JA.QFlow_Support.FedBizOpps.pdf

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL

FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

1. The Office of Acquisitions Management (AQM) is conducting this acquisition for Q-Flow supplies and services on behalf of the Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA), Office of Consular

Systems and Technology (CST). The estimated cost is

2. Nature and/or description of the action to be approved

AQM intends to award a sole source contract to ValidaTek, Inc. The period of performance will include a one-year base period and four, one-year option periods.

3. A description of the supplies or services required to meet the Department’s needs

Consular Affairs is the public face of the Department of State (DOS) for millions of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals around the world. Overseas, Consular personnel work in over 240

Embassies and Consulates, and domestically at 26 passport agencies and 2 processing centers.

Overseas posts and domestic agencies serve millions of customers a year through online, telephonic and in-person interactions at locations around the globe. Some of these locations see hundreds of appointments a day for a wide range of services. Prior to 2013, each location was responsible for managing their appointments and lobbies as they desired, creating a diverse landscape of systems and processes with minimal upward data reporting. In response to the business need for a highly reliable, scalable, secure, and fully redundant enterprise queue management system, CA, in conjunction with technical staff from the Office of Overseas

Building Operations (OBO), studied available technology to update the previous queue management system which was outdated, caused various difficulties/outages and did not meet network security requirements. During this market research process, CA tested a number of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software packages at domestic and overseas locations. In June 2013, AQM awarded a competitively-solicited blanket purchase agreement to

ACF Technologies for the supply and initial integration of an enterprise-wide COTS queue management package (Q-Flow).

To handle the consular workload in an efficient and effective manner while upholding the professional appearance of the United States, CA deployed the Q-Flow queue management solution. The Q-Flow queue management solution facilitates and measures traffic flow in consular waiting rooms and offers flexibility in configuration and gathers workflow metrics to inform enterprise decision making. Under the BPA with ACF Technologies, Q-Flow 5.2 was installed at all domestic passport agencies and 10 overseas posts. The success of this project and subsequent demand for Q-Flow has led it to be the standard for CA.

Q-Flow is a secure, web-based queue management system capable of handling appointments, reception, registration, customer routing and queuing, monitoring analysis, and reports. Q-Flow

5.2. & 5.7 has completed IT CCB process, is on IRM baseline and has a current accreditation

1 Blanket Purchase Agreement #: SAQMMA-13-A-0138

2 Q-Flow is deployed at all domestic facilities except for a few with low or no public intake.

from CA’s Risk Management Division. Subsequent DOS Action Memos and Construction Alerts have stated that Q-Flow is the solution that will be used in all new and rehabilitated facilities being planned by OBO. The end result will be to have a true enterprise queue management system, gathering wait time and service time metrics from around the world to identify bottlenecks, inform staffing and construction decisions and share best practices. The purpose of this contract is to achieve this end result. The tasks required to support this overall effort include:

Program Management Support

Software – Enterprise License

Hardware

Vendor Integration Support

Operations and Maintenance

Technical Implementation Support

4. An identification of the statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition

The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competitions is 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(1)., FAR 6.302-1, “Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.”

5. A demonstration of the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited

Q-Nomy, Inc. is the owner of Q-Flow and has entered into an exclusive partnership with ACF

Technologies. ACF Technologies is the only company that offers the Q-Flow product, including core platform support and maintenance, to the U.S. Government sector. While ACF has been providing Q-Flow hardware, software, and initial integration under the existing BPA, the level of programmatic support services and on-site collaboration required to roll out Q-Flow at all overseas sites is outside of ACF’s capabilities. As such, ValidaTek is ACF’s only partner with the capability to provide: long term program management support, enterprise license support, hardware support, integration support, and ongoing operations and maintenance. Additionally, ValidaTek is ACF’s only partner with:

Programming access to ACF’s closed APIs, program scripts, and integration protocols

Direct access to ACF’s developers, and priority access to ACF’s senior support personnel

Ability to be an agent of ACF on behalf of Q-Flow enterprise licensing for the US

Government sector

Furthermore, ValidaTek is ACF’s only partner that possesses:

3+ years of direct Q-Flow working experience alongside ACF Technologies supporting

U.S. Government sector projects

At least one ASP.NET developer with at least 3+ years of direct programming experience on Q-Flow’s Core API and ACF’s closed APIs

At least one project manager with past performance managing at least $2M+ cumulative in Q-Flow projects

At least 5+ years of direct government past performance

A Facility Clearance at the Top Secret level

Based on the foregoing, ValidaTek is uniquely qualified to perform the required tasks.

6. A description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable

ValidaTek has been identified as the only responsible source available to provide the necessary supplies and services.

7. A determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable

It is understood by AQM and CA/CST that ValidaTek will need to employ IT professionals (e.g., Operations Systems Manager, Software Systems Engineer, Software Architect, Network Systems

Administrator, etc) as well as Project Management staff with varying degrees of experience, education and training. Based on ValidaTek’s proposed labor categories, the Contracting Officer will be able to compare the proposed rates with published:

GSA Schedule 70 rates

NITAAC CIO-SP3 rates

Rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment and Wages from Occupational

Employment Statistics

Furthermore, ValidaTek holds contracts under the following multiple-award indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts which will allow for price comparison:

GSA IT Schedule 70 (Contract #: GS-35F-0555V)

Seaport-E (Contract #: N00178-10-D-6380)

GSA 8(a) STARS II (Contract #: GS-06F-1201Z)

CIO-SP3 (Contract #: HHSN316201200187W)

Department of Homeland Security EAGLE II

Lastly, the Contracting Officer and CA/CST will be able to perform a comparison of

ValidaTek’s pricing against the Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) developed for this requirement. Utilizing multiple price analysis techniques identified in FAR 15.404-1

(Proposal Analysis Techniques) will ensure the Government receives a fair and reasonable price.

8. A description of the market survey conducted and the results or a statement of the reasons a market survey was not conducted:

A combined Sources Sought + Request for Information (RFI) was posted to FedBizOpps on

February 9, 2016 . Three vendors provided responses and were subsequently evaluated. It was determined during evaluation that two of the responses did not meet DOS queuing requirements.

ValidaTek displayed a comprehensive and secure Q-Flow solution. Further, ValidaTek has several years of experience in designing, engineering, and maintaining Q-Flow queueing solution. Based on the relationship between Q-Nomy, ACF Technologies, and ValidaTek, ValidaTek is the sole provider that can meet this requirement.

9. Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition

A thorough analysis of this requirement was conducted to examine the feasibility of some form of full and open, or set-aside competition; however, none was found.

10. A listing of sources, if any, that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition

. and . both responded to the combined Sources Sought + RFI but were found unable to perform this requirement.

11. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent actions for the supplies or services required

During Option Year intervals the Department will perform market research to see if any additional partners of ACF could compete on a future requirement for Q-Flow support.

3 Reference FedBizOpps Posting Identifier #: SAQMMA-16-SS-CAQM