Redacted LSJ 6.08.20.pdf

Limited Source Justification

ID07200024

1) Identification of the Agency, Contracting Activity, and Document being approved:

Procurement Office: Assisted Acquisition Services (AAS)

Agency: General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Acquisition Services (FAS), Region 7

Task Number: ID07200024

Description of Requirement/Specified Brand Name(s): This requirement is for Federal Supply Data Enrichment, pricing analytics, and supply chain risk identification subscription services for more than 300 members of the FAS Acquisition Workforce.

Period of Performance: The subscription period is a base year and four (4) one-year option periods with an estimated value as follows:

Estimated Dollar Value:

Base Year Subscription ($450,000) and Enhancements ($1,037,326) $1,487,326.00 Option Year 1 Subscription ($450,000) and Enhancements ($250,000)* $700,000.00 Option Year 2 Subscription ($450,000) and Enhancements ($250,000)* $700,000.00 Option Year 3 Subscription ($450,000) and Enhancements ($250,000)* $700,000.00 Option Year 4 Subscription ($450,000) and Enhancements ($250,000)* $700,000.00 Travel Base Year and each Option Year ($3,500 each year) $17,500.00

Total $4,304,826.00

*Enhancements may or may not be awarded within each option period.

Contractor: XSB Inc., 21 Bennetts RD STE 100, Setauket, NY 117331-1243 (DUNS 031505071)

Contract Number: GS-35F-0318X / Schedule 70 (IT)

2) Description of action being approved:

This Limited Source Justification (LSJ) is issued in support of the entire GSA/FAS enterprise-wide community for Software Subscription and Data Enrichment Web Service Support. This task order will provide contractor support to GSA, FAS, Office of Policy and Compliance, FAS Acquisition Workforce, Project Management, Quality Assurance, and Annual Subscription Service for Job Processing encompassing Data Enrichment Web Service.

The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), General Services Acquisition Manual (GSAM), and an assortment of FAS policies require the Contract Specialist/Contracting Officer (CS/CO) to find proposed prices to be fair and reasonable prior to award. The use of a pricing tool is very helpful with making this determination, particularly when transactional data is not readily available. One of GSA’s most important and influential innovations was the creation of a database pricing tool that captured awarded pricing from Federal Supply Contracts (FSS) contracts and enabled the Acquisition Workforce (AWF) to efficiently conduct horizontal price comparisons as part of the overall price analysis on offers and pricing-related modifications. The database pricing tool information was critical in the formation of a web-based tool available to the entire AWF and industry partners to conduct market research.

To assist the AWF, FAS has established a centralized pricing and supply chain risk analytics team within the FAS Office of Policy and Compliance’s Acquisition Oversight Division. This team is tasked with leveraging GSA’s existing data sources and tools to provide high quality market intelligence and analytical support for the FAS AWF. This requirement is in direct support of these activities.

Active users in every GSA Business line, with the exception of Professional Services & Human Capital (PSHC), use the software. Business lines are as follows:

• General Supplies and Services (GS&S) o Multiple Award Schedule(MAS) o Global Supply o 4th Party Logistics (4PL) o Retail Operations

• Information Technology Category (ITC) o MAS o Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACS) o Category Spend Analysis

• Travel Transportation and Logistics

• AAS

Additional integrator offices include FAS Office of Policy and Compliance (OPC), Office of Enterprise Strategic Management (OESM), FAS Office of Systems Management (OSM) and Customer & Stakeholder Engagement (CASE). Awarding an order to a contractor who is not the incumbent would almost certainly result in a change in specifications and communication protocols, thereby causing a service interruption to current production applications such as the Price Point Plus Portal (4P), which is used to evaluate approximately 8,000 new offers and modifications per year. Should the 4P system experience an interruption of service, Contracting Officers will be left without an automated market research tool for price and supply chain risk analysis, thereby degrading competitiveness of pricing and regulatory compliance across thousands of MAS and non-MAS contracts for Commercial Off-the- Shelf (COTS) products.

The contractor shall provide all personnel and project management for the completion of all deliverables to assist the Office of Policy and Compliance’s Acquisition Oversight Division.

XSB, Inc. has provided the annual subscription service and support for the past five (5) years via schedule 70 under task order ID11150021.

