Multi-Modal_ADMS_LSJ_FBO.pdf

National Transportation Safety Board Limited Sources Justification (LSJ)

“Multi-Modal Accident Database Management System (ADMS) Development, Maintenance & Enhancements Support Services”

1. Contracting Activity

Office of Administration (AD), Acquisition and Lease Management Division (AD-20)

2. Program Offices Office of Aviation Safety, Office of Highway Safety, Office of Marine Safety, Office of Railroad, Pipeline, and Hazardous Materials Investigations, and the Office of Research and Engineering

3. Total Estimated Value

Reserved

4. Period of Performance The period of performance is estimated from June 21, 2018 through December 31, 2019 (approximately 18 months).

5. Nature of Action

The purpose of this Limited Sources Justification (LSJ) is to provide documentation that explains why this specific requirement is to be awarded without competition to General Dynamics Information Technology, Inc. (GDIT).

In FY2016, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) executed an LSJ to establish BPA NTSB-B-16-0008 with GDIT for multi-modal Accident Database Management System (ADMS) development, maintenance, and enhancements support services.

The purpose of this FY2018 LSJ is to increase the total estimated value of the BPA and sole source justification in accordance with FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(C), for multi-modal development, maintenance and enhancements to its ADMS software. 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. The original order or BPA must not have been previously issued under sole-source or limited-sources procedures.

6. Description of Requirement

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has a requirement for continued support and development of its ADMS application for all modal offices. The NTSB has identified the following five (5) Task Areas for support:

1. Task Area 1

Evaluation of office data collection and reporting requirements

“Multi-Modal Accident Database Management System (ADMS)

2. Task Area 2 Development of modal ADMS variants based on the needs established in Task Area 1 and the existing ADMS framework

3. Task Area 3 Ongoing maintenance of the existing aviation ADMS, as well as the ADMS variants adapted for other modes

4. Task Area 4 Enhancements to both the original and adapted ADMS software for all modes, as identified

5. Task Area 5 Development of a data query tool, including data preparation and cleaning

Task Area 5 directly relates to three (3) of the agency’s four (4) strategic goals: Conducting effective accident investigations, recommending and advocating actions to improve global transportation safety, and providing outstanding mission support.

This LSJ is a justification for continued support services in the Task Areas listed above. The NTSB intends to issue BPA orders under existing BPA NTSB-B-16-0008 which was issued under General Services Administration (GSA) Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contract GS-35F- 080CA for one (1) base period of 12 months and one (1) 12-month option year (September 28, 2016 – September 27, 2018). The period of performance of the BPA will remain the same.

Individually funded time and materials BPA Orders may be issued under the BPA for services in one (1) or more of the task areas listed above in a given year.

7. Statutory Authority Check applicable Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Citation:

X 8.401 The acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Multiple-Award Schedule Program.

8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(A) An urgent and compelling need exists, and following the procedures would result in unacceptable delays.

8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(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.

X 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(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.

“Multi-Modal Accident Database Management System (ADMS)

The original order or BPA must not have been previously issued under sole-source or limited-sources procedures.

8.405-6(b)(1)

Items peculiar to one manufacturer. An item peculiar to one manufacturer can be a particular brand name, product, or a feature of a product, peculiar to one manufacturer. A brand name item, whether available on one or more schedule contracts, is an item peculiar to one manufacturer. (1) Brand name specifications shall not be used unless the particular brand name, product, or feature is essential to the Government’s requirements, and market research indicates other companies’ similar products, or products lacking the particular feature, do not meet, or cannot be modified to meet, the agency’s needs.

8. Unique Qualifications/Circumstances of Requirement

The NTSB has made a significant investment in the development of the ADMS application.

The NTSB, contracting with GDIT, deployed the current generation of the aviation ADMS in September 2013 under GSA MAS task order NTSB-F-12-0061. During this and subsequent GSA MAS contract actions, the NTSB relied upon GDIT’s expertise in understanding and reverse engineering legacy source code in order to make native-language modifications and enhancements without resorting to completely re-writing the software. The ADMS software maps to and interacts with other internal NTSB data systems, and relies on a complex series of server-side stored procedures separate from the system code to perform its required functions. These systems and the stored procedures have evolved over time to meet the operational needs of the agency. They compose a complex environment in which a developer not familiar with the system code and the stored procedures would need to spend significant time and effort to effectively develop new code for enhancements or bugfixes GDIT developed unique knowledge of this complex architecture through meetings and discussions with NTSB staff and previous development work with ADMS and other NTSB IT systems.

