JOFOC_Redacted.pdf

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SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN ACTION EXCEEDING THE SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION

THRESHOLD USING SIMPLIFIED PROCEDURES FOR CERTAIN

COMMERCIAL ITEMS (AUTHORITY: FAR 13.501(a), 41 U.S.C. 1901)

NM-AN2120-21-00341

1. Agency and contracting activity.

Department of Commerce (DOC) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Acquisition and Grants Office (AGO) Eastern Acquisition Division (EAD) and Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO).

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

This is a sole source justification for a follow on requirement to an existing assisted acquisition conducted by the Military Sealift Command (MSC) on behalf of NOAA. This action will establish an Indefinite-Delivery Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) contract with Emprise Corporation, hereafter referred to as “Emprise.”

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

OMAO manages and tracks maintenance for NOAA’s fleet of 15 research and survey vessels through a preventative maintenance management system known as the Shipboard Automated Maintenance Management System (SAMMS). The foundation of SAMMS is the Government owned software program known as Shipboard Automated Maintenance Management (SAMM) which was developed by MSC;

however, over time, the base software program has been augmented by commercially owned supplemental modules. Both shipboard and shore-side maintenance systems are supported by-but are not limited to-the following modules: SAMM Inventory Module, the Federal Logistics Data (FEDLOG) ordering system as related to the Inventory Module, the Ship Inspection Program (SIP), the Vibration Monitoring System (VMS), the Oil Analysis System (OAS), the Logbook™ and ShipsLog™.

NOAA has a requirement to provide support services to update and maintain the system and associated modules in order to optimize operational readiness thereby reducing lost sea days and increasing the amount of successful missions that can be supported by the ships in the fleet throughout the year. These support services for SAMMS will consist of setting up an original database for each NOAA ship, installing software onto the shipboard computer, maintaining and upgrading software, maintaining and upgrading data, analyzing VMS and OAS test results, and providing training to afloat personnel, ashore personnel, and NOAA officers in the use of these systems.

The IDIQ contract will have an ordering period from July 2021 through July 2026. The estimated value in accordance with the Independent Government Estimate (IGE) is approximately .

4. Statutory authority permitting the sole source (including brand name) acquisition.

X 41 U.S.C. 1901, using Simplified Acquisition Procedures (SAP) up to $7.5M as authorized by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 13.500(a) and implemented by FAR 13.501(a).

5. Demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited. The contracting officer has determined the following circumstances justify the use of a sole source as supported below:

Only one source – 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.

Emprise possesses the proprietary source code information for the supplemental modules that have been used to augment the base SAMM software program. The software modules critical to the functionality of SAMMS have been developed and implemented by Emprise; accordingly, license to use these software modules must be obtained directly from them. These embedded proprietary products include the ShipsLog™, LogBook™, vibration analysis software- the Emprise ViPre™, and the file transfer software- Emprise Secure Transfer Agent (ESTA®).

ShipsLog™ and LogBook™ are commercially available off the shelf (COTS) software modules that integrate with the base SAMM software and are produced and fully owned by Emprise.

Additionally, the vibration analysis software is uploaded to SAMMS via vibration data collection kit hardware. This hardware, the Emprise ViPre™, is a trademarked COTS vibration data collector that interfaces with SAMMS and is sold and manufactured solely by Emprise.

The ESTA software is critical to the successful transfer of large files to ships operating in remote locations. It provides reliable and secure file transfer even over unreliable network connections.

Public/Private key based certificate system and industry standard Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols are employed to ensure secure data transfer. If an unreliable internet connection exists, ESTA resumes file transfers rather than resending the entire file again. This technology is a key component of SAMM which ensures the shore and ship databases contain accurate data.

As the current support contractor and sole owner and provider of the augmented SAMM software modules, Emprise possess unique knowledge regarding the preventative maintenance management system and updates that have been made to it; consequently, they are the only company that has the requisite level of expertise to provide training required by the Performance Work Statement (PWS).

In addition to their familiarity with the overall SAMMS platform, Emprise has developed specialized training courses and guidance manuals specific to their software modules use with SAMM. This training is essential to addressing deficiencies due to user error therefore increasing productivity and cost savings.

NOAA, as a Government agency, has rights to use the base SAMM software at any time, however, the aforementioned augmented software modules and subsequent support services that are currently being utilized, can only be provided by Emprise due to the proprietary source code information. There are no known products on the market that can meet the Government’s need, therefore in order to award to a different contractor the products would have to first be developed. After development and testing of the new products the Government would have to migrate all data currently captured by Emprise modules to the new products. This would require significant Government oversight in product integration, regression testing, and user training. Ultimately, the migration of data from the current software modules to different software modules would result in a disruption to services which would severely impact the NOAA Fleet’s ability to perform the missions of NOAA and its Line Offices. The loss of ship maintenance data and ability to appropriately plan, develop, and execute a proper maintenance plan for the NOAA Fleet will not only lead to lost days at sea due to more frequent maintenance issues but it will also cost more in maintenance both for unknown and what should have been known maintenance items for which the SAMMS maintains and tracks. As a result, maintaining continuity of service is mission critical and therefore it is in the Government’s best interest to award to the proposed contractor on a sole source basis.

6. Description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by FAR Subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under FAR 5.202 applies.

A Notice of Intent to Sole Source was posted to the Government-wide Point of Entry (GPE) at www.beta.sam.gov on 19 March 2021. No responses were received by the closing time on 26 March 2021. No inquiries or interest were received.

7. Determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

Prior to award of the proposed contract, a price analysis will be performed and documented to sufficiently determine that the cost to the Government of the proposed acquisition will be fair and reasonable. Additionally, the Government has a wealth of historical pricing data on which the IGE has been based.

The contracting officer anticipates the cost to the Government will be determined fair and reasonable in accordance with FAR 13.106-3, Award and documentation.

8. Description of the market research conducted (see Part 10) and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

As detailed in Section 5, the required modules embedded into the daily operation of SAMMS are proprietary property of Emprise. Still, market research was conducted to verify the need to contract on a sole source basis by trying to identify potential Offerors or alternatives. This research included a review of DOC Strategic Sourcing Initiatives (SSI), Federal Supply Schedules (FSS), historical purchases of items of a similar nature and the internet. The review of SSIs yielded no results.

Similarly, a review of vendors’ FSS contracts under the applicable North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code yielded no results that could meet the requirements of the PWS.

No interest was received from the publicized notice.

9. Any other facts supporting the use of a sole source (including brand name), such as:

All facts have been documented herein. There are no additional facts to be reported in this section.

10. List of the sources that expressed a written interest in the acquisition.

The Government did not receive any written interest in the acquisition.

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

For future acquisitions, NOAA will continue to research the commercial market to determine whether there are new products/services available that meet OMAO’s requirements for a preventive maintenance management system for its fleet of ships, including Internet Technology (IT) security requirements.