JA_Sole Source LOMA_Approved_Redacted.pdf

ERDC Control Number: 24-2993

JUSTIFICATION REVIEW DOCUMENT

FOR SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION UNDER FAR SUBPART 13.5 SIMPLIFIED

PROCEDURES FOR CERTAIN COMMERCIAL ITEMS

Requirement: ICAN, Inc. (ICAN) to support the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (CHL) through the warranty and support of the Lock Operations Management Application (LOMA) system.

Authority: 41 United States Code, Section 1901(a)(2) as implemented in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 13.501(a)(1)(i): Contracting Officers must conduct sole source acquisitions, as defined in FAR 2.101 (including Brand Name), under FAR Subpart 13.5 only if the need to do so is justified in writing and approved at the levels specified in paragraph (a)(2) of this section and FAR 13.501(a)(2)(ii): For a proposed contract exceeding $750,000 or the thresholds in paragraph

(1) of the definition of simplified acquisition threshold in FAR 2.101, but not exceeding $15 million, the advocate for competition for the procuring activity, designated pursuant to FAR 6.501; or an official described in FAR 6.304(a)(3) or (a)(4) must approve the justification and approval.

Period of Performance: Sixty-Six Months from Date of Award (initial period of twelve months and four - twelve-month option periods and will include a six-month option to extend services).

Amount Requested: $902,204.17

Prepared by:

Phone:

Contract Specialist Email:

Program Manager:

Phone:

CHL Research Physical Scientist Email:

Technical & Requirements:

Phone:

CHL Research Physical Scientist Email:

Contracting Officer:

Christine Wilson Phone: (217) 552-5258 Procuring Contracting Officer Email: Christine.L.Wilson@usace.army.mil

Center Reviews

I have reviewed this justification and found it adequate to support other than full and open competition.

SCO-ALX and Headquarters Reviews

I have reviewed this justification and find it adequate to support other than full and open competition.

paragraph (1) of the definition of simplified acquisition threshold in FAR 2.101, but not exceeding $15 million, the advocate for competition for the procuring activity, designated pursuant to FAR 6.501; or an official described in FAR 6.304(a)(3) or (a)(4) must approve the justification and approval.

5. Reason for Authority Cited:

a. Background: The LOMA software was developed for the U.S. Army under two contracts utilizing American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding. In 2009, USACE contracted with CNS Systems (later ICAN) for initial development of LOMA. A second contract was awarded to ICAN in 2011 to continue development of LOMA and deliver the final version of the software. The final version of the software was delivered to USACE ERDC in August 2012. The LOMA system being supported by the ICAN software provides support and ensures proper performance of 2000+ users (Lock Operators, Mat Sinking Unit, USACE Waterway Management and output data communicated to USCG seamlessly) while also providing USACE with key waterway management information which is utilized in making marine traffic navigation safer, tracking and improving obstructions requiring action such as Shoaling/deposited sandbars from water-current changes due to other environmental impacts and mitigating challenging sections of waterways through strategically planned dredging initiatives and warning vessels through virtual buoys.

Since the early days of AIS technology in the early 2000s, there have been very few people, and fewer companies, that understood the underlying technology and associated network requirements. When it comes to software used for interfacing with an AIS network, there is a very limited customer base in the United States, essentially only two potential customers, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and USACE. As a result of this and the specialized knowledge that is required to handle AIS data, there are very few providers of software that serve this market and we, as the government, also lack the ability to create or provide this support internally. This situation remains unchanged as within the United States only the USCG and USACE own and operate large land-based networks of equipment to broadcast, receive, and store AIS data. USACE owns the AIS data after it is acquired through the system; however, the ICAN software itself that runs the LOMA software is licensed by the Government but not owned by the Government.

b. Justification:

The LOMA program has authority to operate on the CorpsNet, in compliance with USACE and Department of the Army cybersecurity requirements. The existing ICAN software product meets those cybersecurity requirements, including the requirement to share code for security scanning purposes only. That is a compelling reason as to why ICAN and the LOMA software and its upkeep is the only solution that currently meets the Government's needs. The USCG uses an ICAN software product to receive AIS data onto their network for active waterways and depends upon USACE to provide information in areas to which this information is not available. In order to comply with the interagency agreement for USACE to provide data to USCG, the USACE has previously used an ICAN software product so that the two systems are compatible and ensure navigation of waterways remains safe as it is similar to air traffic control of the air tracking waterway traffic. The existing ICAN software product includes custom enhancements developed at the request of USACE over time, including mapping, map display, map customization by the user, safety notifications that can be sent to a USACE user via email or text message when a vessel enters a designated geographic area, the ability to send safety messages to a vessel when it enters a designated geographic area accident. These customizations are vital to the ensured safety of navigable waterways through the foresight of waterway obstructions or shoaling that may have occurred rapidly limiting or endangering water traffic requiring a virtual buoy to be placed to protect navigation traffic by communicating key information that the maritime industry depends on to ensure safe waterways.

