NRC-HQ-10-15-A-0002_NRC-HQ-10-17-O-0002_M0013_LSJ_Increase_in_SIT_BPA_Call_Ceiling_Price_Redacted.pdf

LIMITED SOURCES JUSTIFICATION

REQUISITION NO.

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory

Commission, Office of Administration, Acquisition Management Division (AMD)

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

The NRC Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) requires a noncompetitive modification to GSA Federal Supply Schedule Contract No. GS35F496BA, Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) No. NRC-HQ-10-15-A-0002, BPA Call No. NRC-HQ-10-17-O- 0002 (“the Systems Integrator Task (SIT) BPA Call”) with Northramp, LLC to consolidate the period of performance and adjust the level of effort to provide service delivery implementation and enhanced customer experience.

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

Background:

The NRC awarded the SIT BPA Call in August 2017. The purpose of the SIT BPA Call is to acquire support for implementing and improving the delivery of the following core services across all OCIO service areas, to include (1) providing Transition Management activities to move from a single contractor environment under the single-award Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) Contract No. NRC-33-11-325 (Information Technology Infrastructure and Support Services (ITISS)) to a multi-contractor environment under the multiple-award GLobal INfrastructure and Development Acquisition (GLINDA) BPAs; (2) taking proactive measures to stabilize the NRC’s Production Operation Environment (POE) and NRC’s service delivery capability; (3) completing a gap analysis on each core service area; (4) developing an implementation plan to establish, modify or enhance each of the core service areas; and (5) providing observation, assessment and reporting for each of the core service areas.

The SIT BPA Call provides support in developing a consistent set of principles, standards, policies, and constraints to guide the design, development, deployment, operation, and requirement of service delivery across all the OCIO service delivery areas.

Requirement for Modification to the SIT BPA Call:

In early 2017, OCIO developed a service delivery framework to ensure consistent IT service experience to NRC end users. The OCIO service delivery framework resulted in an OCIO reorganization and identification of service managers and service owners. During the implementation of the OCIO service delivery framework and the transition of services from the ITISS contract to competitively awarded GLINDA BPA Calls, OCIO discovered that the level of effort for certain core services were either underestimated or were not fully documented in the SIT BPA Call Performance Work Statement (PWS).

The following items are examples of requirements identified during implementation of OCIO’s service framework and transition of services from a single provider to a multi-vendor environment that need to be added to, or adjusted in, the BPA Call:

OCIO Service Model Adaptation. Additional time and attention is needed to assist OCIO in adopting the service delivery framework. As the SIT BPA Call contractor, Northramp has been required to spend additional time and attention with the OCIO personnel beyond what was originally anticipated to build competency to successfully deliver, manage, and improve their service areas. Northramp played a critical role in helping OCIO develop service dependency maps and operational level agreements between not just the GLINDA service areas, but all OCIO service areas. When the Systems, Networking, and Related Cross- Cutting (SNCC) service area was transitioned from the ITISS contract, the NRC realized that additional service framework implementation support was required from Northramp due to the complexity and importance of the agency’s IT infrastructure services and the interconnections with other OCIO service areas.

Asset and Configuration Management. In performing the requirements of the SIT BPA Call, Northramp encountered unavoidable delays in obtaining the appropriate access/permissions to the agency’s Service Delivery Lifecycle Management (SDLM) tool, as well as, delays in upgrading the SDLM tool. The OCIO underestimated the level of effort required to implement the SDLM upgrade. The NRC requires Northramp to provide ongoing Remedy architecture and design work to ensure accurate asset configuration, data quality, and ticket management. Architecture and governance support will be critical to maintain the integrity of the Remedy Change Management Data Base (CMDB). In addition, as the agency moves into the cloud, the Service Delivery Management Tool will also need to move to the cloud.

Additional design and migration work will be needed to facilitate the transition to the cloud.

Change Control Board (CCB). The CCB supports the efforts of the NRC CIO and other agency offices in implementing consistent IT Lifecycle management best practices based on agency management directives and policies. The CCB reviews change requests, evaluates the impact of the proposed changes and votes on whether to move forward with the requested changes. The requirement for facilitation and management of the CCB was identified during transition from a single service provider environment to a multi-vendor environment. The CCB has a critical role in reviewing and approving all changes in the agency’s IT environment. As the SIT BPA Call contractor, Northramp is uniquely positioned to perform facilitation and management of the CCB because they currently provide overarching programmatic support services for all OCIO services and they understand the interconnections/dependencies between service areas.

Customer Relations Management (CRM). Northramp has significantly improved the NRC’s incident, event, and problem management by implementing defined processes and procedures. Northramp currently facilitates incident, event and problem management to ensure consistent processes and procedures across all OCIO service areas. In addition to incident, event and problem management, the OCIO requires Customer Relations Management (CRM) to provide consistent customer service across all OCIO service areas.

The CRM function provides enhanced customer experience, customer outreach forums, services rationalization, service demand capture, user satisfaction, and will assist in managing relationships and interactions across service areas with OCIO customers. To ensure consistent, efficient and effective customer service across all OCIO service areas and service providers, OCIO requires Northramp to expand their continual service improvement capability to include the development of a customer engagement model and integration of standard customer intake process and demand management into the NRC’s ITSM tool managed by Northramp.

Information Technology Service Management (ITSM). Northramp’s overarching role as the SIT BPA Call contractor in supporting the GLINDA program uniquely positions them to assist GLINDA BPA Call CORs in performing operational ITSM work as well as in accelerating process improvements through gap analysis and targeted process design execution.

