Limited_Sources_Justification_FINAL_Redacted.pdf

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL

LIMITED SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

FOR FEDERAL SUPPLY SCHEDULE (FSS) AWARD (FAR 8.4)

1. Contracting Agency and Activity.

The Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services (WHS), Acquisition Directorate (AD) on behalf of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (OUSD) Personnel & Readiness Office of

Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity (ODMEO)/Defense Equal Opportunity Management

Institute (DEOMI) plans to contract by means other than full and open competition.

2. Nature of Action Being Approved.

A new firm-fixed-price Federal Supply Schedule task order is to Human Resources Technologies, Inc.

via GSA Schedule 70, contract number GS-35F-0290M. This requirement is a continuation from the latest Air Force contract FA2521-14-F-0096. The Period of Performance being sought is scheduled to begin no later than 14 July 2015 to 13 July 2016 with four one-year option periods.

3. Description of Supplies or Services.

The OUSD Personnel & Readiness ODMEO/DEOMI has a Service and National Defense Authorization

Act (NDAA 2013/2014) mandate to assess, train, educate, research, develop, knowledge management, and consult related to human relations issues intra-service and DOD-wide. The NDAA 2013/2014 required the DOD to immediately implement measures to facilitate, conduct, and report Unit Climate

Assessments with a specialized focus on Sexual Assault and Response. As a result, this procurement for a Unit Climate Assessment and Performance Improvement System (UCAPIS) is the mandated system for all DOD Services, Service Academies, the Coast Guard, and Coast Guard Academy.

The purpose of UCAPIS is to incorporate multiple Equal Opportunity/Equal Employment Opportunity surveys such as: Defense Equal Opportunity Climate Survey (DEOCS), Federal Equal Opportunity

Climate Survey (FEOCS), DEOMI Diversity Management Climate Survey, Commanders Feedback

Survey, and the Customer Service Feedback Survey. The process is to incorporate various specialized functions to instantiate an efficient multi-functional, multi-level assessment to solution process for all of

DOD. The UCAPIS major objectives are:

Support the DOD and others as directed on assessment, training, education, research, development, knowledge management (clearinghouse), and consultation related to human relations issues intra-service and DOD-wide.

Provide for prescriptive assessment to solutions system.

Perform administrative functions for UCAPIS as required.

The total estimated dollar value of this procurement is $23,867,017.27 utilizing current year operations and maintenance funding. The base year will use FY15 funding. The following is a cost breakdown by option.

UYear UPeriod of Performance UEstimated Price

Base 12 Months $4,327,470.34

Option Year 1 12 Months $4,670,480.16

Option Year 2 12 Months $4,810,594.57

Option Year 3 12 Months $4,954,912.41

Option Year 4 12 Months $5,103,559.78

This requirement was previously procured as a sole source acquisition by the Air Force 45 th

Contracting

Squadron, Patrick Air Force Base. The previous justifications included Urgent and Compelling and

Only One Source for their FY14 and FY13 bridge requirements, respectively. (See Attached for the current Limited Source Justification). Based on the previous FY14 justification, it was DEOMI’s intention to compete this requirement during the next procurement cycle. However, DEOMI determined that it would cost more and delay the schedule to compete as the Government would have to start from the ground-up as the current platform is proprietary. Based on historical information, DEOMI determined that to create a Government owned commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) modified system would take two to three years to develop with an additional 18 months for DOD to license the system for use. This licensure would include approvals at Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) level in respect to security, system approval and certifications, protection of human subjects, impact or total cost to the

Force, psychometric characteristic of the Survey, etc. A five-year LSJ approval would allow the

Government sufficient time to strategically implement a COTS solution (See Section 9 for specific details).

4. Statutory Authority.

The specific statutory authority that justifies restriction for this acquisition is 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 supplies or services are unique or highly specialized.

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Citation in No. 4.

The DEOCS, which is the starting point for UCAPIS, was designed using HRTec’s proprietary platform system. DEOMI attempted to compete the effort in FY12; however, the awarded provider was not able to secure the necessary data rights from HRTec to perform the work (See Section 8 for more details).

The Air Force and HRTec tried to negotiate satisfactory terms for the resolution of the data rights, but they were unsuccessful. The proposed, and previous performance work statement (PWS), allows the

Government unlimited data rights to the contractor provided information contained on DEOMI.org.

However, the survey and legacy data is not included because the survey and its data is not hosted nor administered through DEOMI.org but rather DEOCS.net.

