NVD-N Pre-solicitation Notice_RFI (DEC2024).pdf

Solicitation Number: W91CRB-25-R-0007 Action/Requirement: Night Vision Device - Next (NVD-N) Notice Type: Pre-Solicitation Notice / Request For Information

Responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS AND NO CONTRACT WILL BE

AWARDED.

Background: The U.S. Army Contracting Command-Aberdeen Proving Grounds (ACC-APG) intends to soon post a solicitation on behalf of Product Manager Soldier Maneuver Sensors (PdM SMS) to develop the next generation of night vision capability for the Close Combat Force-Direct Support (CCF- DS) Soldier. The CCF-DS consists of: Cyber, Signal/Info System, Field Artillery, UAS Repair/Operator, Intelligence, Infantry, Engineer, CBRNE, Field Surgeon, Medic, Paralegal, Human Resources, Chaplain, Transport, Ammunition, Mechanic, Allied Trade Specialist and Logistics Soldiers). At a minimum, these Soldiers require overmatch capability while filling the following roles:

• Execute Combat Support and Combat Service Support Tasks at night or in no/low light conditions.

• Operate vehicles at night with adequate speed and mobility to support increased operational tempo of a modernized Close Combat Force (CCF).

• Identify and react to threats at increased ranges at night.

• Execute individual and collective tasks at night with increased speed to reduce time of support to

CCF.

• Clearly and quickly transition to focus on objects at varying distances (inches to hundreds of meters) with little/no mechanical adjustment.

Pre-solicitation Notice: The following information is being provided to allow potential Offerors to begin reviewing documents prior to the solicitation release. All information provided is for informational purposes and subject to further changes.

Tentative Request for Proposal (RFP) release: Early in the 2nd quarter FY25 Tentative Award Date: 3rd quarter FY25 Dual award Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) with Fair Opportunity for Delivery

Orders Firm Fixed Price CLINs to include an Engineering & Manufacturing Development Phase (EMD) and Production FAR based contract (Not an Other Transaction as previously considered) Basis of Award: Trade-off between Technical and Cost

Section L - Technical Factors 1, 2 and 3

Technical Factor 1: System Cost Reduction Strategy

The offeror’s system cost reduction strategy shall contain a detailed narrative that addresses the approach to minimize system cost in three primary areas grouped into the following sub factors: Kit Price Reduction Strategy, Sustainment Cost Reduction Strategy and Cost Neutral Soldier Burden Reduction Strategy.

Factor 1, Sub Factor 1: Kit Price Reduction Strategy

The Kit Price Reduction Strategy shall contain a narrative describing the Offeror’s approach to achieve a cost-reduced P&D phase system by engineering development and improved production efficiencies. This narrative shall provide a viable strategy for system cost reduction and include a bottom-line estimate of the expected system kit price percent reduction with respect to the offeror’s baseline production system unit cost. The presented strategy and reduction estimate shall be accompanied by a thorough risk analysis of the approach and the achievement of the estimated percent reduction. The complete narrative shall, at a minimum, provide justification and rationale for the cost reduction strategy by addressing cost reduction in the following topic areas: 1) material costs, 2) manufacturing costs, 3) quality assurance/test costs, and

4) performance specification cost trades of benefit to the Government.

Factor 1, Sub Factor 2: Sustainment Cost Reduction Strategy

The Sustainment Cost Reduction Strategy Reduction Strategy shall contain a narrative describing the Offeror’s approach to achieve reduced system sustainment costs through near-term engineering development and long-term planning and preparation for technology insertion opportunities. This narrative shall provide a viable strategy for sustainment cost reduction at a minimum include a narrative describing the approach to replacement part cost reduction and an approach that addresses at least one of the following: increased MTBF, reduction in maintenance labor, and/or reduction in operation and maintenance training. The presented sustainment cost reduction strategy shall be accompanied by a thorough risk analysis of the approach.

Factor 1, Sub Factor 3: Cost Neutral Soldier Burden Reduction Strategy

The Cost Neutral Soldier Burden Reduction Strategy shall contain a narrative describing the Offeror’s approach to reduce the Soldier physical load through near-term engineering development and long-term planning and preparation for technology insertion opportunities. This narrative shall provide a viable strategy for reducing the Soldier physical load without increase to the system cost. The narrative describing an approach shall address the approach to manage all the interrelated mass properties, including head borne mass, moment of inertia, and center of gravity. The presented soldier load reduction strategy shall be accompanied by a thorough risk analysis of the approach.