FAR 8.405-6 Limited sources justification and approval

Only one source is capable of responding due to the unique or specialized nature of the work;

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

3) Description of Supplies or Services Required:

This requirement is for the acquisition of Software Subscription and Data Enrichment Web Service Support to support GSA FAS enterprise-wide. The software subscription is a commercial product that is listed on the contractor’s schedule. The software includes the following features: dimension standardization, price analysis benchmarks, and Government unique supply chain risk flags, including unauthorized supplier information, Non-Trade Agreement Act (TAA) identification, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Green icon identification, and Javits Wagner O’Day Act violation identification. Presently, FAS leverages the existing data enrichment web service to conduct approximately 8,000 jobs per year consisting of more than 250 million items.

Software enhancements include the following:

• 10X increase in capacity, from 500,000 records per day to 5,000,000 records per day to accommodate growing demand, planned extensibility, and integration with the Catalog Management Initiative and GSA Advantage! modernization.

• Development of a portal whereby GSA, manufacturers, wholesalers, and vetted distributors can submit product content data and supplier authorization data. This data will be tightly integrated in to the data enrichment web service results and will automate letter of supply management for the MAS program in the future.

• Enhanced controllability and job prioritization.

• Add additional data fields not currently included in the present subscription service to facilitate analysis for upcoming programs such as the Commercial Marketplace Initiative.

• A real-time single item query capability that could be leveraged by eCommerce platforms (e.g.

GSA Advantage!) to screen for regulatory compliance and identify alternative sources of supply with more favorable pricing terms.

Support services tasks are broken out in two categories: 1) Development work to customize the current data enrichment web service to meet GSA’s requirements, and 2) Operations and Maintenance of the web service to ensure high availability and adherence to the level of service performance standards.

The GSA anticipates software enhancements will be made to the existing web service during the base period with a not to exceed (NTE) amount of $1,050,000.00. Although web service development is not anticipated beyond the base period, each option period will include optional contract line item numbers (CLINs) to capture unforeseen development work. Each option period CLIN shall not exceed $250,000.00 for an estimated total of $1,000,000.00. The total estimated costs for enhancements for the base period and four (4) option periods is $1,500,000.00.

Past enhancements benefited GSA by improving price analysis capability which is central to FAS’ $33B per year Multiple Award Schedules Program, offerings, supplying chain risk identification for Trade Agreement Act (TAA), Essentially the Same (ETS), Made in American (MiA) misrepresentation, and machine-to-machine integration and automation.

4) Identification of Authority and Supporting Rationale:

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(B) for orders placed against the Multiple Award Schedule Program and FAR 8.405-6, titled “Limited Sources,” for orders placed against the Multiple Schedule Program utilizing FAR Part 8.4 as the procurement guide.

5) Demonstration that the Acquisition Requires the Use of the Authority Cited:

This requirement is for the acquisition of data enrichment web service. Failure to provide this service will jeopardize the mission of the FAS acquisition workforce. Presently, FAS has multiple tools and applications that rely upon a static unique item identifier. The information architecture (IA) is proprietary to XSB, Inc. Shifting to a new standard for unique item identifiers would cause a significant disruption and result in additional development work as well as the loss of trend analysis capability.

The requirement necessitates the contractor to be capable of performing the day following task order award to ensure no disruption to FAS’ operation. The decision to issue the RFQ to XSB, Inc. takes into account the Government’s need for continuity of operations and the potential costs of disrupting operations.

MAS and Federal Supply Schedules provide federal, state, and local Government buyers access to more than 11 million commercial supplies, products and services valued at $33 billion per year. GSA is modernizing federal acquisition by consolidating the existing 24 Multiple Award Schedules into one single schedule for products, services and solutions. The MAS consolidation is one of four cornerstone initiatives underpinning GSA's Federal Marketplace (FMP) strategy to simplify the buying and selling experience for customers, suppliers, and acquisition professionals. The task order will make it easier for agency partners to buy products, services and solutions. Additionally, Federal Acquisition Services (FAS) seek to provide its acquisition workforce with the best available tools to improve the management and analysis of an increasingly broad scope of products in excess of 70 million awarded contract prices.

6) Description of Efforts to Solicit as Many Offers as Practicable or Exception:

Only the incumbent will be solicited for the required web service under Task Order ID07200024, as there is only one source capable of responding because the incumbent owns the subscription rights of the software that supports GSA FAS.

7) Determination by the Contracting Officer that the Anticipated Cost to the Government will be Fair and Reasonable and Represents the Best Value:

The total estimated value of the task order is $4,300,000.00, which includes a base year total of $1,500,000.00 and four (4) one-year option periods total of $2,800,000.00. The task order total was arrived at using the incumbent’s current pricing and labor rates under FSS contract GS-35F-0318X.