i. The LOMA capability was developed to provide a way for users on CorpsNet to monitor, in real-time, the position of vessels on waterways and to store that information for playback in case of an accident. Additional software capabilities have been developed by ICAN over time and must remain compatible with the existing software and operating environment (including cybersecurity requirements), including functionalities related to mapping, map display, map customization by the user, safety notifications that could be sent to a USACE user via email or text message when a vessel enters a designated geographic area, and the ability to send safety messages to a vessel when it enters a designated geographic area (e.g. a construction zone).

ii. This new sole source contract represents a continuance of warranty support for

LOMA software and ongoing support and enhancements required to maintain cybersecurity compliance.

iii. The LOMA program requirements are unique in that they are leveraging commercial tools and software for a unique government purpose (collecting AIS data from a network or specialized equipment and send that data over CorpsNet, in compliance with all USACE cybersecurity requirements). Our requirement dictates the continued use of the ICAN software. ICAN is the only provider of the LOMA software, that product can only be sustained/maintained by the original source (ICAN), there is no re-seller or other vendor.

iv. The existing ICAN product developed for LOMA allows to direct messaging of safety hazards to commercial maritime vessels through display on electronic navigation charts in the form of Virtual Aids to Navigation (VATONs) and Geographic Notices (GNs). The USACE-LOMA is the only entity that can broadcast these life-and-property-safety messages on the inland river system through the AIS network. The USCG regularly requests broadcasts of these types of VATONs and

GNs from the USACE-LOMA program, they do not have an equivalent capacity. If this contract is not enacted, this critical life safety capability will be lost.

c. Alternatives: Gatehouse Maritime Inc. (Gatehouse) is an alternative source that the ERDC is working with to advance the LOMA program and develop as a solution with advanced capabilities friendly and intuitive solution. Gatehouse has developed a cloud-native solution for monitoring AIS data in real-time as it is being received by a network, along with analytical tools that allow network operators to identify deviations from expected signal reception to allow for rapid diagnosis and troubleshooting. However, this is only based off of initial assessments as ERDC is currently working to put a contract in place with Gatehouse to substantiate and validate their technical abilities while also ensuring the cost efforts are beneficial, but this effort is expected to take 2-3 years to complete and is expected to start following award of the contract, anticipated July 2024.

The other alternative software packages only allow for basic display of vessel position on top of a map or nautical chart using AIS data as broadcast; these software products are known as

These alternative chart plotter software packages lack the custom monitoring, user-customizable features developed by ICAN to USACE specifications, nor can they develop those interfaces, and they legally are not approved to perform the tasks that USACE and USCG are responsible for performing. In addition, most chart plotter software programs use open source code which are not approved for use on CorpsNet due to lack of cybersecurity evaluation (see extensive https://dodcio.defense.gov/Open-Source-Software-FAQ/) but basically lack the additional code built to optimize detailed data streams throughout a network and are actually focused to ultimately making them incapable of performing similar functions and are dissimilar to ICAN or even GateHouse. RosePoint is a non-open-source chart plotter software which is approved for use on CorpsNet but lacks the full suite of functionality of the existing LOMA system. The other chart plotters utilize open-source code for their software.

The use of software based on open-source code is not currently approved for use on CorpsNet and is unlikely to ever be approved under USACE cybersecurity rules to ensure proper security of protected infrastructure (both physical infrastructure and digital/cyber infrastructure which can be used to control physical infrastructure or control mobile elements that can cause damage to physical infrastructure). In lay terms, using open-source software is like giving the entire world access to who would access it or what would be stolen. Current USACE CorpsNet Policies prevent the use of open-source software to prevent and avoid the risk in the first place.

In addition, per user, per year) and the USACE currently has more than 2,000 USACE staff which are currently registered users of the LOMA software. These active USACE staff users include lock operators, waterway maintenance personnel, dredging personnel, operations and maintenance staff, Operations Chiefs at Districts and Divisions, Headquarters staff, and research staff. Based on discussions in multiple Subject Matter Expert (SME) meetings, Lock operators consider the LOMA software to be essential to their job as it provides unique maritime domain awareness.