GDIT developed and maintains several of the data systems related to ADMS, including the current generation of the Crash Investigation Data Extraction and Readout (CIDER) application, custom-developed software used to manage recorded multi-modal vehicle data, and the Medical Investigation Catalog System (MEDICS), which provides secure storage for medical records, injury information, medication, autopsy, and toxicology test results across all transportation modes.

Through task order NTSB-F-12-0061, BPA NTSB-B-14-0004, and BPA NTSB-B-16-0008, the following aviation ADMS maintenance, new features and functionality, and system enhancements were performed:

“Multi-Modal Accident Database Management System (ADMS)

• Adding a decrypt and import function for ECCAIRS (European Co-ordination centre for Accident and Incident Reporting Systems) file types from foreign investigative authorities

• Automating initial notification processes for accidents involving foreign authorities

• Allowing auto-population of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) airmen data

• Introducing a unique visual signature for prepopulated data

• Redesigning ADMS’s Safety Improvements section to integrate with the agency’s safety recommendation database and to display follow-up safety activity

• Redesigning the NTSB’s factual and brief report templates

• Enabling changes to phase of flight, event, and findings data fields in pre-2008 cases from the ADMS User Interface (UI)

• Building additional management reporting/summary data queries

• Implementing data quality validation rules, using both the existing ADMS data validation structure and hard-coded validation rules

• Implementing a dynamic “Safety Resources” section in the redesigned final report to display safety messages and links to internal and external safety resources

• Building a mechanism to automatically notify International Civil Aviation Organization

(ICAO) of report completion, consistent with international standards

• Expanding the system’s search/analysis functions to allow investigators to easily locate similar accidents based on aircraft type, accident circumstances and/or accident coding, and other similar attributes

• Designed and built prototype of a flexible query tool to data queries involving the full spectrum of public data contained in the database

• Redesign of ADMS’ weather page to improve connectivity to external weather databases and facilitate data entry; also, improved ability to capture aloft weather conditions

• Product Requirement Documents (PRDs) for both the Marine and Highway modes

• Development of limited but functional Marine ADMS modal variant

TASK AREA 2

The NTSB identified a need, based in part on the demonstrated value of the aviation ADMS, “to develop variations of ADMS for the other transportation modes in the NTSB’s legislative mandate: railroad, highway, marine and pipeline, as well as the Office of Research and Engineering. The requirement involves evaluation of office needs, development of multiple ADMS variants suitable for each office, and subsequent ongoing maintenance of those systems.” The intent is to enable a contract vehicle that would allow for the coordinated development of an accident data system that spanned all modes, with the implied promise of enabling the NTSB to leverage this data for both mission and programmatic benefit. Work on this project began in FY2016 in BPA NTSB-B- 16-0008, resulting in completed PRDs for both the Marine and Highway modes (Task Area 1), and a limited but functional Marine database (Task Area 2). Issuance of a pending BPA

“Multi-Modal Accident Database Management System (ADMS) order will enable completion of all modal variants, as well as a module for the Office of Research and Engineering.

TASK AREA 5

A Task Area not fully anticipated in the FY2016 LSJ, and thus not included in the original estimated value of the BPA, was the development of a data query tool to allow broad access to the data contained in the system. Development of such a tool began in FY2017, with the intent of significantly improving internal and external access to the NTSB’s existing aviation accident data. The NTSB issued an order to research a solution, then develop an easy-to-use query interface with an architecture that can be applied to each modal ADMS variant when they come online. As a result, when the multi-modal ADMS project is complete, this query tool will allow searches across all NTSB accident data. For example, this tool will be capable of showing the breadth of the NTSB’s work on issues such as fatigue, distraction, impairment, or other factors that cross modal lines. This task resulted in a working prototype that allows for complex data searches using multiple parameters.

While the prototype is promising, staff underestimated the level of effort required to clean and prepare the accident data sufficiently to allow easy access. Developing a query architecture capable of interfacing with multiple modal data sources, as well as cleaning the existing source data to make it searchable, took more effort than staff anticipated.

