LSJ XSB PP WSIT CV Redacted.pdf

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

CONTRACTING SERVICES OFFICE

6090 Strathmore Road Richmond, VA 23237

LIMITED SOURCES JUSTIFICATION

(FAR 8.405-6)

1. Identification of:

Requiring Activity:

DLA Defense Standardization Program Office 8725 John J. Kingman Rd, STOP 5100 Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-6220 POC: Nicole Dumm, Program Analyst

Contracting Activity:

DLA Contracting Services Office 6090 Strathmore Road Richmond, VA 23237 POC: Derek Willis, Contracting Officer

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

Approval of solicitation on a limited source basis under the authority of FAR Clause 8.405-6, Limiting Sources. The government intends to place an order against a Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contract with the General Services Administration (GSA).

XSB, Inc. (CAGE 1FSL3) is a responsible source registered in SAM.gov and currently has a contract with GSA under MAS/FSS Contract, GS-35F-0318X; Contract Period: April 4, 2016 through April 3, 2026

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

This justification authorizes and approves the limited-source procedures to procure the required support from XSB. XSB was recently acquired by Exiger for XSB’s Pin Point web-based portal, and Weapon Systems Impact Tool (WSIT), and Coherent View® database. Exiger has acquired XSB to enhance supply chain management, reduce risk, and accelerate the digital transformation of engineering data as of July 1, 2024.

This requirement is for the purchase of XSB's Pin Point, WSIT, and Coherent View® support services. XSB develops and provides a platform for managing and analyzing data, particularly within the context of supply chains and logistics. XSB specializes in semantic data science, known for its SWISS digital model data platform.

The total value for the base and all options is estimated below (see IGCE for complete details):

Table 1 - IGCE CLIN Description UOM Price

Base Period Pin Point, WSIT and Coherent View® Support 12 Months (MO) Option Year 1 Pin Point, WSIT and Coherent View® Support 12 Months (MO) Option Year 2 Pin Point, WSIT and Coherent View® Support 12 Months (MO)

Estimated Total Contract Value

This requirement has a period of performance (POP) containing a base year and two (2) 12-month option years, see details below:

Base Period: September 17, 2025 through September 16, 2026 Option Period 1: September 17, 2026 through September 16, 2027 Option Period 2: September 17, 2027 through September 16, 2028

4. The authority and supporting rationale (see 8.405-6(a)(1)(i) and (b)(1)) and, if applicable, a demonstration of the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications to provide the required supply or service.

The authority permitting other than full and open competition is FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(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.

In accordance with FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(B), XSB’s Pin Point, WIST, and Coherent View Support products are considered unique and/or highly specialized which makes XSB’s products essential to the Government’s requirement. XSB’s products use proprietary technologies, and no other known source has the capabilities to provide the same or similar services that will fulfill the government’s needs. Moreover, this requirement provides software and security updates as well as quarterly data refreshes of the Coherent View® database, for which two (2) DoD systems are based: Pin Point and Weapon System Impact Tool (WSIT).

Pin Point contains part, sourcing, and pricing information from both government parts portals:

GSA Advantage and the DoD’s FedMall. Additionally, Pin Point contains commercial data mined from various manufacturers’ websites by XSB proprietary software agents. Pin Point is currently being used by DLA and the military services, and with over 100 million parts cataloged in Pin Point, users get an unprecedented view of the government supply chain. Pin Point provides the capability to perform parametric research on technical and logistics attributes, making Pin Point an essential tool for any situation where groups of parts with similar properties need to be identified.

Information from many different government databases has been compiled into an application with powerful search functionality. Pin Point supports parts management practitioners, enabling them to find and select preferred parts during system design in accordance with MIL-STD-11991B, General Standard for Parts, Materials, and Processes, which replaces MIL-STD-3018, Parts Management Standard. Furthermore, Pin Point helps with finding replacement parts when parts become obsolete.

WSIT provides DoD users information on the relationships between specifications and standards, National Stock Numbers (NSN) and weapon systems. For example, WSIT can display to the end user how many weapon systems would be impacted if a particular specification or standard were to be canceled. In other words, this system will reveal how many different weapon systems use a particular specification or standard, as well as the NSNs that are tied to each specification, standard, or weapon system.

