JnA-20-30982_Redacted.pdf

Justification and Approval (J&A) for Other Than Full and Open Competition

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

March 2018 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Page 1 of 7

NOTE: If a Justification and Approval was approved for the preceding acquisition, a copy of the approved J&A for the predecessor action must be included in the staff package for approval of the instant J&A. This applies to J&A staff packages that are submitted for review and approval at a level above the contracting officer. The predecessor J&A will be used as a reference document by the approving official.

Is this a new or amended J&A Document? New Amended ( Prior to Award Only! )

Is this a Bridge Action as defined in the AF Bridge Action Reduction Plan? Yes No

Funding level for this acquisition:

Contracting Activity: AFLCMC/WNKAB

Purchase Request / Local ID Number: FD2060-20-30982

Program / Project (and PE, if applicable): BRAT® Sustaining Engineering/Phase Noise Measurement Module

Program Type (PEO or Other Contracting): PEO

Authority: 6.302-1 – 10 USC 2304(c)(1), Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements

Estimated Contract Cost (including options): J&A Type: Class Individual

COORDINATION (AFFARS 5306.304(a) )

Date

25 Feb 2020

Program Mgr

Signature

Date

26 Feb 2020

Contracting Officer

Date

04 Mar 2020

Local Legal Reviewer

APPROVAL (AFFARS 5306.304(a) )

Date

23 Mar 2020

Alternate Competition Advocate

March 2018 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Page 2 of 7

I. Contracting Activity.

This Justification and Approval (J&A) is to request the authority for Other Than Full and Open Competition supporting requirements generated for the Automatic Test System AFLCMC/WNA. The contracting activity for this requirement is AFLCMC/WNKAB. The Purchase Request number supporting this contracting action is FD2060-20-30982.

II. Nature and/or description of the action being processed.

Due to the circumstances described herein, the activity requesting authority to acquire sustaining engineering requirements listed in the document using Other Than Full and Open Competition as prescribed by FAR 6.302-1, Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements. This action will result in the award of a new sole source Firm-Fixed- Price contract for Advanced Testing Technologies, Inc. (ATTI) to identify a replacement Phase Noise Measurement Module. The requirement includes technical analysis, analysis of alternatives with procurement costs and technical specification, determination of replacement Benchtop Reconfigurable Automatic Tester (BRAT®) Phase Noise Measurement Module, prototypes, integration of solutions into the overall BRAT® system, and First Article & Qualification Testing. The Period of Performance (PoP) for this effort will be 12 months, with anticipated award of 25 May 2020. The PoP is projected to be 25 May 2020 through 24 May 2021.

This sole source requirement will be procured from the following company:

Advanced Testing Technologies Inc.

DBA: ATTI

110 Ricefield LN Hauppauge, NY 11788-2008

(631) 234-6672 Cage Code 0DRX9 Small Business

III. Description of supplies/services required to meet agency needs.

This requirement will provide identification of a replacement for the obsolete BRAT® Phase Noise Measurement Module to provide support for the Air Combat Command (ACC), Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC), and Air National Guard (ANG) units performing repair/testing of Line Replaceable Units (LRUs)/Shop Replacement Units (SRUs) in support of C-5, EC-130, E-3, E-4, E-6, E-8, F-15, and RC-135 aircraft platforms. The BRAT® is a family of testers that are made-up of a collection of Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) instruments and components, installed in multi-bay chassis. The testers provide analog, digital, and radio frequency (RF) testing capabilities in support of a diverse range of LRUs, such as the C-5 Roll/Yawn Proximity Warning System Computer; E-3 Transmit Phase Detector, E-8 RF Amplifier/High Power Combiner (HPC), and the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS). ATTI will be required to make every effort to identify a replacement which is form, fit, function across all BRAT® stations regardless of the BRAT® configuration which it is installed. If a form, fit, function replacement cannot be identified, the Contractor shall identify a replacement which meets all of the functional requirements of the current BRAT® and all current configurations.

March 2018 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Page 3 of 7

This requirement will support up to 81 separate testers that make up eight different configurations.

ATTI shall provide technical analysis, analysis of alternatives with procurement costs and technical specification, determination of replacement BRAT® Phase Noise Measurement Module, prototypes, integration of solutions into the overall system, and First Article & Qualification Testing. The sustaining engineering service for the BRAT® testers is performance-based.

CLIN Description Qty Unit Price Total CLIN Price 0001 Sustaining Engineering 1 0002 First Article Test 1 0003 Travel 1 0004 Prototypes 2 0005 Data 1 Total

The total contract value of this contract is estimated to be

. This contract will use CAM 3400-583 Sustaining Engineering funds. The PoP for this contract is anticipated to begin on 25 May 2020 through 24 May 2021.

