Sole Source Justification 1_Redacted.pdf

SOURCE SELECTION INFORMATION - SEE FAR 3.104

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL

FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

Roskill Market Reports

1. Contracting Activity: Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Strategic Materials (DLA SM), Directorate of Contracting, 8725 John J Kingman Road, Fort Belvoir, VA 22060.

2. Description of Action: Award of a one (1) year firm- fixed price type contract. The National

Defense Stockpile (NDS) Transaction Fund will be utilized.

3. Description of commercially available items: The DLA Strategic Materials proposes to issue a contract on an other than full and open competitive basis for the purchase of Roskill material market reports and accompanying, corresponding data sets directly from Roskill, e publisher and copyright holder of these products. The acquisition includes 23 Roskill published material market reports, the accompanying, associated data sets for those 23 material reports, and data sets for 16 materials. All data sets must include full user rights extended to DLA-SM for their use in econometric modeling and for uploading all data sets into the SMART platform. All items are to be delivered via electronic files. Access may be made via an interactive URL made available for Roskill with exclusive protected access by DLA-SM. These 23 material market reports and the 39 data sets are commercial items available directly from Roskill. Only Roskill, as the exclusive published and owner of the copyrighted data, can extend the user rights to the data sets to DLA-SM.

a. Full user rights are defined as the right to upload and use the data without restriction. All

Roskill published/produced data shall be specifically for use by DLA-SM, and shall aggregate the data implemented in its econometric modeling and its SMART system.

b. It is the Government's intention to award a contract to purchase this data with a period of performance of one year from the date of contract award. Award is anticipated by August 1, 2020. The estimated dollar value for the requirement is

4. Authority Cited: The statutory authority for this non-competitive action is Only One

Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements (10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1)), as implemented in Federal Acquisition Regulation 13.501.

5. Reason for Authority Cited: The contract award will be sole source to Roskill directly as the publisher and owner of all rights. Roskill has indicted they do not extend any user rights to its data via third parties. Consequently, as user rights for all data sets are required under the terms of the contract action, contracting directly with Roskill is required. While the products are commercially available items and are being acquired with no alteration, DLA-SM is seeking user rights to the data for its own applications. These user rights are an absolute requirement for DLA-SM and are what requires sole sourcing.

In the past DLA-SM has acquired Roskill material market reports via a third party consolidated subscription contract. As noted, DLA-SM seeks to have full user rights to the data sets it seeks to acquire. At the present time, the extension of these rights must come directly from Roskill, Additionally, the current inability to obtain to data rights from a third party, is actually a best business practices as it reduces risks that might arise regarding conflicts over use of data rights.

Finally, contracting directly with Roskill (the publisher and rights owner) provides direct contractual relationship and the ability to interact directly with this company for ensuring full performance under the contract.

DLA-SM requires many sources of data in order to meet its congressionally mandated reporting requirements. In the past two fiscal years, DLA-SM has made similar sole source awards for data sets from Metal Bulletin and CRU/Ryan’s Notes for other “branded” published data sets for similar applications. Econometric modeling and applications of SMART require large sets of data from multiple reputable sources in order to function with accuracy. Further, those data sets require regular updates because thedata must be the best and most current available. The importance of the decisions made regarding stockpile requirements requires no less. The outcomes set forth the strategy for strategic material requirements for national security.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Roskill market reports and material data sets can only be acquired from Roskill. Roskill is the publisher of all of the items sought under this contracting action. Much like any publisher, their copyright products are acquired directly from them or through their approved outlets. Roskill has no other commercial outlets. While other vendors on the behalf of a customer can acquire Roskill products, they cannot be acquired for resale like a typical bookseller. In fact, as noted, DLA-SM has acquired Roskill reports via a consolidated subscription contract in the past. However, that vendor had to acquire the reports from Roskill and then make them available to DLA. However, Roskill does not extend user rights via third party contractors/agents.

7. Determination of Fair and Reasonable Price: The Contracting Officer anticipates costs to be determined fair and reasonable based on commercial sales data. The Contracting Officer will make a determination of fair and reasonable price at the time of award. The determination will be documented in a Simplified Acquisition Award Document.

8. Market Research: Roskill has over 50 years in the publishing industry and is recognized as a leader in global commodity market data collection, reporting and forecasts. The data sets and market reports produced by Roskill are in depth and cover a comprehensive and expansive set of data—the types of data required to produce econometric modeling for supply and demand—on a global scale. Further, these market reports cover world supply and demand, the operations of the major producers, end-use market applications, price trends, international trade patterns and demand forecasts. Roskill uniquely meets the products sought under this requirement. These products provide the most current data available on a global scale.

Further, the reports sought are scheduled to be published and available within the next year.

Countries worldwide as well as commodity traders and commodity producers for their forecasting and consulting services use Roskill reporting. Roskill is recognized for the quality of its data and its ability to support their processes and their analytics. The data set products sought under this requirement are immediately available and contain the most current information available. Market research and best business practices indicates contracting directly with Roskill for the items sought, is best accomplished through a direct, sole source firm fixed contract.

9. Any Other Facts Supporting the Use of Other Than Full and Open Competition: As previously established, Roskill, as the publisher and copyright owner, is the only one that can extend full user rights to DLA-SM for the data sets to be acquired. The data sets are key to the congressionally mandated report work that DLA-SM is required to produce. Large econometric modeling requires copious amounts of data and that data must come from trusted sources. Roskill data is trusted and recognized as a global leader in the collection, reporting and forecasting of strategic materials.

Additionally, SMART requires current data regularly updated in order to produce outputs from which supply chain assessments are made. Finally, including or uploading data to SMART requires that DLA-SM have user rights to the data contained within. Thus, these rights are key to supporting the requirement as sole source.

8. Interested Sources: All interested sources that are identified through synopsis and/or market research will receive due consideration as prescribed by law. No other potential sources have expressed interest in this acquisition. Discussions with Roskill have not provided a willingness to provide user rights to data sets via a third party on behalf of DLA-SM.

9. Actions to Increase Competition: The intention is to acquire all items without substitution and without exception because the data required support congressionally mandated reporting. The requirement is to reach Roskill specifically. Further, the data will be included in econometric modeling and uploaded into SMART. This requires DLA-SM have full user rights. Without these rights the requirement and the data losses its value to DLA-SM and is required to support the reporting mission. The determination is a matter of national defense and thus national security. All items included in this procurement are commercially available directly from Roskill.