To remain current, both WSIT and Pin Point require quarterly data refreshes, and software and security updates to the Coherent View® database. XSB’s Coherent View® uses proprietary structured queries and artificial intelligence to compile information from many government databases and manufacturers’ websites into an application with powerful search functionality and the ability to assemble and present query results in a manner that infers logical relationships between specifications, NSNs, part numbers, and technical characteristics of a part. Currently, there are no known competitive products that provide this capability. Because the Coherent View® is proprietary to XSB software, XSB is the only known source capable of supporting this requirement to provide a quarterly refresh to maintain the WSIT and Pin Point data used by many DoD acquisition and logistics personnel.

In accordance with FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(B), there are no known sources that can provide the required services/supplies that XSB offer (i.e., Pin Point, WSIT, and Coherent View® technology);

therefore, the required support falls under other than full and open competition. The government relies on current Coherent View® data for WSIT and Pin Point software functionality and security.

Therefore, contract procurement with XSB to meet the requirements as outlined is essential.

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

XSB's Coherent View® technology has proven invaluable to customers, including WSIT and Pin Point, which were developed using it through a DLA R&D effort. Replicating this mature technology would require significant time and expense, resulting in lost capability during development. Therefore, soliciting this requirement on an unrestricted basis (other than full and open competition) and issuing a limited source award to XSB offers the best value to the government. The Contracting Officer determines the anticipated cost to the government will be fair and reasonable, and that the resulting order will represent the best value to the Government, by comparing proposed prices to historical prices paid for the same or similar supplies/services. Furthermore, GSA establishes FSS contracts through a competitive process, negotiating fair and reasonable pricing with vendors. This ensures agencies have access to pre-vetted, competitively priced goods and services.

6. A description of the market research conducted among schedule holders and the results, or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

During April 2025, the Defense Standardization Program Office (DSPO) conducted market research seeking similar technology and potential sources which offer similar data extraction technologies, as those employed by XSB. Though the market is expanding with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, many of the tools currently available do not aggregate data in the manner that XSB’s tools provide and in a format that DLA relies upon. The aforementioned sources and/or solutions currently available only offer Build of Material (BOM) management software tools, which fall short since they use narrow component databases. Most commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) tools only offer Product Change Notifications (PCN), End-of-Life (EOL) alerts, and Pricing information with additional programs to manage inventory levels. While these tools have a research component, they are based on internal databases of users’ own inventory levels and demand metrics.

XSB’s Pin Point, WSIT, and Coherent View® technology utilizes AI and semantics to standardize and pull information by datamining from both internal government systems, military and industry standards, and external sources included parts catalogues, thus creating a “coherent view” of each part. Coherent View® further offers complete, continually updated technical, management and reference data about NSNs, and millions of commercial parts, and the correlation of the military and commercial specifications and standards to those parts. As such, XSB, with their Coherent View ® tool, is in a very unique niche that others in the market are not. For example, Parts Box, e- Emphasys Parts Management Portal, and IHS Markit Parts Management Tools (BOM Intelligence, PCNAlert, and Parts Intelligence), were looked at as potential sources; however, given the role of information we seek, XSB is the only known manufacturer. Parts Box and e-Emphasys do not meet agency needs because of their narrow component databases and lesser ability to aggregate data. As a result, there are currently no known IT tools commensurate with the capabilities of the Coherent View® technology that is at the core of the Pin Point and WSIT applications. Since the Coherent View® is proprietary to XSB Inc., and that organization is the only known manufacturer capable of supporting this requirement, no further market research is being conducted at this time.

7. Any other facts supporting the justification.

None at this time.

8. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to the restricted consideration before any subsequent acquisition of the supplies or services is made.

DLA will continue to observe the commercial market to determine if there are products with the same or similar supplies/services that can meet the government’s need. Market research will continue to be conducted to determine if changes have occurred in the market that would enable competition amongst future actions to the maximum extent possible. No other source has demonstrated the capability necessary to provide the required support at this time.