JEFO_BRT_III_Redacted.pdf

Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity

1. Identification of the agency and contracting activity:

a. Federal agency and contracting activity: Department of Health and Human Service, National Institutes of Health (HHS NIH)

b. Sponsoring organization: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Computer Technology Branch (CTB)

c. Project Officer information:

i. Project Officer name:

ii. Mailing address:

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences 111 T.W. Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park, NC 27709

iii. E-mail address:

iv. Telephone number:

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved:

a. Acquisition purpose and objectives:

This justification is for the issuance of a logical follow-on task order to Attain, LLC., 1600 Tysons Blvd Ste 1400, McLean, VA 22102-4893, under the National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC), Chief Information Officer – Solutions and Partners 3 (CIO-SP3) Small Business Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) HHSN316201200117W.

The task order will provide continued system development and implementation of the “Budget Resource Tracking (BRT) application, which implements a common budget and resource tracking tool across the Institute.

b. Project background:

The BRT application implementation is a highly visible and mission critical effort having momentous impact Agency-wide on the formulation of the budget, a very time-sensitive and crucial process. Task order HHSN31600003, a (3) three-year task order, provides for Budget Resource Tracking Application Modernization Phase II or BRT Phase II as well as BRT Phase III for NIEHS; however, NIEHS has determined that solution development and implementation will take longer than anticipated three years for completion and implementation (Phase III).

NIEHS originally envisioned full system development to be completed within three years. This has proven not to be the case. Through progressive elaboration NIEHS has better defined its requirements for the BRT system whereas the requirements in the original effort were high-level. System integration requirements with a hodge-podge of legacy systems has proven to be significantly more complicated than envisioned. NIEHS has had to engage programs more rigorously to ensure successful user acceptance and successful migration of data to the new system; this has introduced several Government delays, pushing development milestones to the right of the project schedule by several months.

Project requirements have increased over time as Institute stakeholders fully realize BRT’s potential, which has also pushed development milestones to the right of the project schedule by several months.

Significant core development remains to be completed to achieve full system delivery (not just core function delivery).

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

a. Project title: “NIEHS Budget Resource Tracking (BRT) Phase III”

b. Project description: The task order objectives are as follows:

• Complete development of Must-Have Requirements:

o NPDR Replacement o Support Services and Operating Functions o Scientific Director o Reporting o Space

• Complete development of Strongly-Desired Requirements:

o Passport and Visa o Long Term Budget Forecasting o Unfunded Program Requests – DIR Subcommittee

• Complete development of Nice-to-Have Requirements:

o Operating Plan Enhancement o Replace SOFie as a Data Source o Additional Reporting o Other Enhancements Requested by Customers

• Support Operations and Maintenance of current BRT

• System User Training

i. Requirement type:

Research & development (R&D) R & D support services Support services (non-R&D) Supplies/equipment Information technology (IT) Construction Architect-engineer (A & E) services Design-build Other (specify): ____________________

ii. Type of action:

New requirement Follow-on

Other (specify): ______________________

iii. Proposed contract/order type:

Firm-fixed-price Other fixed-price (specify, e.g., fixed-price award-fee, fixed-price incentive-fee): __________ Cost-plus-fixed-fee Other cost reimbursement (specify, e.g., cost-plus-award-fee, cost-plus-incentive-fee):

Time and materials Indefinite delivery (specify whether indefinite quantity, definite quantity, or requirements): ___________ Other (specify): ___________ Completion Form Term form

iv. Acquisition identification number: Requisition No. 4292596

c. Total estimated dollar value and performance period: The total estimated dollar value is and the anticipated period of performance is 9/30/2016 through 9/29/2018.

4. Identification of the exception to fair opportunity (see 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:

In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C), this order is 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, in which all awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order.