As a cost comparison with a single chart plotter product, as of February 2023, each RosePoint license costs $2,155.00 for the initial purchase, plus $500.00 per license, per year after that (one license is required per user, per email from Joe Sluka, RosePoint Sales Director, joe@rosepoint.com). For a minimum user base of 2,000 USACE staff the initial purchase of RosePoint licenses would be at least $4,310,000.00, with an annual maintenance (software license fee) of at least $1,000,000.00 per year. This is all for a chart plotter product that does not provide all the existing functionalities of the LOMA software. This cost alone is well beyond the ICAN yearly estimate (approximately 188 times the current costs).

d. Impact: The LOMA system is in use 24/7 by lock operators, marine construction crews including the USACE Mat Sinking Unit, and waterway managers around the country for situational and safety awareness. Without this contract, there will be a lack of information flowing to USACE regarding vessel positions, and there is no way to go back and capture this historical data after-the-fact as the AIS broadcasts are real-time and thus ephemeral. In addition, the loss of the historical information will impact future predictive analysis. LOMA is the only equipment network that provides extensive coverage on the inland waterways;

there exists no USCG equivalent on the inland waterways. In fact, the USCG relies on the USACE LOMA network to send data to the USCG Navigation Center (NavCen) for real-time use and long-term storage. If LOMA lapses, there will be no way to broadcast safety

(VATON)

mariners of shoals in places where no physical markers are present. The VATON capability has been in continuous use across USACE since the capability became fully operational in 2018, with over 1,000 VATONs broadcast to date along different parts of the system.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: In accordance with FAR 5.201 and 5.207(c)(15), a notice of intent (NOI) to award this requirement on a sole-source basis to ICAN, was posted to the Governmentwide point of entry (GPE), SAM.GOV website on 16 January 2024 through 23 January 2024 under NAICS 541511 - Custom Computer Programming Services with a Size Standard: $34,000,000.00. All interested responsible sources were informed that they could submit a capability statement including their experience and past performance, a proposal, or a quotation demonstrating their ability to provide the requirement for consideration by the Procuring Contracting Officer (PCO), Christine L. Wilson. As of 5 February 2024, no vendors responded.

a. Market Analysis: The market analysis on Commercially Available Off-the-Shelf (COTS) products were performed from 01 June 2023 to 31 January 2024 to determine if a commercial product was viable for fulfilling the requirements. No such COTS products currently exist that offer a solution. COTS researched cannot be reasonably modified from a time and financial perspective to meet the required functionality of LOMA.

b. Effective competition: The original requirement (W9127809D0010, Task Order

CUI

CUI

(Source Selection Information See FAR 2.101 and 3.104-4)

0006) was a Task Order issued against a USACE Mobile District contract; however, follow-on procurements were sole source due to the proprietary nature of the software that being required and further enhanced over time to perform more USACE specific functions not available throughout industry. The awarded system is proprietary in nature and ICAN is the only known source without any resellers.

c. Subcontracting competition: ICAN is a total small business under SAM Unique

Entity Identifier (UEI)SXKKNA4LD9M3. As a total small business, ICAN is exempted from providing a subcontracting plan in accordance with FAR 52.219-9(a) Small Business Subcontracting Plan.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The ERDC has been involved in LOMA development for more than 15 years and has a good understanding of the landscape for LOMAs development capability that exists in the marketplace today. Market research was conducted by means of Internet searches, one-on-one contacts in the industry at professional conferences and through personal communications as well as discussions with other Federal agencies who contract for LOMA development for their software capabilities. Based on information in paragraph 5, above, competition for this action is not yet feasible and would not be cost effective to the Government. This action falls into the category of cases wherein it is not possible to compete the acquisition due to the nature of the requirement following a Notice of Intent to Sole Source posted on sam.gov with intent to always increase the competition of the LOMA solution to better provide more efficient mechanisms and cost savings whenever practicable. Following the validation of the possible Gatehouse solution, there may be a better solution in the near future, but that solution must be first validated with the navigation security, safety, and efficient coordination

Government will continue to conduct market research and take actions to identify, enhance and promote competition for this requirement in the future. Current market research findings substantiate that there is a small market for this product as the only end users are the USACE and USCG. As previously mentioned above under the Alternatives section, a contract with Gatehouse would help substantiate and validate their technical abilities and cost efforts but this effort is expected to take two to three years to complete. Additional efforts to increase competition include repeatedly contacting other known industry software providers to see if additional products become available.

8. Market Research: Market Research was conducted from 1 June 2023 to 31 January 2024 using various techniques including review of the requirement in comparison to potential solutions via the internet. This unique software cannot be purchased from mandatory sources as ICAN co-developed the software with USACE, and the software is proprietary to ICAN. As previously discussed above in Section 6, Efforts to Obtain Competition, a NOI to Sole Source this requirement was posted to the GPE 16 January 2024 through 23 January 2024 and resulted in no responses.

Market Research shows there is a limited market for this software as only the USACE and USCG use the LOMA system and there is not a public need for this system to be applied or legally utilized. Due to the life-and-property safety capabilities provided by the existing ICAN product for LOMA, any new vendor or product will have to be evaluated in tandem with the existing system.

