JRAMS_Limited_Source_Justification_Redacted.pdf

Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity Task ID07170029

In Accordance with FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(B)

1) Identification of the Agency, Contracting Activity, and Document being approved:

Document Identification: Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity Procurement Office: Federal Acquisition Service (FAS), GSA Region 7, AOD (7QSBNC) Description: Task order for operation of the JRAMS/LTHMS system for the US Air Force Legacy Tanker Division (AFLCMC/WKD) based at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.

Task Number: Bridge Task Order ID07170029 Period of Performance (PoP): One Year (05/01/2017 – 04/30/2018) Contractor Name: Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) (DUNS 007936842) Procurement Vehicle: OASIS Pool 3 Exception A (NAICS 541330) Total Estimated Value: $258,833.00

2) Nature and/or Description of action being approved:

This Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity is issued in support of a new task order not to exceed one year (365 days) (with inclusion of FAR 52.217-8 Option to Extend Services for up to an additional six (6) months) in order to provide the necessary professional, technical and administrative services required to maintain and further develop the structure and operation of the KC-10A Joint Reliability Availability Management System/ Long-Term Health Monitoring System (JRAMS/LTHMS) for the US Air Force Legacy Tanker Division (AFLCMC/WKD) based at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.

Anticipated Period of Performance (POP): 05/01/2017 – 04/30/2018

The Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity proposes to make a sole-sourced OASIS award to Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) (DUNS 007936842) as the developer of all JRAMS/LTHMS software code, hardware owner and website maintainer/life cycle sustainment provider since 1998 in order to continue uninterrupted mission-critical services. SWRI is an OASIS Pool 3 Exception A (Engineering for Military and Aerospace Equipment and Military Weapons) contract holder (Contract Number GS00Q14OADU333) under its 541330 NAICS Code for this procurement. On 03/06/2017, Valerie Bindel, OASIS Contracting Officer, verified this pool and NAICS as the correct ones to use for this requirement.

3) Description of Services Required to Meet the Agency’s Need (including estimated value):

The services presently required to meet the needs of the US Air Force Legacy Tanker Division (AFLCMC/WKD) for the KC-10 platform include access to the JRAMS/LTHMS suite of application tools.

This suite of web-based tools applies advanced methods and techniques to combine legacy system maintenance and supply data into a single interface for quickly and effectively generating meaningful and actionable information to personnel responsible for life cycle support to weapon systems across the AF enterprise. The twelve (12) analysis and reporting tools presently fielded by the JRAMS/LTHMS include:

1) Automated Trigger Alerts, 2) System Explorer, 3) Automated Report Generator, 4) Query Wizard, 5) Aircraft Availability (AA) Assessment Model Tool, 6) Maintenance Process Analyzer, 7) Metrics Generator,

8) Dashboards, 9) Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum Analysis, 10) Topcoat Inspection Manager, 11) Flight Data Recorder Sensor Analyzer, and 12) Numerous weapon system unique tools (tailored to meet the specific requirements for individual stakeholders).

The JRAMS system was developed by Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) in 1995, under a Northrop Grumman contract, in order to support the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) mission stakeholders located primarily at Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex (WR-ALC) and AFSOC Headquarters at Hurlburt Field. The system was fielded in 1998 and its usage was promoted to other Air Force weapon systems for the common benefits of both increasing analysis productivity and sharing of the

2 | P a g e annual sustainment costs across the Air Force. The C-130, KC-135 and C-17 became participating stakeholders in the JRAMS system and the system was quickly renamed the JRAMS/LTHMS to reflect its expanding mission to support numerous Air Force weapon system stakeholders. The AFSOC devised a system-sustainment cost-sharing strategy with each stakeholder’s portion based upon each stakeholder’s system resource footprint (data volume and usage demand). During this time, though under a Northrop Grumman contract, SwRI was the subcontractor that developed, integrated and performed life-cycle maintenance of the system.