Although the actual development of the query tool can be considered an “enhancement” under Task Area 4, staff believes that the nature and level of effort involved in 1) developing a query tool to allow easy access to the NTSB’s accident data, 2) preparing the NTSB’s data sufficiently to allow easy searching both internally and externally, and 3) documenting the data so that users are able to effectively use it and recognize its limitations, merit a revision to the LSJ to include “Task Area 5 – Development of a data query tool, including data preparation and cleaning”.

The three (3) components of Task Area 5 and the continued development of ADMS PRDs and modal variants under Task Area 2 require a thorough understanding of the existing data, as well as the data structure of the new multi-modal database variants. GDIT’s role developing, maintaining, and enhancing the NTSB’s existing highly specialized accident data programs, combined with both the complexity and redundancy of the expected tasks, make them uniquely qualified to develop the query functionality of the database, prepare the existing data for wider consumption, and develop ADMS PRDs and modal variants.

Selection of a contractor without such qualifications would result in the need for a contractor to familiarize itself with the environment that consists of complex architecture, design, and code. Such a contractor will first have to get familiarized with overall NTSB business processes and the data/functional application interdependencies. As a result of these interdependencies, the contractor will have to then spend a significant amount of time and

“Multi-Modal Accident Database Management System (ADMS) resources to learn the database design and schema structure of the ADMS application along with the design and structure of other NTSB business applications. This will incur significant costs to the Government in terms of additional contractor time spent acquiring the resources with the right skill set to research, understand the existing code base, code rewrites, and major design changes of both the ADMS application and NTSB environment.

Accordingly, GDIT has been uniquely qualified to perform the requirement economically and efficiently under BPA NTSB-B-16-0008. As stated above, GDIT developed the last several generations of ADMS for NTSB, giving them a unique understanding of the programming language, structure, and interdependencies of the NTSB’s specialized accident investigation systems.

9. Efforts to Determine Only One Source BPA NTSB-B-14-0004 was awarded to GDIT under FAR 8.4 procedures. A previous solicitation, NTSB-Q-14-0022, sought to identify contractors with both a knowledge of aviation accident data processes and systems as well as the requisite programming expertise. One contractor other than GDIT submitted a quotation. As a result of the evaluation, the quotation from GDIT was determined to offer the best value to the Government.

The subsequent work conducted by GDIT after their selection involved highly specialized and complex tasks related to translation between U.S. and international aviation accident data systems. Because the NTSB maintains the only official repository of U.S. aviation accident data, NTSB staff would be familiar with any other domestic source with such expertise. In its role managing this data system, no other contractors could be identified that possess both the programming expertise and data system familiarity to economically and efficiently meet the requirement.

10. Contracting Officer’s Determination I have reviewed the information, contained in this LSJ, and determined that based on all the information provided, the anticipated cost of any subsequent sole source award would be fair and reasonable and represent the best value to the Government consistent with FAR 8.404(d).

11. Market Research The NTSB, as the sole repository of U.S. aviation accident data, regularly interacts with other agencies, academic institutions, and private companies to provide access to and support of aviation accident data. The NTSB technical staff have contact with many representatives in a relatively small field of expertise, and through their regular interactions and attendance at conferences and meetings, the NTSB has not identified any other sources with the capabilities to economically and efficiently meet the requirement.

“Multi-Modal Accident Database Management System (ADMS)

In addition, in accordance with FAR 8.405-6(a)(ii)(2), within 14 days, a notice of this contract action and LSJ will be posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website (www.fbo.gov) and the NTSB website for 30 days.

12. Other Pertinent Information GDIT’s older GSA MAS contract, GS-35F-4357D, under which the BPA NTSB-B-14-0004 was issued, expired on September 30, 2016. However, there were three (3) unexercised option years remaining on that BPA issued thereunder became no longer available for exercise after the expiration of GSA MAS contract GS-35F-4357D. The logical follow-on BPA, NTSB-B-16- 0008 was issued under GDIT’s new GSA MAS contract, GS-35F-080CA. Both GSA MAS contracts, under Schedule 70, are for “General Purpose Commercial Information Technology Equipment, Software, and Services.”

13. List of Interested Sources No other companies/organizations have expressed an interest in this requirement.

14. Efforts to Remove Barriers to Competition The NTSB will conduct market research to acquire other sources to meet its requirements. In addition, the NTSB will continue to monitor the market for future acquisitions to identify new or improved products that meet or exceed requirements and that can be considered for competition.

15. Contracting Officer Certification I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in the LSJ, are accurate and complete, to the best of my knowledge and belief.

http://www.fbo.gov/