Fair and reasonable pricing will be determined by the contracting officer’s price analysis of the price quote submission. The labor categories and hourly rates will be verified in accordance with the rates and independent government estimate (IGE).

https://beta.sam.gov/opp/9c6569ce85314504b780b8778abde405/view https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/organization/federal-acquisition-service/fas-initiatives/federal-marketplace-strategy

In accordance with FAR 8.405-6(c)(2)(v), a determination is made by the undersigned contracting officer that this order will represent the best value for the Government consistent with 8.404(d). In accordance with FAR 8.404(d), GSA has already determined the hourly rates for services offered at hourly rates, under schedule contracts to be fair and reasonable. Therefore, ordering activities are not required to make a separate determination of fair and reasonable pricing, except for a price evaluation as required by 8.405-2(d).

8) Description of market research conducted:

In accordance with FAR 8.002(a)(1)(i) through (vi), the contracting officer has determined that the requested XSB Platform software is not available from other priority Government supply sources, such as the Federal Prison Industries and AbilityOne Program. The best acquisition alternative for the Government is the use of the MAS program, since this software program is available on GSA Schedule 70 (IT). Market research obtained from GSA Advantage! indicates that there are 2,751 vendors listed under GSA Schedule 70, Special Item Number (SIN) 132-32, but only one GSA contractor was found to offer the XSB Platform software: XSB, Inc. (GS-35F-0318X). The requirement needs to be awarded by 5/31/2020, so that the software will be available for use in the new period of performance beginning 6/01/2020. The contracting officer reviewed GSA e-library to verify XSB, Inc.

held an active GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS). The System Award Management was reviewed and XSB, Inc. is active and in good standing.

9) Other facts supporting the justification:

GSA has indicated that the subscription for these services will expire on 5/31/2020, and therefore, a subscription renewal needs to be in place in order for uninterrupted services beginning on 6/01/2020.

Without an order in place, access to valuable price analysis information will be interrupted, thus resulting in the inability of FAS personnel to accurately determine the reasonableness of prices proposed by vendors, thus not allowing them to meet their mission, which is to deliver value and savings in real estate, acquisition, technology, and other mission-support services across the Government. Over the past five years, GSA has invested approximately $1.2M in custom enhancements to address uniquely governmental requirements. These enhancements include Javit’s Wagner O’Day (JWOD) Act compliance in support of the AbilityOne Program, Country of origin standardization to identify non-TAA compliant items and Made-in-America misrepresentation, and a partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency to integrate qualified product lists for EnergyStar, Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines (CPG), Watersense, and other environmental icon/registration programs. Should the award go to a contractor other than the incumbent, it is very likely that the $1.2M in uniquely governmental enhancements would be lost and significant resources would be required to rebuild the capability with a new contractor.

10) List of sources that expressed an interest in the acquisition:

XSB, Inc., 21 Bennetts RD STE 100, Setauket, NY 11733-1243

11) Statement of Actions to overcome barriers of competition:

The General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Acquisition Service (FAS), Region 7, Fort Worth, conducts continuous market surveys of services and products in order to determine the availability of qualified sources for meeting mission-critical software support. Project managers attend conferences, displays, demonstrations and review trade publications to keep current on software technologies in this highly technical area.

In accordance with FAR 6.303-1(c), “Technical and requirements personnel are responsible for providing and certifying as accurate and complete necessary data to support their recommendation for other than full and open competition.”

Based on the above information, it is hereby determined by the signatories below that the circumstances identified in this document are accurate and complete to the best of our knowledge and represent the best business decision to meet the Government’s need.

Therefore, limiting sources under the prescription of FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i) is fully justified.

Information regarding this requirement was obtained from the Client Agency, and was solely relied upon in the preparation of this LSJ.

I hereby certify as accurate and complete the data provided to GSA, upon which is based and which supports the recommendation in the attached Limited Sources Justification (LSJ) for this procurement.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Name, Client Representative, Agency Date

The Contracting Officer and the Project Manager certifies by signature below that the information contained in this justification is accurate and complete to the best of his/her knowledge and belief.

Project Manager Date

Contracting Officer Date

Coordination/Review/Approval:

Legal Counsel Date

Branch Chief, Assisted Acquisition Services Date

Director, Assisted Acquisition Services Date

I, the approving authority, determine that the circumstances identified in this document are accurate;

therefore, limiting sources under FAR 8.405-6(a)(1) and FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(B) is justified. The signature below also represents approval of this Limited Sources Justification.

Acting Competition Advocate Date