Northramp has and continues to facilitate transition of the ITSM role to GLINDA BPA Call CORs. Northramp has identified requirements across all GLINDA BPA Calls to ensure consistent ITSM across the GLINDA Program. Northramp has incorporated new processes and procedures into the management of agency desktops and NRC requires Northramp to expand their ITSM work to include agency software and infrastructure hardware.

Enterprise Metrics and Service Performance Report Execution. The NRC’s established performance metrics across the GLINDA program have evolved as service areas have transitioned from the ITISS contractor to the successor GLINDA BPA Call contractors. As the SIT BPA Call contractor, Northramp worked closely with the GLINDA BPA Call CORs to identify dependency mapping between other service areas. In many cases, GLINDA BPA Call Service Level Requirements have been modified since they were awarded. In addition, high level program metrics have been identified. The OCIO requires Northramp to provide additional resources to build, operate, and continuously improve the enterprise metrics model to accurately measure and monitor service area performance across all OCIO service areas. The OCIO requires Northramp to design a central dashboard and reports that will be used to analyze service adoption, performance, trending and improvement opportunities across the OCIO service ecosystem with the results used to continually improve service delivery, inform business decisions and investments regarding current and future services, in addition to the service requirements in the GLINDA BPA Calls.

IT Asset Operational Excellence. Northramp currently provides the NRC with asset and configuration management across all OCIO Service Areas. The NRC is in the process of replacing all of the agency’s aging desktops with Windows 10 laptops and desktops. The OCIO was not fully aware of all the work required to validate and verify hardware and software inventories and the level of effort required to refresh the entire agency concurrently. The OCIO requires Northramp to continue to work closely with the OCIO service owners to track and maintain records for NRC hardware assets. The OCIO also requires Northramp to incorporate lessons learned during the agency workstation refresh efforts to enhance the efficiency of the NRC’s recently upgraded Service Delivery Management Tool. Northramp’s ability to incorporate standard processes and procedures used during the agency’s workstation refresh project will ensure more efficient and automated hardware and software refresh efforts across the agency in the future.

Based on these and other needed adjustments to the SIT BPA Call, OCIO requires an increase to the SIT BPA Call ceiling price to ensure adequate support can be acquired to meet these requirements under the SIT BPA Call.

The estimated value of the increase to the ceiling price for the proposed modification to the SIT BPA Call is: Base Period: ; Option Period 1: ; and Total:

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: 8.405-6(a)(1)(C) In the interest of economy and efficiency, the new work is a logical follow-on to an original Federal Supply Schedule order provided that the original order was placed in accordance with the applicable Federal Supply Schedule ordering procedures.

This increased work is a logical follow-on to the ITS-IPPS SIT call, which was competitively awarded among ITS-IPPS BPA holders in accordance with FAR 8.405-3(c)(2)(iii). During

Northramp’s performance of the SIT call the NRC identified the need for additional effort in the SIT services, as well as additional requirements closely aligned to the work specified in the SIT call that the NRC had not fully estimated or anticipated at the time of the call’s award. Since August 2017, Northramp has developed substantial organizational experience that efficiently and effectively supports OCIO’s GLINDA program and OCIO’s service model adaptation, hardware/software management, change management, customer relationship management, and overall IT service performance monitoring efforts. As noted above, Northramp would be able to leverage that experience and further build upon work it has already performed under the SIT call in performing the increased work now required by the NRC. Competing a separate call for this increased workload would risk having two different contractors performing similar work and duplicating activities, increasing inefficiency and costs. To introduce a new contractor would delay further development of the service model framework implementation since it would take time to compete the requirement, clear resources through the security process, and to thoroughly familiarize the contractor with OCIO’s service model framework which Northramp helped develop and implement. It would therefore be in the interest of economy and efficiency to modify the existing Northramp call to include the NRC’s underestimated requirements.

5. A determination by the ordering activity contracting officer that the order represents the best value consistent with 8.404(d): The Contracting Officer (CO) will request a quotation from Northramp for the requirements to be added or changed in the SIT BPA Call. Once the NRC receives that quotation, the CO will ensure that it is thoroughly evaluated. The quotation will utilize labor categories and fixed hourly rates that are already in the SIT BPA Call and for which the fixed hourly rates have already been determined to be fair and reasonable. However, the CO will request that the COR evaluate the level of effort and the mix of labor proposed to perform specific tasks being ordered via the modification, as part of the process to determine whether the quotation is acceptable and whether the price for the modification is reasonable. The CO will only execute the modification after they first determine that the modification represents the best value to the NRC. The CO will also leverage the independent Government cost estimate and their independent judgment in making that determination.

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: The NRC conducted market research during planning of the multiple-award ITS-IPPS BPAs. The market research revealed multiple vendors who could perform the required work, and multiple ITS-IPPS BPAs were competitively awarded. The NRC then competitively awarded call NRC-HQ-10- 17-O-0002 to Northramp under those multiple-award BPAs. The NRC could competitively award this additional work under those BPAs or otherwise but doing so would not be practicable because this work is a logical follow-on to the work performed by Northramp under call NRC-HQ-10-17-O-0002. OCIO has determined that it is not feasible to potentially have a separate contractor performing the required additional work while Northramp is already performing the similar original work under that call.

7. 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 for the supplies or services is made: AMD will closely scrutinize any subsequent significant requests to modify the SIT BPA Call to determine whether they are adequately documented and reviewed by appropriate approval officials.