LSJ_HQ0034-15-F-0062_P00003_Redacted.pdf

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

WASHINGTON HEADQUARTERS SERVICES

1155 DEFENSE PENTAGON

WASHINGTON, DC 20301-1155

ACQUISITION

DIRECTORATE

LIMITED SOURCES JUSTIFICATION

Upon the basis of the following justification, I, hereby approve the use of restricting consideration of the proposed contractual action pursuant to the authority of FAR 8.405-6.

JUSTIFICATION

1. AGENCY AND CONTRACTING ACTIVITY: [FAR 8.405-6 (c) (2) (i)]

Agency:

Department of Defense Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics 1155 Defense Pentagon Washington, DC 20301-1155

Contracting Activity:

Department of Defense Washington Headquarters Services Acquisition Directorate 1225 S. Clark Street Arlington, VA 22202

2. NATURE/DESCRIPTION OF ACTION(S): [FAR 8.405-6 (c) (2) (ii)]

This Limited Source Justification (LSJ) approves a modification to task order HQ0034-15-F- 0062 to extend the Period of Performance (POP) of a portion of the work that expired on 02 May 2015. While an in-scope modification was awarded extending the POP of this portion of the work until 15 June 2015 to prevent a lapse in service while this bridge strategy was determined, the subject modification shall have an additional seven-month POP from 16 June 2015 – 15 January 2016.

The services to be provided with this modification were planned to be competed as a task order under the Analytic & Technical Support Services (ATSS) Indefinite Delivery / Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts that were awarded in December 2014. However, a GAO protest to the ATSS IDIQ was filed on 22 December 2015. As such, the Government decided to include this requirement in the March 2015 award of HQ0034-15-F-0062 due to its similar scope.

While the entire task order has a POP of a base year plus one month option, this portion of the work was only set to be on the task order through 02 May 2015 because the Government determined that the protest would be resolved and there would be enough time to compete the requirement as an ATSS IDIQ task order before that date. After corrective action was taken in response to this protest, a second protest was filed on 12 March 2015 with an expected decision date of 22 June 2015. Once the extended protest resolution timeline was established with this second protest, the Government needed to determine a bridge strategy for a longer period of time. After the Government replied to the second protest, a third protest was filed on 23 April 2015. The final date that GAO could wait until to issue their decision is on 03 August 2015.

3. DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES: [FAR 8.405-6 (c) (2) (iii)]

The scope of task order HQ0034-15-F-0062 is to facilitate the needs of the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer (DoD CIO), Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (USD(AT&L)), and Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) to obtain the necessary non-personal support services to realize the DoD Information Enterprise and the Mission Partner Environment; to increase mission effectiveness, affect Information Communication Technologies (ICT) improvements with DoD mission partners, improve information sharing, improve cyber security, provide tactical radio technical assistance, support the SIV program and deliver efficiencies. This task order fulfills the engineering and analytical support requirements for the DoD CIO Strategy and Policy Directorate and Cybersecurity Strategy and Policy (CSS&P) Directorate, the DSCA, USD (AT&L), and DMDC. Support activities include systems engineering and enterprise wide implementation guidance to strategy and policy development. Support areas include Information Sharing, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) support, Mission Partner Environment, Cyber Security, Tactical Radio systems and programs and the Special Immigration Visa and Refugee Visa Programs.

The USD (AT&L) portion of the work is described in Section 2.2.5 of the Performance Work Statement. This work supports AT&L in their efforts on tactical radio systems. Key aspects of this work include: expert technical and management oversight assistance; assistance with all aspects of the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process; research;

preparation of responses to Congressional and other inquiries; monitoring of other command, control, and communications plans and programs to resolve or preclude problems; technical assistance in the performance of design and conceptual trade-off studies; coordination of studies regarding the DoD ground and aerial communications layer; architecture and technical program reviews; and development of ground domain tactical radio fielding strategy.

The current estimated dollar value for the seven-month POP of this modification is $ , but the entire additional amount above the initial award amount including the POP of 03 May – 15 Jan is $ .

4. AUTHORITY AND SUPPORTING RATIONALE AND A DEMONSTRATION OF

THE PROPOSED CONTRACTOR’S UNIQUE QUALIFICATIONS TO PROVIDE THE

REQUIRED SERVICE: [FAR 8.405-6 (c) (2) (iv)]

In accordance with FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(B), oonly one source is capable of providing the services required at the level of quality required because the services are highly specialized and would require a significant transition period to the follow-on contractor. The current service provider, FCI, is the only capable source that provides the highly specialized services at the level of quality required in the short amount of time available that became apparent once the ATSS IDIQ protests were filed. Due to the ATSS IDIQ protest preventing the Government to proceed with the most appropriate and efficient planned acquisition strategy, ffollowing either new full competition procedures or waiting for the IDIQ protest to be resolved for the planned task order to be competed and awarded would result in unacceptable delays.

If the subject modification is not awarded, AT&L will lose critical support to their Ground team in communications and networks with a direct impact on cost, schedule, performance and oversight of DoD programs of record including: Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN T); Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Handheld, Manpack, Small Form Fit (HMS); Mid-Tier Networking Vehicular Radio (MNVR); Airborne Maritime Fixed Station (AMF), Joint Tactical Networking Center (JTNC); and Network Integration Evaluation (NIE). Additionally, their main Spectrum representative and their Weather support in Cyber will also be negatively impacted by this. The Weather team currently consists of only one Government employee, a Lieutenant Colonel, and this FCI contractor support. The LtCol is anticipated to leave soon; therefore, if this modification is not added to HQ0034-15-0062, the entire weather team would be depleted, thus leaving the Government without any support for this requirement.