If the Government competed for a new ground-up re-creation, the Government would lose years of the aforementioned proprietary data which would have a negative impact the Government. The legacy data enables the Services, Equal Opportunity representatives, and individual commanders to review and evaluate trends within their respective services and across the DOD because of the 10 years of accumulated data. The legacy data would be useless and inaccessible without the proprietary HRTec platform. Additionally, DEOMI would be unable to provide the Services, DOD, Congressional, and

President of the United States. roll-up reports that provide input to policies relating to EO/EEO and human relations issues which depend on analyzing the trends for validity and accuracy. When the

Government is exercising the steps to overcome competition, they will be looking at the requirement strategically and take the appropriate steps to lead to a COTS solution (See Section 9 for additional details).

Procuring UCAPIS services through HRTec is the most resource effective, timely, scalable and adaptable solution to meet DOD requirements. DEOCS automated and database functionality has been tailored around an existing HRTec platform. Due to continual budget constraints, the option to tailor around this platform was and remains significantly less expensive to the Department of Defense (DOD).

This solution provides superior functional scalability and adaptability for shifting requirements based upon changes in DOD mandates compared to a Government owned and managed system or Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) platform. A new COTS platform would have exorbitant lifecycle costs, especially up front, and the lack of scalability and adaptability will not meet the Department of Defense (DOD) requirements short or long term. DEOCS functional requirements continue to shift rapidly to meet evolving DOD requirements for climate assessments and reporting. A new COTS solution is not feasible now; however, the Government is taking steps to overcome this barrier of competition (See

Section 9 for the specific steps).

The survey and administration process is required to be licensed by OSD. This process has historically taken more than 18 months to complete. This licensure included approvals at the OSD level with respect to security, system approval and certifications, protection of human subjects, impact or total cost to the Force, psychometric characteristic of the Survey, and a number of other checks. Licensure of a new survey could result in long delays in the DOD meeting the new requirement. Furthermore, development of a completely government owned system could also take more than 2 to 3 years to complete and/or tailoring of a COTS system to have complete DEOCS functionality could take a similar amount of time. Such delays of course would have unacceptable impacts on the DOD. Also, in order to alleviate a gap in Service additional indirect costs would be incurred by having to keep the current

DEOCS service fully operational concurrent with the new DEOCS development, modification, and licensure effort. Lastly, part of the adoption of a government owned system would require additional civilian manpower in order to operate, manage, maintain, and tailor the new system. Another indirect cost incurred would be the burden of developing and delivering effective new training programs for all existing Military Equal Opportunity Advisors, Sexual Assault Response Coordinators, Equal

Employment Opportunity professional and others, in order to be able to utilize, interpret, and support their Commanders and Supervisors with a new tool with new interfaces, reports, and products.

HRTec currently employs the only individuals anywhere who possess the DEOCS-specific scientific knowledge relating to Sexual Assault Prevention. HRTec individuals have also developed key internal and external business processes related to Commander and customer service, process automation, analysis and other activities that would be impossible to duplicate elsewhere without significant performance impacts and a steep learning curve with new personnel.

6. Determination of Fair and Reasonable Cost/Price.

The Contracting Officer will ensure that the resulting task-order price is fair and reasonable per FAR

8.404(d) and FAR 15.404-1(b). The price will be determined fair and reasonable via the use of price analysis based on the comparison of prior efforts of similar size and scope and by comparing the proposal to the independent government cost estimate.

7. The Efforts to Identify Additional Sources Including the Market Research Conducted.

Initial market research of current and expanded requirements revealed that there are currently 7,233 small businesses (SBs) providing HR services. Of these 7,233 SB companies, 128 specialize in Equal

Employment Opportunity (EEO), which includes Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR).

Additionally, these companies have at their disposal 240 commercial survey software applications. Furthermore, research of a Capterra software analysis, revealed that 15 of these commercially available software applications could be adapted to meet DEOMI service requirements

(applications and support services). A technical evaluation of the best candidate software was conducted. This was COGNOS by IBM. Though the best candidate within the current commercial market, it was found that the lack of adaptability of this system would make it difficult to adapt to meet

DEOCS currently requirements, future tailorabilty was also questionable. The upfront development and yearly life-cycle maintenance costs to tailor the IBM software were estimated to be much greater than what the DEOCS platform hardware and software currently cost. Though market research shows available sources to solicit services, research concluded that development of a new system or procurement or the adaptation of a COTS system would be cost prohibitive, threaten the meeting of

DoD current and evolving requirements, create high indirect costs and new training requirement, time delays in implementation, and the possible loss of key expertise and efficiencies in business process which is unique to HRTec.

