r_N6600118D0307 DOLUS FOE 17Oct18.pdf

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JUSTIFICATION for an EXCEPTION to FAIR OPPORTUNITY for the placement of an order >SAT under a Multiple Award Contract (MAC) Upon the basis of the following justification, I, Sharon M. Pritchard, as Competition Advocate of

SPAWARSYSCEN, Pacific, hereby approve the Justification for an Exception to Fair Opportunity

Pursuant to FAR 16.505(b)(2).

JUSTIFICATION

l. Agency and Contracting Activity. Department of the Navy, SPAWARSYSCEN, Pacific (SSC

Pacific)

2. Nature/Description of Action. This is a fair opportunity exception to place an order with

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) under contract number N66001-18-D-

0307. This contract is part of SSC Pacific’s multiple award contract for Development, Technical, Management, and Engineering Services for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance

Systems within Code 564. The task order number is TBD.

3. Description of Supplies/Services. The Dolus project is a non-performance-based service tasking for systems engineering, algorithm development, software development, testing, installation, and deployment support for the Dolus project; an autonomous systems development, test, and evaluation effort within SSC Pacific Code 564. The scope of work involves the deployment of autonomous unmanned surface vessels (USV’s) to demonstrate an enhanced warfighting capability to disrupt adversary activity in a given maritime region. The current effort is being performed by SAIC under task order N66001-13-D-0021 N66001-18-F-0100 which was competitively solicited and awarded to SAIC. The period of performance is for 12 months from date of award, which was 20 Nov 2017.

The Dolus program’s expected lead time is for three-years, which will be managed by the

Unmanned Maritime Systems (UMS) Program Office (PMS-406) PEO Littoral Combat Ship

(LCS) and funding from OSD. Of primary importance is the attainment of a reliable capability integrated with the U.S. Navy Fleet that supports execution of relevant maritime missions.

The Unmanned Systems Strategic Capabilities Dolus project is characterized as a Tier II developmental effort in accordance with internal SSC Pacific project management policy. Dolus is an integration effort of mature technologies for the purposes of demonstrating a near-term capability; it will include development of new technologies only where necessary due to considerable time constraints.

SSC Pacific is responsible for the Command, Control, Communications (C3) and autonomy architectures of the program. This includes integration, test, and demonstration of the Dolus project within the U.S. Navy Fleet. C3 systems developed by SSC Pacific will be integrated with a large-scale USV supplied by the contractor team. The program will leverage SSC Pacific’s expertise and extend its experience in integrating advanced unmanned systems C4ISR technologies with navy

Programs of Record (POR’s) within PEO-LCS and PEO-C4I. This project intends to advance the use of unmanned maritime systems within the Navy, and SSC Pacific sustains the domain

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4. Identification of the Exception to Fair Opportunity

a. The agency need for services is of such urgency that providing fair opportunity would result in unacceptable delays.

b. Only one such awardee is capable of providing such services required at the level of quality required because the services ordered are unique or highly specialized.

SAIC is the only contractor able to provide the level of support required on the Dolus effort due to the following critical elements. First, using another contractor would compromise technical expertise and working knowledge that team members must possess to successfully fulfill this requirement. Second, the schedule would be impacted due to another contractor’s need to operate and understand the Dolus software application and development processes. Lastly, awarding to another contractor would result in higher costs that the program cannot afford at this time.

SAIC is the only contractor that could readily provide the necessary systems engineering, algorithm development, software development, testing, installation, and deployment support vital on the Dolus project. The Dolus IPT team members are expected to have highly specialized technical expertise and fully understand how to operate a whole new application (MOCU) with new methods and practices pertaining to the Dolus project. The Dolus initial development currently performed by SAIC evolved quickly over the course of a year and continues to evolve in terms of technical and operational scope. The concept of operations (CONOPS) and concepts of employment (CONEMPS) for the end solution are also evolving. The uniqueness of the skillset and experiences in systems engineering requires users to identify, capture, validate designs and approaches (such as MagicDraw), as well as development and integrate multiple software modules

(including TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, HTML/CSS, Angular framework, Database, and DDS).

These skills cannot be compromised and directly contribute to the successful execution of the mission. Recognizing the significant overall impact, to competitively solicit this requirement would elevate the overall risk from both a technical and programmatic perspective.

The rapid development schedule of Dolus cannot afford the level of impact that would be imposed by transitioning to a new contactor. This effort requires the contractor to perform promptly in continuous nature from the current effort to into the new follow-on task order without any delays.

Several internal and external SSC Pacific IPT members’ technical efforts rely on the existing software development efforts. Transitioning to a new contractor at this time would cause a considerable delay to the development, testing and demonstration schedule. Although other contractors may possess more generic programmatic and software development expertise, they lack familiarity with the latest progress of the Dolus (e.g., in-process work). The Government estimates that it would take the new contractor 2 full time engineers an estimated 6-7 months to become fully operational in systems engineering, algorithm development, software development, testing, installation, and deployment support. This not only a sunk cost in lead time but also 2 full time government employees that would have to train the new contractor in the Dolus project specific systems. This would require 4 full-time government personnel devoted to training in the

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Dolus systems instead of contributing to the project. The delay would compromise US Navy mission support that depends on the Dolus project.

Employing another contractor would cost the government an expected sunk cost of $600,000 in order for the new contractor to become fully operational in the Dolus project. The current effort being performed by SAIC amounts to approximately $364,000 in vested level of expertise for software engineering, software development, and test and integration support. The involved IPT team members, including SAIC, have become an integral part of the overall success of Dolus for

OSD, PMS-406, and SSC Pacific. Using another contractor at this time would fail to take full advantage of the investment in expertise. Considering the lead time of 6-7 months for the new contractor to learn all the Dolus systems and applications, in conjunction with the government personnel’s side-by-side training cost, the government would incur an estimated $600,000 in sunk costs. This would require government personnel to divide their working hours to train the new contractor; this is neither fiscally responsible nor efficient.

In summary, SAIC is the only contractor that can provide the highly technical expertise, meet the schedule demands, and accomplish the effort without incurring an additional $600,000 in transition costs. This warrants an exception to fair opportunity.

c. The order must be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and efficiency as a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the MAC, provided that all the awardees were given fair opportunity to be considered for the original order.

d. It is necessary to place an order to satisfy a minimum guarantee.

e. For orders exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold, a statute expressly authorizes or requires that the purchase be made from a specified source.

5. Determination of Fair and Reasonable Cost.

Based on the historic cost information currently available, the contracting officer has adequate information to ensure that the cost to the government for this acquisition will be fair and reasonable.

6. Any Other Facts Supporting the Justification. SAIC was initially tasked to develop and implement this software engineering, development and testing support, and has met at meeting all programmatic needs. The contractor has demonstrated satisfactory performance in all assigned tasks.

7. Actions Taken to Remove or Overcome Barriers that Led to the Exception to Fair Opportunity.

The technical code will continue to survey the industrial base for qualified personnel or

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(b)(6)