In 2002, a system-to-system connection was made between JRAMS/LTHMS and the Air Force Data Services. Since that time, stakeholder involvement has grown and now includes platforms such as the SOF/PR/C-130, C/KC-135, C-17, C-5, B-1, A-10, KC-10, F-15 and C-32/40. The shared investments of all of these platforms have led to system capability expansions that meet the evolving and expanded needs of the Air Force mission. Through the shared usage and sustainment, all JRAMS/LTHMS stakeholders have realized significant benefit, both in analysis capabilities and reduced costs.

In 2016, the Northrup Grumman contract ended in anticipation of the anticipated next generation system, to be known as the L3 Reliability Center Management (RCM) program. The L3 RCM implementation was not ready to be fielded upon the completion of the Northrop Grumman contract. This issue has caused all JRAMS/LTHMS stakeholders to scramble to put in place contracts with SwRI in order to continue the necessary analysis capabilities provided by that system. The current Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity is intended to enable the KC-10A program to restore their access to the JRAMS/LTHMS system in order to continue to meet its mission goals and objectives until such time as the L3 RCM is brought on line in early 2018.

Only SwRI personnel possess the expertise, knowledge and experience meeting the requirements and qualifications for sustainment, administration, upgrade and overall system life cycle management of

JRAMS.

LTHMS is presently being successfully utilized by AFLCMC/WKD personnel to track the performance of critical KC-10A indicators, to monitor the performance of over 56,000 KC-10A items, to obtain data to support day-to-day maintenance of the system, and to identify trends that support critical safety programs on the fleet such as the Functional Systems Integrity Program (FSIP). In short, LTHMS is an information/analysis tool that is critical to the effective monitoring/managing of the health of the KC-10A fleet.

All necessary engineering services required to maintain/upgrade the structure and operation of the KC- 10A JRAMS/LTHMS will be acquired. This shall include as a minimum the daily care/upkeep of the JRAMS/LTHMS database, implementation of new data elements and/or standard reports, and update cross-reference tables. The services performed on this contract will be performance-based in accordance with AFI 63-124.

Estimated Dollar Value: $258,833.00

4) Identification of the Exception to Fair Opportunity and Supporting Rationale:

This acquisition shall be conducted under the authority of FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C) for orders placed against the OASIS contract. 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 and all awardees were given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order.

The KC-10A JRAMS/LTHMS is a computer analysis tool that combines maintenance and supply information available from existing legacy systems into a single interface. It is a module of JRAMS that was originally developed for the Air Forces Special Operations Command (AFSOC) in 1998 to provide

3 | P a g e reliability, maintainability and supportability data, along with analysis tools, in one package.

SWRI developed all of the software code, acquired all of the hardware and has maintained the web site since 1998 in order to support the requirements of the AFSOC under the name Special Operations Forces Reliability and Maintainability System (SOFRAMS). Since then, it has grown into JRAMS that supports the needs and requirements of several weapons system platforms including KC-135, C-5, C-141, B-1 and others.

Each user of JRAMS independently funds its portion of the maintenance and sustainment of the overall system, and all weapons systems benefit from the collective improvements that each user makes.

Additionally, each weapon system shares the JRAMS hardware and webpage to download data from it.

The software database as well as the infrastructure including servers, compilers, etc. is shared between the weapon systems.

All of the software, hardware and firmware associated with JRAMS are owned by the Government;

however, separating the LTHMS module from JRAMS by moving the sustainment and maintenance from SWRI is not cost effective or technically advantageous. All of the hardware and web servers would have to be duplicated just for the KC-10A. Additionally, the KC-10A would not benefit from the "sharing" of software applications developed by other users of JRAMS as currently occurs with the system.

The AFLCMC/WKD is transitioning to a new platform, known as the L3 Reliability Center Management (RCM) program, set to replace the JRAMS. This new program was supposed to be up and running in 2017 but has experienced setbacks and may not be functional until Mid-2018. The current one-year contract is anticipated to provide the AFLCMC/WKD with continued support until such time as the L3 system is up and running.

