Sources_Sought_Notice_-_DOIGFBO250008_1.pdf

SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE

Department of Interior (DOI), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

Sources Sought Notice # DOIGFBO250008

The Department of the Interior (DOI), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), is conducting a MARKET SURVEY to determine the interest and capability of any firm eligible to compete under NAICS code 811210 for an upcoming requirement needed by the USGS – National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL) regarding ANNUAL MAINTENANCE FOR TWO (2) KONE AQUAKEM 600 DISCRETE ANALYZERS in accordance with the draft (unofficial) Performance Work Statement (PWS) shown below.

THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION. ALL COST ASSOCIATED WITH PROVIDING

INFORMATION AS REQUESTED BY THIS SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE SHALL BE THE

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CONTRACTOR. SUBMISSION IS VOLUNTARY.

Draft Performance Work Statement (PWS) Background:

The U.S. Geological Survey, National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL), located in Lakewood, CO uses two (2) Kone Aquakem 600 Automated Discrete Analyzers to perform routine nutrient analyses. The analyses include: ammonia, nitrite, phosphate, nitrate and silica. The NWQL’s turnaround time for these analyses ranges from seven (7) days to thirty (30) days, and with an average annual sample load of 60,000 samples per year, these instruments are often in operation five (5) days a week. Due to this workload, it is imperative that the instruments are maintained in optimum condition to prevent delay in sample analysis and the assurance of data quality.

Equipment List:

MODEL NUMBER DESCRIPTION SERIAL #

SYSTEM

ID

Aquakem 600 Discrete Analyzer 23176 KONE 3 Aquakem 600 Discrete Analyzer 23034 KONE 4

System ID KONE 3, S/N 23176: $_______________/mo = $_______________annually

System ID KONE 4, S/N 23034: $_______________/mo = $_______________annually

Scope:

The Contractor shall provide all necessary personnel, equipment and materials, except as otherwise specified herein, for the preventative maintenance, emergency repairs, software support, and remedial service for Kone Aquakem Analyzers. This requirement also includes providing and installing all required parts along with any necessary travel and associated expenses.

Period of Performance (Estimated):

Base Year: March 1, 2025 through February 28, 2026 Option Year I: March 1, 2026 through February 28, 2027 Option Year II: March 1, 2027 through February 29, 2028

Option Year III: March 1, 2028 through February 28, 2029 Option Year IV: March 1, 2029 through February 28, 2030

Technical Requirements:

A. The Contractor shall diagnose equipment failure (including failure caused by OEM supplied software) and provide all labor, testing equipment, travel expenses, parts and firmware and software revisions required to maintain the equipment in accordance with OEM published operating specifications. All software and hardware shall be free of malicious code.

B. Preventative maintenance shall be performed by the Contractor once per year, and the Contractor shall provide all necessary parts, labor, and travel expenses. Preventative maintenance shall be performed at the NWQL in accordance with procedures and frequencies recommended by the OEM.

C. All repairs (emergency and non-emergency) and preventative maintenance, provided by the Contractor, shall be performed by a certified, factory trained technician and be scheduled with the concurrence of the USGS Technical Liaison or other authorized NWQL employee. If the technician is not factory trained, he/she shall be able to provide documentation of adequate training, which may include references from two other customers, and proof of at least one year of successful experience repairing the Kone Aquakem 600 equipment in this contract. The documentation shall be provided upon request to the USGS Technical Liaison or other authorized NWQL employee. The Contractor shall have access to service manuals, bulletins, software upgrades and system upgrades.

D. The Contractor shall respond to all service-related phone calls or emails within one business day.

E. On-site emergency repairs and remedial service shall start at the NWQL within five (5) working days of verbal or written notification by the Contracting Officer (CO), USGS Technical Liaison, or authorized NWQL chemist/technician. “Emergency repair” is herein defined as “a system or component of a system that cannot carry out its intended function without repair”. An emergency repair will be so specified, at the time of the service call, by the initiator of the service call, at the sole discretion of the initiator of the service call.

F. The contractor shall initiate non-emergency repair as required within five (5) working days of verbal or written notification by the Contracting Officer (CO), USGS Technical Liaison or other authorized NWQL employee. “Non-emergency repair” is defined as “a system or component of a system that requires repair or service but can presently operate or carry out its intended function without the repair or service”. If the category of the repair is not specified by the initiator of the call, the repair shall be considered a “non-emergency repair”.

G. If the repair requires replacement parts, the Contractor’s service engineer shall procure and arrange to have the new OEM parts (where available) or an acceptable, certified part, based on judgment of the USGS Technical Liaison or other authorized NWQL employee for this contract, on site within forty-eight (48) hours of the initial service visit.

H. The Contractor shall provide telephone troubleshooting support Monday through Friday 6:00am – 6:00pm (MT) local time.

I. The Contractor shall pay for shipping expenses of all replacement parts and return shipment expenses for all non-expendable replacement parts.

J. Should the Contractor Service Technician and the authorized USGS Technical Liaison or other authorized NWQL employee concur that a piece of equipment requires off-site repair, the Contractor shall pay for shipping expenses for delivery of the equipment to the repair site and return to the NWQL.