IV. Statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition.

10 USC 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR6.302-1, Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

V. Demonstration that the contractor's unique qualifications or nature of the acquisition requires the use of the authority cited above (applicability of authority).

The agency's minimum needs can only be satisfied by the unique supplies or services available from ATTI. ATTI is the BRAT® Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and only company capable of modifying the BRAT® due to their proprietary data rights. The integrated software prohibits other vendors from repairing the hardware without affecting the integrity of the software. The Government does not own rights to any technical drawings, repair data, or software for these items or the BRAT® tester itself. Any potential alternate vendor would have to reverse engineer the BRAT® to develop repair module integration data for the majority of instruments and components. The BRAT® consist of nine distinct tester configurations with over 200 modules.

Award to any other source would result in substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition and unacceptable delays in fulfilling the Air Force's requirements. The Government's Automated Test System (ATS) group previously attempted in Jun 2014 to reverse engineer the Radio Frequency Interface Unit (RFIU) and the Signal Processing Drawer (SPD) modules in an effort titled "Spiral Project Efforts." This project consisted of Spiral I and II. The Spiral I effort was scheduled to take four years at an estimated cost of The team encountered difficulties during Spiral I and the reverse effort was deemed unsuccessful. The Spiral I Project was officially terminated 24 Oct 2018. It was determined that the quantity of projected repairs would not support a positive return of investment (ROI) for this reverse engineering effort. The conditions that drove the Spiral I project to a determination that the reverse engineering effort was fiscally unsound still remain. The expense of the RE effort would not be recovered through competition even if the technical difficulties previously encountered in the Spiral I effort were

March 2018 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Page 4 of 7 overcome. For these reasons, Spiral II was never started.

In 2004, ATTI quoted a price of for Government procurement of the technical data. ATTI verbally revised the quote to in 2009 but this did not include Government unlimited rights to the source code (executive and self-test TCASE software). ATTI advised the Program Office on 10 June 2014 that they were no longer interested in selling the data rights but revised its position on 26 April 2016 with a quote of for the repair data. The quote of , however; did not include the software data rights. On 07 June 2017, ATTI was sent a request for quote of data rights and ATTI's position remained unchanged. On 21 Feb 2019 and 25 Nov 2019, ATTI was contacted by the Government to request a quote for data rights and ATTI responded that they were not interested in selling the technical data, repair data and software data. Rights to both the drawing package and the source code are required for organic sustainment or to support competition. Currently, there are no AF ATS platforms that can support the BRAT® RF workload. A 2024 Program Objective Memorandum (POM ) is in place for re-hosting the BRAT® to a common Family of Tester (FoT) ATS platform.

The FoT ATS platform must include RF capability. In addition, there is currently a sustaining engineering study ongoing with ATTI to identify a replacement of the BRAT® Synthesized Signal Generator. The sole source contract was awarded on 18 Jul 2019 to ATTI with a 12 month period of performance.

Currently, ATTI is the only source capable of providing the services described in Section III above without the U.S. Air Force experiencing substantial duplication of cost that could not be expected to be recovered through competition and unacceptable delays in fulfilling its requirements.

VI. Description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable.

A Sources Sought (SS)/ Request for Information (RFI) synopsis was posted to Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) on 9 Oct 2019 with a response date of 26 Oct 2019 under Solicitation Number FA8533-19-C-BRAT. The SS/RFI requested responses from interested vendors that possess the expertise, capabilities, and experience to meet qualification requirements for this effort. One source, Air Logistics and Engineering (ALAE) Consultants, LLC responded to the RFI; however, they were deemed not capable.

ALAE demonstrated experience with similar testers, but did not explicitly state that they can provide engineering services for instruments used in the BRAT® testers. Furthermore, they would not be able to support the integration of replacement parts for the BRAT® due to proprietary software. For this reason, they are not capable of meeting our requirements. Only one source, the OEM, is qualified to support this effort due to proprietary data owned by the OEM.

This effort will be synopsized on Beta-SAM, as required by FAR 5.201, citing conditions which preclude full and open competition. It is anticipated that sources having an interest in subcontracting may be identified through synopsis. Any source who responds to the Government as a result of this synopsis will be identified to the prime contractor as a potential subcontracting possibility.

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

The overall cost of this acquisition will be fair and reasonable to the Government. In accordance with

March 2018 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Page 5 of 7

FAR 15.403-3, the Contracting Officer will require the submission of other than certified cost or pricing data. Price analysis or cost analysis based on “information other than certified cost or pricing data” will be used to examine and evaluate the proposed prices to determine fair and reasonable pricing. Price analysis techniques include comparison of proposed prices to historical prices paid for a same or similar item; comparison with published price lists, offered catalog prices and prices obtained through market research for a same or similar item; comparison of proposed prices with independent Government estimate; or analysis of data other than certified cost or pricing information.