Attain, LLC., was awarded a three-year task order in September 2014 to develop and implement the BRT application. Phase II of the project was scheduled to be completed within the first 24 months of that task order. Due to unforeseen delays and greater efforts in the development phase of the application, full development and implementation (Phase III) cannot be completed within the three-year task order period of performance. Attain has performed all the requirements gathering and development to date of the BRT application.

The Budget and Resource Tracking (BRT) project was commissioned to replace legacy PowerBuilder code and integrate Institute-wide budget and resource functions. In order to retire the PowerBuilder application and enhance budget and resource management processes (personnel, budgets, contracts and space management) at the Institute, Attain gathered requirements in Phase I of the project from all Divisions of the NIEHS. Attain is well equipped to implement a common budget and resource tracking tool across the Institute, modernize a suite of Division of Intramural Research (DIR) applications to current technologies that result in reducing operational risk within the Institute, gain overall efficiencies by reducing administrative burden on NIEHS staff, and achieve cost savings by eliminating the PowerBuilder application.

During Phase II, Attain identified an opportunity to leverage nVision downstream data access for all personnel and contracts related data, therefore eliminating the dependency on EDie licenses, and saving the Institute year in licensing costs. Additionally, Attain recommended that the NIEHS Projects and Disease Reporting System (NPDR) be built as part of BRT as a means of streamlining application development and enabling the retirement of three ColdFusion 7 applications.

https://www.acquisition.gov/far/current/html/Subpart%2016_5.html#wp1095799

Attain has a complete understanding of the outlined objectives and vision for the BRT tool. Attain has gathered the initial BRT requirements, designed the BRT architecture, worked daily with BRT stakeholders, and has developed the existing modules over the last three years. Attain began Phase II in 2014 and has continued to lead the project. Attain fully comprehends the requirements for new modules, the overall system design, and existing modules that are in operations and maintenance enabling the project team to hit the ground running.

This logical follow-on order is to complete Phase III of the project, which was anticipated in the original order. Any potential cost savings realized through competition of this effort would be largely offset by phase-in costs and time. The Government estimates that a phase-in period of 12 months would be required to enable a new contractor to effectively begin full performance. The incumbent, Attain, LLC., has spent approximately 3years establishing working relationships with NIEHS' Budget office and has a learned knowledge of the budgeting and execution process and its relationship within the Institute.

Attain, LLC., is intimately familiar with the NIEHS’ budgeting and execution process, data calls, data programs, data criteria, workflows, and are constantly collaborating and coordinating specific work details required between the different levels of information. A new contractor would take months to understand the basic concepts and the content of the budget and executing process, and able to make associations and coordination within the data definitions and criteria. In addition, a new contractor would have difficulty understanding and comprehending the synchronization of developing the data milestones associated with each identified data call.

Further, the training and associated learning curve of new, untrained contractor personnel performing the requirements in a time sensitive environment may lead to schedule slips and delays, and an overall degradation in executing the budget activities. The current milestone schedule has shifted to the right due to Government unforeseen changes in the requirement scope. At this stage, there is no additional room in the schedule for further shifts to the right. As previously stated, bringing in a new contractor at this point in the process lends a high probability, if not an absolute certainty, of schedule delays, and creates a potential of not meeting the "Go Live" date of .

A logical follow-on task order with Attain, LLC., will eliminate the need for a phase-in period, security clearance costs and delays, and negate the risk and time delay inherent in training, recruiting and orienting new staff. This approach represents the best value to the Government based on the services required in relation to the original order.

5. Determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

The proposed hourly labor rates will be verified to confirm that they do not exceed the established and negotiated labor rates in the contractor's basic CIO-SP3 contract. The level of effort and the mix of labor proposed will be evaluated to determine that the total price is reasonable for the effort. The Government will seek additional discounts off the established hourly labor rates under the basic contract.

6. Any other facts supporting the justification:

As the overall program objectives have not changed since the original effort was competed, it is not expected that any other source would submit a proposal to displace the incumbent contractor if provided such opportunity.