Without any known vendors in the industry existing to the SMEs estimates were requested from additional possible vendors to possible recreate something similar, with only the company Serco responding. Serco is an engineering consulting/contracting company that employs a SME in radio-technical systems who has consulted on the development of LOMA software requirements for ICAN in the past. Serco stated that it would require one to two years of work for a team of software developers at a cost of one to two million dollars to ballpark the overall intent of what ICAN currently provides. Should the software be created an annual cost for warranty of the software is estimated at an additional $250,000.00 as they would have also invested in the creation. Total costs for creating an entirely government owned software was projected to be much higher and more costly to maintain.

The software companies that are known as chart plotters only offer a basic viewer display and would need software enhancements to include monitoring features to become a true alternative. Currently the chart plotter software companies (e.g., RosePoint, Open CPN, Marine Traffic, OpenPlotter) require purchasing a license for each user. The USACE operates 170 Locks (users), and current licenses are estimated between $2,000.00 and $2,500.00. Purchase of the licenses for the Lock operators is estimated at $340,000.00. An estimate of $1,300,000.00 was provided for replicating/enhancing the functionality of the LOMA software with at least one year required to write and validate the software. The cost estimate does not include software validation costs, increases due to possible delays, or annual licensing fees.

Proposed Vendor: ICAN, Inc.

UEI SXKKNA4LD9M3

7616 LBJ Freeway, Suite 600 Dallas, TX 75251-1122 Phone: (709) 754-0400

Results: Based upon the foregoing market research, and based on the findings herein, there are no other vendors capable of providing the proprietary software required for this project without a substantial duplication of time/effort and a substantial increase in cost. Therefore, it is recommended that award be made to ICAN.

9. Interested Sources: Gatehouse, is one interested source and the ERDC is currently working to place a contract with them. Other possible sources are Rose Point, Serco (an engineering consulting firm) and OrbComm (a satellite AIS data provider); however, these companies lack the technical capabilities currently to perform the additional requirements required from both a technical and legal perspective as previously mentioned in Section 5a and Section 8 of the above document.

10. Other Facts:

Procurement Background:

a. Procurement History: The original work was procured under Task Order 6, Contract W9127809D0010 by the USACE Mobile District. Due to the age of the original award, this information was obtained from the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment, Electronic Data Access. No additional information is available.

Contract W912HZ15C0009 was noncompetitively awarded 31 July 2015 to ICAN in the amount of $243,053.00, under the authority of 41 United States Code, Section 3304(a)(1) as implemented in FAR 6.302-1(a)(1)(2), for continuance of software maintenance services. The period of performance was an initial twelve months, with two twelve-month option periods. Performance on this contract ended 30 July 2018.

Contract W912HZ18C0019 was noncompetitively awarded 02 August 2018 to ICAN in the amount of $267,925.00, under the authority of 41 United States Code, Section 3304(a)(1) as implemented in FAR 6.302-1(a)(1)(2), for continued warranty support for LOMA software, including DataSwitch, DataStore, Maestro and the LOMA web portal. The period of performance was an initial twelve months, with two twelve-month option periods. Performance on this contract ended 01 August 2021.

Contract W912HZ21C0051 was noncompetitively awarded 07 September 2021 to ICAN in the amount of $395,333.00, under the authority of 41 United States Code, Section 1901(a)(2) as implemented in FAR 13.501(a)(1)(i), for continued warranty support for LOMA software, including continued warranty support for LOMA software, including DataSwitch, DataStore, Maestro and the LOMA web portal as well as enhancements identified by USACE. The period of performance was an initial twelve months, with two twelve-month option periods. The second option period was not exercised prior to expiration of the contract on 06 September 2023.

b. Competitive Status: Previous Contracts are not competitively awarded due to the proprietary software being used and the inability of anyone else within industry to provide a comparable software that could be tested or performs the same functions.

The Technical Principal Investigators are pursuing the validation of Gatehouse, validation is complete this would increase the competition.

c. Previous Authority Cited: FAR 13.106-1 (b) - Soliciting from a single source. (1) For purchases not exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold. (i) Contracting officers may solicit from one source if the contracting officer determines that the circumstances of the contract action deem only one source reasonably available (e.g., urgency, exclusive licensing agreements, brand-name, or industrial mobilization).

d. If any prior award was accomplished by full and open competition, a detailed explanation of the changed circumstances: Not applicable, prior requirements were awarded sole source.

e. An explanation of any unusual patterns which may be revealed by the history, e.g., several consecutive, urgent buys: Not applicable, no unusual patterns have been revealed.

f. If a justification was prepared to support the procurement before this one, briefly describe the circumstances justifying the buy and whether there have been any significant changes: As identified above in 10a. and 10c. prior justifications were prepared pursuant to FAR 6.302-1(a)(1)(2) and 13.501(a)(1)(i), as applicable. The circumstances remain the same.