K. The Contractor shall submit, in person or by electronic notification, the USGS Technical

Liaison or other authorized NWQL employee with a detailed report of any logged service repair that cannot be completed within five (5) business days of the original request. This report shall be received by the NWQL no later than the 6th business day of such request and shall include the nature of repair, measures that are being pursued to complete the repair, and an estimate of time required to complete the repair. The Contractor shall include a Contingency Plan for dealing with repairs that cannot be completed within five

(5) working days. This Contingency Plan shall provide additional procedures for obtaining expertise and/or resources when the equipment cannot be diagnosed and repaired in a set schedule. The Contingency Plan shall be provided to the USGS Technical Liaison no later than 14 days after award of contract.

L. All hazardous wastes generated during services (e.g. cleaning solvents, etc.) shall be disposed of by the NWQL. The Contractor shall provide a profile of all hazardous waste generated on site to the responsible NWQL personnel for proper disposal.

M. The NWQL will provide the following consumable operating supplies:

Multicell cuvettes Sample cups/tubes Halogen lamps

Any item not listed here and considered to be consumable by the Contractor must be submitted with the Contractor’s response quote.

N. The Contractor (if other than the OEM) shall, within 30 days prior to Contract completion, have the equipment inspected by the OEM and the OEM shall certify in writing that all equipment specified in the Contract is operating to OEM specifications.

The Government reserves the right to hold the Contractor responsible for bringing the equipment up to OEM standards at no cost to the Government.

O. The Government reserves the right to add or remove individual pieces of equipment unilaterally by written notice to the contractor. Items added or removed will be done so for complete months only, i.e. no partial monthly billing will be required. The unit price for any items added shall be made at the Contractor's standard catalog or market price, less any discounts provided under this contract. In the event an item is removed from this contract, the contract shall be reduced by the monthly amount, specified herein, times the number of months remaining under the current contract period and subsequent option periods for that item.

QUALITY CONTROL PLAN (QCP)

The Contractor shall include a Quality Control Plan (QCP) and adhere to it while performing maintenance and repair service on the Orbitrap Mass Spectrometer. The QCP shall, at a minimum, meet OEM standards and specifications.

QUALITY ASSURANCE SURVEILLANCE PLAN (QASP)

The Government, through its USGS Technical Liaison, shall monitor the Contractor’s performance. The Government may monitor the Contractor’s performance of the deliverables of specific project requirements as deemed necessary to ensure acceptable progress and compliance standards are achieved. The Contractor shall be responsible for Quality Control (QC) by adhering to the QCP specified above and include that information in response to this Sources Sought Notice as a means for the USGS to assess technically acceptability verification. The USGS quality assurance inspections shall not be a substitute for the contractor’s responsibility for QC. The USGS will be responsible for independent quality assurance, assuring that the performance standards, both quality standards and time standards, are met.

PERFORMANCE STANDARDS AND MONITORING METHODS

Performance Objective Required Service (task or deliverable)

Performance Standard

Method of Surveillance

Annual Maintenance for two (2) AQUAKEM 600 Discrete Analyzers

All tools & materials required for maintenance shall be furnished by the contractor; Repairs, replacement components and upgrades shall be new with OEM part numbers to be considered technically acceptable; Pre and Post-inspection & reporting shall be reported to USGS Technical Liaison by Contractor; Provide repairs, replace parts, and upgrades in accordance with OEM standards and specifications; Respond to USGS support queries within 48 hours of notification; Test equipment after each service call to ensure optimal performance of equipment in accordance with the PWS.

Testing, timeliness, and documented reporting to confirm optimal instrument operation in accordance with OEM standards.

Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan

(End of Draft PWS)

For market research purposes only, the USGS is investigating interested contractors that can demonstrate capabilities and provide a general estimated cost for the services detailed in the referenced draft PWS shown above. An official PWS will be provided with any future solicitation that may be issued for this requirement.

Responses to this announcement are requested from (1) Small Businesses (SB); (2) Small Disadvantaged Businesses (SDB); (3) Section 8(a) Businesses; (4) Women-Owned Small Businesses (WOSB); (5) Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Businesses (EDWOSB); (6) Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) Small Businesses; (7) Veteran-Owned Small Businesses; (8) Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB); and (9) Large Businesses.

In response to this announcement, please indicate your firm's socioeconomic status (e.g. small business, service-disabled veteran-owned, women owned, HUBZone, etc.) This information will assist the Government in determining how small businesses can fit into the acquisition strategy.

The small business size standard under NAICS code 811210 is $34 Million. Any information submitted is voluntary. If sufficient interest and capability is not received from firms in categories (1) through (8) above, any solicitation may be issued as unrestricted to Large Businesses without further consideration.

Interested firms shall submit (1) NAME, ADDRESS, and PHONE NUMBER OF THE FIRM (including SAM.gov Unique Entity ID); (2) a CAPABILITY STATEMENT including RECENT & RELEVANT performance history (within the last three years for similar projects) that includes the name of the owner and their point(s) of contact with telephone numbers, email addresses; and in what capacity (e.g., prime, subcontractor, etc) they performed the work; and (3)

SIZE STATUS.

Your company must have a DUNs number and be registered in System for Award Management (SAM) https://www.sam.gov.

This is NOT a Request for Quote (RFQ), Request for Proposal (RFP), or Invitation for Bid (IFB) and does not constitute any commitment by the Government. Responses to this Sources Sought Notice will be used by the Government to make appropriate acquisition decisions. All interested sources must respond to future solicitation announcements separately from responses to this market survey. Any solicitation that may be issued will be posted on the https://SAM.gov website and no paper copies will be provided.

All responses shall be submitted no later than December 18, 2024 by 5:00 pm (ET) via e-mail to:

jharris@usgs.gov.