A new Sources Sought Notice was not issued for the purposes of this justification as the requirement for limited sources justification is not based off market capability but the program requirement and its proprietary information. At this time, if this procurement was awarded to other than HRTec, the

Government would lose years of legacy data as the information was built around HRTec’s platform.

Additionally, a new system would be schedule prohibitive due to the amount of time it would take to design and build a Government owned system and license the system within the DOD standards.

8. Other Facts

Air Force 45th Contracting Squadron awarded a competitive DEOCS contract to Micropact

Engineering, Inc on 12 September 2012. Once the contract was awarded, a GAO protest was received from the incumbent contractor, HRTec, stating they have ownership and intellectual property rights to the DEOCS. During the research it was revealed that HRTec does own some of the system; however, the final determination was still being negotiated. Since Micropact Engineering cannot perform in accordance with the contract a Termination of Convenience was completed for Micropact. In order to further avoid mission impact, it was in the best interest of the Government to issue a sole source bridge task order to HRTec for six months. The intended nature of this agreement was to create a six month bridge between DEOMI and HRTec to facilitate and support operation of the DEOCS/FEOCS system, DEOMI.ORG and DEFENSECULTURE.ORG, while ensuring full transfer of all data, rights to

DEOMI.org, rights of DEFENSECULTURE.ORG and the leasing and/or support of any/all programs, code, algorithms or other items required to support DEOCS/FEOCS for DEOMI. The Air Force attempted to negotiate the data rights to allow for a competition but was unsuccessful.

DEOMI’s first experience in competing this requirement was very unsuccessful in respect to these critical services. For six months, DEOMI had no access to their website, which is a depository for products critical to the ability of all EO Advisors throughout the DoD and all Commanders throughout the DoD to address EO/EEO related issues and to conduct approved effective training. The six months down period eliminated the DoD's ability to comply with the NDAA, Secretary of Defense, and

Secretary of each service’s mandated requirements to complete their DEOCS, eliminated the ability to provide executive level consultation/report summaries to the one star/Senior Executive Service and above level, essentially all the services included with this requirement were at a standstill which had a very drastic impact throughout the DoD for commanders, EO advisors and for DEOMI’s ability to maintain an uncut stream of data crucial to our ability to provide the most accurate reports to the most senior level commanders (policy makers).

9. Actions to Overcome Barriers to Competition.

DEOMI developed a milestone schedule as a way to move to a competitive award. Prior to exercising any option, DEOMI will provide WHS/AD a brief summary report of all actions completed during the previous year and any changes to the proposed timeline as part of the option exercise package. This timeline is listed below.

- By the end of the UCAPIS (DEOCS) Base year (FY15-FY16), the Government will have recommended to ODMEO the need to acquire funding through the Program Objective

Memorandum (POM) to develop a replacement to the incumbent UCAPIS. WHS/AD will pursue acquiring unlimited data rights for all legacy data from HRTec for the use in a future competition. DEOMI will develop a detailed Statement of Objectives for the future release of a

Request for Information (RFI) to industry in an effort to garner the information necessary from industry subject matter experts to better draft a development Performance Work Statement and its required documents.

- By the end of the UCAPIS (DEOCS) first option year (FY16-FY17), the Government will have issued a detailed RFI to industry seeking the necessary information to determine what is required to build a replacement system, what software is necessary, what are all the individual pieces needed to make a replacement system work on day one in the same manner as the incumbent system currently does.

- By the end of the UCAPIS (DEOCS) second option year (FY17-FY18), if certified funding was received, DEOMI will conduct necessary market research, review any/all RFIs received, and summarize the information received from industry in order to begin to draft a PWS and required documents.

- By the end of the UCAPIS (DEOCS) third option year (FY18-FY19), DEOMI will issue via

WHS/AD a revised Development PWS/Request for Proposal and continue to complete the required documents.

- By the end of the UCAPIS (DEOCS) fourth option year (FY19-FY20), DEOMI will review any/all proposals received from industry and provided recommendations to WHS/AD based on requirements and reviews of proposals received. WHS/AD will award a new contract for this effort.

10. Technical Certification:

I certify that any supporting data that is the responsibility of the requirements personnel and which form the basis for this justification is complete and accurate.

LT MARK PAGE Date

Contracting Officer Representative

Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute

11. Contracting Officer Certification:

I have reviewed the justification and find it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

REGINALD O. SOLOMON Date

Contracting Officer

WHS/AD

12. Competition Advocate Approval:

I have reviewed the justification and recommend approval per 8.405-6(d)(2).

WENDY R. SCHERMERHORN Date

Competition Advocate

WHS/AD

13. Head of Contracting Activity, Acquisition Directorate

DAVID E. DORNBURGH Date

Acting Director