Technical Factor 2: Technical Maturity

The offeror’s proposal shall address the technical maturity of the proposed production hardware baseline through two Technical Maturity sub factors. The Technical Maturity sub factors include 1) the current state of the technical maturity of the baseline hardware submission performance measured against the baseline hardware entrance criteria and 2) the offeror’s road map from the current baseline hardware to achieve 100% compliance with the NVD-N Performance Specification.

Factor 2, Sub Factor 1: Baseline Hardware System Maturity

The offeror shall submit for Government assessment at least one (1) functioning night vision goggle system which is demonstrably suitable for volume production without modification. At a minimum, the baseline hardware submission must meet or exceed the following entrance criteria:

1) Binocular architecture with IPD adjustment from 55 to 70 mm

2) Monocular channel FOV of at least 38° at an eye relief of 24 mm with no less than 5mm pupil offset from center.

3) Adjustable diopter from +1 to -2D.

4) Hight-light visual acuity =>20/25 for a 100% contrast target illuminated by a 2856K source spectrum at no more than 3.4e-3 nt.

5) Low-light visual acuity =>20/60 for a 100% contrast target illuminated by a 2856K source spectrum at no more than 3.4e-5 nt.

6) Battery life > 8 hours on no more than 2 AA Li batteries

7) Helmet shroud mount interface with at least one of the following: vertical/fore/aft adjustment, binocular stow/deploy auto off/on, and/or emergency helmet breakaway

8) Written operating instructions.

Factor 2, Sub Factor 2: NVD-N Performance Specification Compliance Roadmap

The NVD-N Performance Specification Compliance Roadmap shall include submission of the completed NVD-N Performance Specification Compliance Growth Matrix along with an accompanying narrative describing the compliance growth plan, rationale for compliance assertions and a compliance confidence and risk assessment. NVD-N Performance Specification Compliance Growth Matrix is supplied in Attachment XXX. The baseline hardware performance compliance status for every NVD-N performance specification shall be included in the matrix, with the specific values expected for each parameter, whether compliance is achieved or not, and the method by which the expected value provided was validated. This matrix shall also include the compliance growth plan for the proposed progression from non-compliance through the developmental effort to compliance for every parameter listed and the anticipated timeline for achievement of compliance. An Offeror may insert as many iterations in the compliance growth timeline for compliance achievement as required by the developmental effort they are proposing. The accompanying narrative to the compliance growth matrix shall address all baseline hardware non-compliant characteristics with a clearly articulated strategy to achieve compliance with risk analysis. If any characteristic is expected to not comply, the offeror may include in the narrative, the rationale for non-compliance of that characteristic explaining the detrimental impact of compliance to other performance characteristics and why non-compliance would be in the Government or user’s best interest.

Technical Factor 3: Technical Program Management

Technical Program Management Approach shall describe in detail how the NVD-N combined development/pre-qualification and production/qualification periods will be managed to ensure the requirements of the SOW and RFP will be met. The Technical Program Management Narrative shall address at a minimum these two (2) elements: offeror’s proposed Schedule and Offeror’s available engineering and production facilities and human resources

Factor 3, Sub Factor 1: Schedule

The objective of the Schedule narrative is to provide complete and sufficient information for the Government to verify compliance with the project schedule outlined in the SOW, to assess the Offeror’s understanding of the critical paths, the reasonableness of the Offeror’s project management, and internal/external consistency of the Offeror’s estimates of task durations, dependencies with anticipated task resource loading.

Offerors shall provide a master schedule. The master schedule shall contain 1) proposed project duration with assumed start date and projected end date, 2) major milestones including all SOW-required project milestones and Offeror’s proposed milestones and proposed decision points clearly indicated, 3) deliverable ship dates including the SOW-required deliverables and additional Offeror-proposed deliverables clearly indicated, 4) test and demonstration events and tasks as required in the SOW and Offeror-proposed test events and tasks with start and end dates indicated, 5) next level predecessor tasks leading up to the milestones, deliverables and test events with event dependencies and proposed resource loading associated with the listed tasks clearly indicated, 6) proposed frequency of intermediate program status updates and technical interchange meetings and 7) task and decision point critical path(s) identified to achieve the proposed delivery dates, test events and project milestones.

The Schedule narrative shall include a description in paragraph or tabular format for each milestone, decision point, deliverable, test/demonstration event, and next level supporting task listed in the master schedule. The narrative descriptions shall include: the purpose, objective, inputs, outputs, and the metric or criteria for measuring progress and confirming completion. The schedule narrative should also include a risk assessment of the proposed schedule.

