Limited Source Justification_Redacted .pdf

LIMITED SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

FOR AN ORDER EXCEEDING

THE SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION THRESHOLD

(AUTHORITY: FAR 8.405-6)

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Multiple Award Schedule Program.

1. Agency and contracting activity. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Acquisition and Grants Office (AGO), Eastern Acquisition Division and the National Ocean Service (NOS), Center for Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS).

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

This is a limited source justification to award a new order for support services previously provided under Contract Number DG133W-10-CQ-0049 Task Order T0027, awarded to Systems Integration and Development Inc. (SID). This new single, bridge, order against General Services Administration (GSA) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Contract GS35F541GA, under Special Item Number (SIN) 5415S, Information Technology Services will ensure that no lapse in support services occurs due to a protest received against the awarded follow-on to DG133W-10-CQ-0049 Task Order T0027. This order will be a Time-and-Materials (T&M) type order with fixed hourly rates for Scientific, Oceanographic, and Engineering Information Technology (IT) Support Services.

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

The CO-OPS is responsible for the collection, quality control, processing, dissemination, and archival of a wide range of operational oceanographic data and products, including water level, tidal current, and meteorological data to ensure safe, efficient, and environmentally sound maritime commerce. CO-OPS has a need for contractor support services to provide scientific, oceanographic, and engineering IT support services. Specifically, contractor support services are required in order to perform the following functions: system design and system maintenance support services to ensure the efficient operation of computing resources; Maintain, enhance, and/or develop the accurate and reliable oceanographic data ingestion and GIS dissemination services to ensure high data quality; Assess, recommend, install, and configure GIS client and server applications; manage operationally optimized data management system; design and development of a compelling web presence using scientific visualization and GIS technologies.

this order will include a five-month base period, two 100-day option periods, and two, one-month option periods, as outlined in the table below.

The period of performance of the base and all option periods, if exercised, is September 17, 2020 through November 9, 2021.

4. Authority and supporting rationale. The following circumstance justifies limiting the source as supported below:

Only one source under the authority of 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.

Contract DG133W-10-CQ-0049 Task Order T0027 was awarded under the Agency’s Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) NOAALink Contract Vehicle. This vehicle is a mandatory source for all IT requirements deemed within scope of NOAALink. NOAA’s available IT Support Services multiple-award IDIQ vehicle (NOAALink) ends on September 16, 2020 without the allowance of orders beyond this date. Accordingly, an extension of the current task order is not permissible.

The follow-on to Contract DG133W-10-CQ-0049 Task Order T0027 was awarded on August 27, 2020 as task order 1305L220FNCNT0282 issued against GSA Contract GS35F0648Y to Spatial Front, Inc. A GAO protest was received and therefore, the Stop-Work Order (including Competition in Contracting Act Stay) was issued on September 8, 2020, pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Clause 52.233-3, Protest after Award. This instant acquisition is required to ensure continuity of services and will serve as a bridge between DG133W-10-CQ- 0049 Task Order T0027 and its follow-on Order (upon resolution of GAO protest).

At this time SID is the only contractor that possesses the necessary qualifications, supplies, and personnel to satisfy the Government’s requirements, in the necessary timeframe and without significant interruption to NOAA CO-OPS’ operations and mission.

SID is uniquely positioned to continue to provide specialized technical support services for CO-OPS without disruption or delays by ensuring timely support of scientific, oceanographic, and engineering IT support services. Having another vendor perform these critical services for a short time frame would require multiple transition periods, which substantially increases the risks that CO-OPS products and services would not contain the timely oceanographic data and products used across multiple programs, partners, and stakeholders, including water level, tidal current, and meteorological data, which are utilized to make critical decisions on a daily basis to ensure safe, efficient, and environmentally sound U.S. maritime commerce for the protection of life and property. If the bridge is not awarded to SID, 24x7x365 support and coordination with other NOS support organizations’ activities could also be severely impacted, as they are critical to CO-OPS ability to produce the data it collects to create high quality value-added products driven by users across NOAA, other federal agencies, marine pilots, and industries.

5. Determination by the ordering activity contracting officer that the order represents the best value consistent with FAR 8.404(d).

The Contracting Officer determines that the anticipated price(s) will be fair and reasonable based on the information contained in the procurement history, comparable contracts and other available price information. Prior to the award of the order, a price analysis will be performed and documented to sufficiently determine that the price will be fair and reasonable. Additionally, the Government will be seeking additional discounts from the GSA MAS rates (already determined to be fair and reasonable). The Government will provide an estimated number of labor hours for each labor category, along with the minimum qualifications; therefore, an analysis of the level of effort and labor mix is not appropriate as described at FAR 8.405-2(d).

6. Market research conducted among schedule holders (or reason market research was not conducted).

Although sources are available that could potentially fulfill the requirement, the only source that can immediately perform requirement without significant delays and interruption of services is the incumbent, SID.

7. Any other facts supporting the justification.

All factors have been documented in the above sections. There are no additional facts to be reported in this section.

8. Actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to the restricted consideration before any subsequent acquisition for supplies and services is made.

This action supports the current task order requirements until the GAO protest decision is rendered. Therefore, no additional efforts will be made as it is not practicable for the reasons discussed in Section 4.