Sole_Source_Justification_Redacted_1.pdf

United States Department of the Interior

INTERIOR BUSINESS CENTER

Washington, DC 20240

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

SIMPLIFIED PROCEDURES FOR CERTAIN COMMERCIAL ITEMS

AUTHORITY: FAR 13.501(a), 41 U.S.C. 1901 Purchase Request:

Solicitation No. 140D8021R0013 Interagency Fuel Treatment Decision Support System (IFTDSS)

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity, and specific identification of the document as a “Sole Source Justification.”

This document is a Sole Source Justification for the Department of the Interior (DOI), Interior Business Center (IBC), Acquisition Services Directorate (AQD), Division II, Branch IV, on behalf of the Office of Wildland Fire (OWF).

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

This action is a follow-on to an existing contract (D16PC00024), and is needed to provide an additional period of performance of up to 30 months, which includes a base period of one (1) year, plus two (2) option periods of six (6) months each, and a possible six (6) month extension under FAR 52.217-8. This is intended to allow the necessary time for the agency to determine an appropriate plan of action for the future of the Interagency Fuel Treatment Decision Support System (IFTDSS) application. This contract will be issued to the incumbent contractor listed below:

International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation P.O. Box 643584

Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3584

3. A description of supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs (including the estimated value).

IFTDSS is an inter-departmental, inter-agency, web-based data management, analysis/modeling, planning, and reporting system developed, operated, and maintained by DOI collaboratively with the Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (FS) in support of interagency wildland fire fuels management for federal, state, tribal, and private users. IFTDSS provides managers with the ability to answer detailed Wildland Fire Management questions in real-time at regional, state, and field-level office levels with data and modeling analytics on hazardous fuel areas associated with exposure and risk to values based on burn probability. These data are used in line officer level management and decision-making actions for wildfire program activities and treatments associated with values at risk such as communities in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). Data and analyses support planning and accomplishment reporting that is used to address questions with senior level agency officials, OMB, Congress, and other stakeholders.

This action is required to maintain the current work on wildland fire risk comparisons until the investment direction has been determined. The estimated value of this action is

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4. An identification of the statutory authority permitting sole source acquisition.

This is an acquisition conducted under the authority of the Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Items. The statutory authority permitting sole source acquisition is 41U.S.C 1901 as implemented by FAR 13.501(a)(1)(ii).

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

IBM is the only vendor familiar with the intimate details of the application for the Development, Modernization, and Enhancement (DME) to keep momentum and progress going toward implementing and completing the Quantitative Wildland Fire Risk Assessment (QWRA) comparative reports. The core functionality of the QWRA has been built. However, without the ability to compare risk over time and activities, functionality is diminished significantly, and the full value and utility of this capability will not be realized, leaving the work incomplete and more importantly leaving wildland fire managers dealing with wildfire risk without the information needed from the comparative QWRA reports. IBM has the processes in place for analyzing user needs and workflows and understands the current conditions regarding the functionality of the application relative to the wildland fire fuels program and stakeholder needs of IFTDSS. As such, they are the only vendor that can support this work without a significant delay and cost to the government, and most importantly, to wildland fire fuel treatments on the ground. This contract will support the Office of Wildland Fire and its partners in its mission to provide wildland fire information technology applications to mitigate wildland fire risks. IFTDSS provides support to pre-planning resources with wildland firefighter and public support for both pre and post-wildland fires. The analytics that IFTDSS provides supports fuel management work in the mitigation of risks with wildland fires. This procurement represents a best value in cost and time savings in meeting the requirements of the Government. This short-term follow-on contract will allow for continued support from IBM to carry out the continued application O&M and DME needed to meet stakeholder needs until a longer-term solution is identified.

Estimated time/cost savings specifically for this is roughly the equivalent of seven (7) to (8) Full Time Equivalent (FTE) employees, with a cost range of $900k to $1.2m on an annual basis.

6. A description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by FAR Subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under FAR 5.202 applies.

Market research for the re-compete of the IFTDSS application began as part of a larger Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract in 2020. An RFI was posted on 10 December 2020, with responses due 16 December 2020. Thirteen vendors responded to the RFI, but none demonstrated the competence or experience necessary to fulfill the requirements and were determined to be “Unacceptable” by OWF. However, as a result of the RFI, the Contracting Officer received an inquiry from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service (FS), Enterprise Applications Services (EAS) group stating that they may be capable of providing the services required by OWF. This inquiry resulted in exploratory meetings that took place from January through March, 2021. The outcome of these exploratory sessions was that all parties would not be able to come to an agreement on scope, schedule, and budget within the time needed to also do a financial agreement prior to the USDA deadline of May 2021.

However, a piece of the collective IFTDSS work, namely the Fire Modeling Services Framework (FMSF) had some previous exploratory work done by EAS based on connections with the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS). WFDSS is currently being built by EAS, so it was determined that FMSF could proceed forward and meet USDA deadlines. This would essentially provide OWF with a test case, or proof of concept, of how things would be coordinated and potentially orchestrated for the larger IFTDSS investment. The FMSF will proceed forward with EAS in 2021. This contract is needed to provide OWF time to assess the effectiveness of the EAS relationship to potentially take on additional work, and/or time for a competitive follow-on action for any necessary transition/migration.

A redacted version of this Justification and Approval document will be posted to www.SAM.gov, under Contract Opportunities, no later than 14 days after the action is awarded, in accordance with FAR 6.305(a).

A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

The Contracting Officer will conduct a thorough price analysis in accordance with FAR

13.106-3( )(2), in order to determine that the proposed pricing is fair and reasonable prior to award.

A description of the market research conducted (see Part 10) and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

Market research was conducted by reviewing historical contract information, Government databases, and information from similar recently awarded contract actions. The services required are available commercially in the open market, from multiple vendors. However, although there are multiple vendors that can provide similar services, IBM is the only one that has the capabilities to specifically maintain the IFTDSS program at the required level and within the time required.

In accordance with the requirements of FAR 5.203(a), a Notice of Intent to Sole Source was posted to SAM.gov on 15 June 2021. Responsible sources were encouraged to submit a technical capability statement and business profile to the Contracting Officer prior to the close of the announcement on 18 June 2021. No responses were received.

Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition, such as:

The risk and potential of negative consequences that may result from not maintaining this support could be significant regarding completion of the risk comparison functionality. This could adversely affect wildland fire managers and their ability to document and perform work to mitigate risks on current and out year fuels reduction work (hazardous fuels in the WUI).

Without this application in place, wildland fire management responses would be less

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