphia, PA under an Army-CHESS Blanket Purchase Agreement and ends on September 30, 2014. The current task order includes the clauses at FAR 52.217-8, Option to Extend Services, and FAR 52.237-3, Continuity of Services, but GSA made a decision that they would not be exercising the options or awarding/administering any follow-on actions for the requirement. As a result, this short-term task order is being awarded to Harris IT Services to continue providing services while the re-compete is executed.

For the follow-on acquisition, DeCA began preliminary requirements definition and market research for the competitive follow-on in November 2013. A primary driver in the time needed to execute the follow-on acquisition strategy was multiple iterations and attempts to gauge industry, particularly small business, and capability in meeting the requirements. Ultimately, these efforts led to the determination to set the requirement aside for small business under GSA IT Schedule 70 and the solicitation was issued September 2, 2014. Considering the current status and expiring predecessor effort, the time available to conduct the follow-on source selection and transition to a new contractor by October 1, 2014 is insufficient and will cause DeCA to incur a break in service.

(4) Demonstration of unique source. While Harris IT Services is not generally the only source capable of providing the required services, they are the only source capable of providing the required services within the schedule constraints identified above.

(5) Procurement discussion. As identified above, the primary constraint associated with this acquisition is the schedule. Given that the existing contract expires on September 30, 2014, the contractor must be in place to assume full performance on October 1, 2014 without DeCA incurring an unacceptable break in service. The competitive follow-on solicitation was released on September 2, 2014 and it is anticipated that

Page 3 of 6 Pages award/transition will begin on December 1, 2014, and full performance will begin on February 1, 2015.

(6) Impact: If this exception to fair opportunity were not pursued, DeCA would incur a break in service for operational support of its network infrastructure, leading to degradation or failure of the network altogether. This would have an enormous detrimental effect on DeCA accomplishing its agency’s mission as the services provided under the current task order support all voice and data network connectivity for point-of-sale, inventory, financial, and store support systems serving over 15,000 employees at 245 store locations and 14 supporting locations worldwide. DeCA serves approximately 5.3 million authorized active and retired military households, and handles approximately 94 million customer transactions per year, with annual sales in excess of $5B. A supported and stable network infrastructure is required to maintain this vital military benefit. Additionally, the DeCA network contractor team is currently engaged in design and implementation for 15 active business initiatives, including projects for legal and regulatory compliance, which will have to be halted if this exception to fair opportunity is not approved.

5. COST/PRICE FAIR AND REASONABLE DETERMINATION: The basic labor rates on the existing ENCORE II contract have already been determined fair and reasonable. In addition, other direct costs and travel will be provided on a cost reimbursable basis subject to agreed upon cost ceilings, Contracting Officer’s Representative approval to incur costs, and assurance of the approved accounting and purchasing systems in place for Harris IT Services. Thus, the extent of determining price fair and reasonable will be limited to the appropriateness of the skill mix (i.e.

labor categories) and number of labor hours proposed. This will be determined through evaluation of Harris’s technical proposal and comparison to historical pricing on the existing contract and/or similar services on other task orders awarded under the ENCORE II contracts.

If those methods are insufficient, pricing can be compared to the independent Government estimate, and other than certified cost or pricing data may be requested.

6. MARKET RESEARCH: Market research was conducted by posting a sources sought request to Federal Business Opportunities. From this notice, it was determined that the requirement could potentially be fulfilled by small business via GSA IT Schedule 70. To confirm that strategy, an additional sources sought notice requesting more detailed capability information was sent to the initial small business respondents. Review of those responses confirmed that small business GSA IT Schedule 70 contract holders could generally fulfill this requirement. As such, a solicitation was issued on September 2, 2014, to acquire a long-term solution for operational support of DeCA’s network infrastructure with full performance beginning on February 1, 2015.

However, given the schedule constraints of the immediate acquisition, Harris IT Services is the only contractor in position to assume full performance on October 1, 2014.

7. ANY OTHER SUPPORTING FACTS: N/A

8. ACTIONS THE AGENCY MAY TAKE TO REMOVE OR OVERCOME BARRIERS

THAT LED TO THE EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY:

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(a) Procurement History. DeCA's current task order, W91QUZ-07-D-0001 (GST0310DS8022) was awarded to Harris IT Services Corporation, with a base plus four option years (period of performance May 1, 2010 thru September 30, 2014). GSA (Philadelphia, PA) issued this contract under Army CHESS ITES-2S with GSA Order #R3094117. It is a Time & Material type contract. The previous task order, W91QUZ- 07-D-0001 (GST0304DS0339) was awarded to MultiMax Incorporated and was issued by Army Contracting Agency-ITEC4. In October 2008, the offeror name changed from MultiMax Incorporated to Harris IT Services Corporation, as MultiMax was acquired by Harris Corporation. MultiMax was a small business, but became a large business sometime after the offeror name changed to Harris IT Services Corporation.

(b) As mentioned above, a competitive small business set-aside follow-on effort to assume full performance on February 1, 2015 is already in process. As such, it is not anticipated that there will be any future barriers to competition for this requirement.

(c) The previous awards were competed without utilizing an exception to the fair opportunity process. However, the circumstances of this particular acquisition, given the schedule constraints, are unique when compared to the previous awards.

9. REFERENCE TO THE APPROVED ACQUISITION PLAN (AP): A Memorandum for Record for Sole Source 'High-Risk' Acquisition Planning was completed IAW DARS 7.103(S- 90).

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TECHNICAL CERTIFICATION: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the J&A are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

REQUIREMENTS CERTIFICATION: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the J&A are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

CONTRACTING OFFICER CERTIFICATION: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

PROCURING ACTIVITY COMPETITION ADVOCATE APPROVAL: I have reviewed this justification and find it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Since this justification does not exceed $ , this review serves as approval.

ALL QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS JUSTIFICATION ARE TO BE REFERRED TO

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