VIII. Description of the market research conducted and the results, or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted.

Market research was conducted on 12 Nov 2019 and completed on 10 Jan 2020 as required by FAR

10.001 and 10.002. Market research was performed by AFLCMC/WNAAA using techniques that included reviewing reslts of previous market research, reviewing product literature, utilizing search engines such as Dynamic Small Business Search Engine using the North American Industry Classified System (NAICS) codes 334515 and 541330 and key words "BRAT®" and "Benchtop Reconfigurable Automatic Tester". In addition, a Request for Information (RFI) was posted on Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) website.

Multiple searches were conducted in the Dynamic Small Business Search Engine (DSBS). The first two searches were open with no exclusion of any small business categories using the key words “BRAT” and “Benchtop Reconfigurable Automatic Tester.” No vendors were shown with those two searches. A third search was conducted using key word “electronics engineering” using ISO 9000 Quality Assurance Standards. Ten results were identified under the third search. Those small businesses identified were further researched to determine their capability to complete the program requirement. Due to the proprietary nature of the BRAT®, none of the ten vendors identified were determined capable of meeting the requirements of this effort.

A SS/RFI was issued under solicitation number FA8533-19-C-BRAT. It was posted on 09 Oct 2019 to FedBizOpps requesting information from vendors to help "identify potential sources that may possess the expertise, capabilities, and experience to meet the requirements for Phase Noise Measurement Module for the BRAT®." SS/RFI responses were due by 25 Oct 2019. There was one respondent to the RFI. The one respondent was evaluated and was determined "not capable" of meeting our requirement. This respondent, lacks the ability to gain access to the instruments designed by ATTI and access to integration data for the BRAT® system. This respondent would not have the capabilities to integrate the replacement module in the BRAT® system without extensive and costly reverse engineering, therefore this company was determined not capable.

Multiple alternative sources of automatic test equipment and various integrated test systems exist, but these testers will not function with the Test Program Sets (TPSs) executed on the BRAT® testers. The BRAT® uses TBASIC (TCASE) test language for TPS development and execution. There is currently no other manufacturer that uses the same software as ATTI to operate the BRAT®. Currently, ATTI is the only source capable of providing the necessary software, or demonstrated a programming capability as required by the Air Force.

Commercial Opportunities: The BRAT® is made up of modified commercial items. The Government procured the BRAT® testers as commercial items; however, instruments in the BRAT® testers are OEM exclusive designs for which no other vendor possesses the necessary data to support sustaining

March 2018 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY Page 6 of 7 engineering module replacement services.

The market research concluded ATTI is the only capable source for this requirement due to their proprietary technical data rights to the BRAT® testers.

IX. Any other facts supporting the use of Other Than Full and Open Competition.

None.

X. List of any sources that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition.

See Section VI above.

XI. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before making subsequent acquisitions for the supplies or services required.

The Government has attempted multiple strategies to overcome barriers that restrict BRAT® to sole source sustainment. The Government attempted through the Spiral I reverse engineering program to organically develop repair procedures for BRAT RFIU and SPD modules so that future repairs could be sustained organically or via competition. The team encountered difficulties during Spiral I and the reverse engineering effort was deemed unsuccessful. The effort would have cost and required a minimum of four years to complete. The Spiral I Project was officially terminated 24 Oct 2018. In addition, the 402d EMXG has attempted two third party outsourcing efforts for repair and calibration of the commercial instruments as part of a research effort to determine if third party repair and calibration is plausible. Those efforts did not prove successful due to the lack of BRAT technical data available.

On 21 Feb 2019 and on 25 Nov 2019, ATTI was sent a request for a quote to procure technical data, repair data, and software data. ATTI stated data rights to the BRAT are not for sell. Rights to both the drawing package and the source code are required for organic sustainment or to support competition.

To overcome barriers to competition for future acquisitions, the Government will look into the following actions:

-Data Procurement- The Government will continue to request ATTI interest in selling the BRAT® technical data rights.

-Depot BRAT stations are slated for re-host to VDATS. This is scheduled for completion in 2025.

Intermediate level BRAT stations are under initial evaluations for potential re-host to a common Family of Testers (FoT) beginning 2022. The re-host efforts will be either organic through WR-ALC depot or competitive contracts.

-Even though the 402nd has not had success in the past with third party outsourcing, they will continue to pursue this as a future option on viable commercial instruments.

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XII. Certification by the Contracting Officer.

As evidenced by my signature above, I have determined this document to be both accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

XIII. Certification by the technical/requirements personnel.

As evidenced by my (our) signature(s) above, I (we) certify that any supporting data contained herein, which is my (our) responsibility, is both accurate and complete.