Although the specialized institutional knowledge of this effort can be transferred to a new contractor, it will require a transition period. Another contractor would have to acquire the required number of personnel with a cleared TS/SCI clearance to begin work on day one; a new contractor will need a period of time to learn the unique knowledge of the above DoD programs.

Further, the learning curve without a transition period would significantly delay the expedited timeline.

If the protest is dismissed by the expected protest decision date of 22 June 2015 or the final possible protest decision date of 03 August 2015, there are already numerous other task orders planned to be competed immediately upon the protest stay being lifted. It would be a significant schedule risk for the requirement being provided by this modification to be competed that quickly as the full requirement package has still not been developed as a standalone requirement.

It is most appropriate for the work to stay on the current task order for an additional seven months through 15 January 2016 primarily to allow for a reasonable transition time and also to stagger the requirements being put on the ATSS IDIQ taking into consideration the potential excessive administrative burden on WHS/AD, the program office, and the IDIQ contract holders.

If the protest is sustained and requires re-evaluation, the total seven months is a reasonable time for eventual task order award knowing that the initial evaluation took five months from when proposals were received in July 2014 to initial contract award in December 2016. A re-evaluation of slightly less than that at four months would be realistic. Once a re-evaluation was completed, the remaining three months would be a reasonable time for WHS/AD to compete and award the task order to incorporate the transition-out and transition-in of the current service provider and the follow-on contractor respectively.

5. REPRESENTATION OF THE BEST VALUE: [FAR 8.405-6 (c) (2) (v)]

The Contracting Officer will ensure that the final negotiated price for this modification is fair and reasonable in accordance with the techniques listed under FAR 15.404-1 and the DPAP Deviation 214-O0011 dated March 13, 2014.

6. DESCRIPTION OF MARKET RESEARCH: [FAR 8.405-6 (c) (2) (vi)]

Market research was conducted for the recent March award of the current task order. It was determined that proper transition was needed from this work to the follow-on awardee based on the unique and highly specialized services, so it is appropriate for this work to be provided as long as is properly needed as described above.

7. ANY OTHER SUPPORTING FACTS: [FAR 8.405-6 (c) (2) (vii)]

There is a high risk that other potential contractors will not quote for work inclusive of a limited period of performance starting a few months away based on only two Sources Sought Notice responses prior to the recently award task order. It would be difficult to find qualified personnel willing to work for such a short period of time before the requirement would then transition to the ATSS IDIQ. This risk is too high considering the need for the support and the amount of time it would take to try to find potential contractors with little chance any would be interested.

If a contractor was willing and technically suitable to quote on the short period of performance, the risk to the Government in terms of disruption of support in both the short- and long-terms, would be too high to transition support to another contractor for such a limited time. The Government would incur substantial delays to performance during multiple transitions from one contractor to the next. The new contractor would potentially only be on board for a few months.

As such, there would be a transition from the incumbent, FCI, to the new contractor, and a transition from the new contractor to the successful contractor of the follow-on acquisition (i.e. a Task Order RFP requirement of the IDIQ). Assuming personnel hired by each contractor required no learning curve, the administrative challenges alone involving hiring, building passes and security clearances (up to TS/SCI) would cause significant disruption in critical services.

This duplication of effort and resultant delays in performance is mitigated by awarding the seven-month modification POP to FCI as there would only be one transition period from FCI to the successful offeror for the Task Order RFP requirement under the ATSS IDIQ.

8. ACTIONS TAKEN TO REMOVE BARRIERS TO COMPETITION: [FAR 8.405-6 (c)

(2) (viii)]

The contracting activity plans to compete this requirement as a task order under the protested IDIQ solicitation after expiration of the modification’s POP. Any further follow-on requirements beyond that task order will also be competed.

9. TECHNICAL/REQUIREMENTS CERTIFICATION: [FAR 8.405-6 (c) (2) (x)]

I certify that the facts and representations under my cognizance which are included in this justification and which form the basis for this justification are complete and accurate.

Signature:

Edward C. Chartier Date

USD(AT&L)

10. CONTRACTING OFFICER CERTIFICATION: [FAR 8.405-6 (c) (2) (ix)]

I have reviewed this Limited Sources Justification and find it to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Signature:

Kellie E. Buck Date Contracting Officer

CHARTIER.EDWARD.

C.1228602473

Digitally signed by CHARTIER.EDWARD.C.1228602473 DN: c=US, o=U.S. Government, ou=DoD, ou=PKI, ou=OSD, cn=CHARTIER.EDWARD.C.1228602473 Date: 2015.06.15 09:02:00 -04'00'

BUCK.KELLIE.E.

1060833962

Digitally signed by BUCK.KELLIE.E.1060833962 DN: c=US, o=U.S. Government, ou=DoD, ou=PKI, ou=WHS, cn=BUCK.KELLIE.E.1060833962 Date: 2015.06.16 17:40:02 -04'00'