Factor 3, Sub Factor 2: Facilities and Resources

The facilities and resources section of the proposal shall include a narrative describing the proposed facility and resourcing plan which demonstrates a clear linkage to SOW schedule from development/pre-qualification through production/qualification. This narrative shall also address the offeror's current engineering and production facilities and/or a facilitization plan to achieve full rate production by the end of the effort with substantiated expectations for production capacity. The offeror shall also provide a risk assessment for achieving the proposed facilitization and human resourcing plan.

Section M Technical Evaluation

Factor 1/ Sub-factor 1

The offeror’s Kit Price Reduction Strategy will be evaluated with an adjectival rating based on the following criteria:

1. The extent to which kit price cost has been presented and allocated with justification into the following recurring cost elements: material, manufacturing, and test costs.

2. The extent to which the sum of recuring kit cost elements justifiably account for the expected total kit cost.

3. The anticipated cost reduction percent with respect to the baseline hardware to be achieved with the cost reduction development strategy proposed.

4. The completeness and clarity of the technical risk analysis for the kit price reduction strategy and the residual remaining estimated risk with proposed mitigations and the extent to which the residual risk is substantiated.

Factor 1/ Sub-factor 2

1. The extent to which system sustainment costs due to cost of replacement parts has been addressed in the proposed sustainment cost reduction strategy.

2. The extent to which system sustainment costs due to failure rates, maintenance labor, operation and maintenance training time have been addressed in the proposed sustainment cost reduction strategy.

3. The completeness and clarity of the technical risk analysis for the sustainment cost reduction strategy and the residual remaining estimated risk with proposed mitigations and the extent to which the residual risk is substantiated.

Factor 1/Sub-factor 3

1. The extent to which soldier burden reduction has been addressed in the proposed strategy while maintaining cost control;

2. The completeness and clarity of the technical risk analysis for the cost neutral soldier burden reduction strategy and the residual remaining estimated risk with proposed mitigations and the extent to which the residual risk is substantiated;

Factor 2/Sub-factor 1

1. The level of completeness, accuracy and verifiability of the baseline hardware submission performance against the required baseline performance entrance criteria;

Factor 2/Sub-factor 2

1. The extent to which the baseline hardware submission performance compliance to the NVD-N Performance Specification has been addressed.

2. The degree and quality of the data supporting the baseline hardware current performance characteristics with respect to the NVD-N Performance Specification.

3. The completeness and supportability of the developmental hardware compliance growth plan.

4. The completeness and clarity of the technical risk analysis for the developmental system full compliance in the proposed growth strategy and the residual remaining estimated risk with proposed mitigations and the extent to which the residual risk is substantiated.

Factor 3/ Sub-factor 1

1. The clarity of the proposed master schedule.

2. The completeness of the proposed master schedule with regards to SOW milestones, required hardware deliveries, and test events.

3. The supportability and reasonableness of the proposed schedule, with the use of offeror’s tasks, decision points, dependencies and required resources.

4. The degree to which the program critical paths are identified and substantiated.

5. The degree of schedule margin in the proposed schedule.

6. The completeness and clarity of the program schedule risk analysis for the developmental system full compliance in the proposed growth strategy and the residual remaining estimated risk with proposed mitigations and the extent to which the residual risk is substantiated.

Factor 3/ Sub-factor 2

1. The clarity of the linkage of the offeror’s proposed facility and resourcing plan with all phases of the SOW.

2. The degree to which the offeror’s current or proposed facilitization addresses the production capacity and test capability.

3. The completeness and clarity of the risk analysis for the planned facilitization and resourcing and the residual remaining estimated risk with proposed mitigations and the extent to which the residual risk is substantiated.

Request For Information:

1. Offerors may submit comments that the government will review and take into consideration.

The Government will not be responding to questions. Responding to questions will occur with the solicitation.

2. The Government is requesting Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) pricing based on the following information.

Assume an award in FY26 and provide the ROM price for each step ladder pricing ranges. Feel free to revise the ranges but keep the total between 1 and 25,000. This ROM shall not be construed as a commitment.

SUPPLIES/SERVICES QUANTITY RANGE

UNIT

PRICE

NVD-N FRP Systems 1 150 151 999 1,000 7,499 7,500 9,999 10,000 18,999 19,000 25,000

The Government would appreciate your response by 16 December 2024, 10:00 AM Eastern Time.

No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this request for information. Nothing shall be construed herein to commit or obligate the Government to further action. All information provided will be deem confidential and not disclosed outside of the government.

Information should be provided via email to Mr. Michael James, Contract Specialist, ACC-APG, email:

michael.c.jame.78.civ@army.mil, and Mr. Jerry Simmons, Contracting Officer, ACC-APG, email:

gerald.a.simmons2.civ@army.mil.

mailto:michael.c.jame.78.civ@army.mil