It is in consideration of the foregoing that GSA requests the use of the authority granted through FAR 16.505(b)(2)(i)(C) for an exception to the fair opportunity process that limits the sources to Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), which is the only viable option for fulfilling the current need to provide the JRAMS/ LTHMS system. It is believed that a competitive solicitation of this requirement is not in the best interests of the Government for promptly awarding an order, taking advantage of existing systems and synergies, and preventing downtime.

5) Determination by the Contracting Officer that the Anticipated Cost to the Government will be Fair and Reasonable:

The AFLCMC/WKD submitted an Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) in the amount of $258,833.00, using the OASIS Pricing Estimation Tool (through GSA ASSIST), which provides Labor Categories (LCATs) and associated hourly rates, which have been determined to be fair and reasonable at the OASIS contract level. The IGCE consisted of two LCATs with an estimated number of hours and estimated hourly rates. The GSA Project Manager (PM), Stephen Carroll, and The GSA Contracting Officer (CO), David Matthews, will review the quote submitted by SWRI for the JRAMS requirement and will evaluate it in accordance with the terms of its OASIS contract. After the price is determined to be in accordance with contractual terms for the work, additional price discounts will be requested.

6) Other facts supporting the justification:

During the early years of JRAMS, it was discovered that the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) was unable to maintain the currency, accuracy and accessibility of the data in the JRAMS database. Based on this, AFSOC successfully justified moving the JRAMS servers with a .mil address to the SwRI facility at Warner Robins for the care and feeding of the system. Since that time, data accuracy and accessibility to the web page has been near 100%. This will be lost for the LTHMS module of JRAMS if it is separated from the rest of JRAMS.

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List of sources that expressed an interest in the acquisition:

Tinker AFB issued an RFI, dated 02/28/2017, seeking vendors that could provide the requested services.

The RFI closed on 03/23/2017 and responses were consolidated by the AFLCMC/WKD and provided to the GSA for use in this justification. Below are the responses received:

Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) (non-profit) Objectstream, Inc. (8(a) SDB) S&K Global Solutions (Tribally Owned 8(a)) RV Global Solutions, Inc. (8(a))

Although three (3) businesses besides the SWRI submitted responses to the RFI and indicate that they could potentially perform the work, the AFLCMC/WKD believes that award to any company other than SWRI would cause a lapse in system availability as the new company becomes familiar with the software hierarchy and establishes a new LTHMS web page. The Government owns the data rights to all JRAMS/ LTHMS software, hardware and firmware, which would make a transition in contractor somewhat easier;

however, new hardware, including servers and compliers would have to be purchased to establish a LTHMS stand-alone capability since the current servers and compilers would remain with SWRI to service its other JRAMS customers. A new company may also require infrastructure upgrades to ensure the LTHMS hardware can be properly housed and maintained. Finally, upgrades to the LTHMS software would be limited or more expensive since synergy with software developed by the other JRAMS users would not exist.

The combination of system availability lapses, costs for new equipment and infrastructure upgrades and learning curves is such that the award of this order to any vendor other than SWRI would not yield uninterrupted system availability at the lowest possible cost.

7) Statement of Actions to overcome barriers of competition:

The L3 Reliability Center Management (RCM) program is being created and will be brought on line in mid- 2018 to consolidate and build upon the key functions currently handled by JRAMS. As the L3 RCM was scheduled to be online in 2017 but has hit setbacks, the key barrier to competing the current requirement is a loss of system usage for an unknown duration which would affect operability and tracking, loss of synergies from the overall JRAMS system and higher costs due to a new contractor having to provide and program additional equipment and train its employees to operate the JRAMS/LTHMS module.

In accordance with FAR 16.505(b)(2)(ii)(B)(9) Technical and requirements personnel are responsible for providing and certifying as complete and accurate the necessary data to support their recommendation for this justification.

I hereby certify as accurate and complete the data provided to GSA, upon which is based and which supports the recommendations made in this Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity for this procurement.

Name, Client Representative, Agency Date

The Contracting Officer and the Project Manager certify by signature below that the information contained in this justification is accurate and complete to the best of their knowledge and belief.

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Project Manager Date

Contracting Officer Date