J&A for Spec Conversion_.docx_Redacted.pdf

DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY

DLA CONTRACTING SERVICES OFFICE·

PHILADELPHIA 700 ROBBINS A VENUE

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 191 f 1-5092

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL

FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN

COMPETITION

1. IDENTIFICATION OF THE AGENCY AND CONTRACTING ACTIVITY:

Requiring Activity:

Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Information Operations ( J 6) DLA R&D Program Office (J62LB) 8725 John J. Kingman Road Ft. Belvoir, VA 22060 POC: Julie Tsao Phone: 571-767-1413 Email: julie.tsao@dla.mil

Contracting Activity:

DLA Contracting Services Office - Philadelphia (DCSO-P) 700 Robbins Ave Philadelphia, PA 19111-5096

2. NATURE AND/OR DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTION BEING APPROVED:

Description of Requested Action: The action being requested is to convert legacy C&T specification documents from a variety of obsolete formats, e.g. optical scans of text documents stored in .pdf file fonnats, into XML file fmmats useable by modern data modeling and artificial intelligence (Al) technologies.

3. A DESCRIPTION OF THE SUPPLIES OR SERVICES REQUIRED TO MEET

THEAGENCY'S NEEDS/ESTIMATED DOLLAR AMOUNT:

· The Defense Logistics Agency's R&D program is developing technology that will enable machines and people to read and extract infmmation contained in technical documents.

This effort is for transformation of the legacy documents into modern digital document models.

Thousands of Government Specifications, Standards, Commercial Item Descriptions and Purchase Descriptions are poor resolution scanned documents and unsuited for use by modern Artificial Intelligence technologies such as natural language processing and machine learning.

The R&D program is now ready to transition the capability developed into a simulated operational environment to populate the knowledge-base for technical data modernization.

The Period of Performance is 12 months.

DLA Contracting Services Office SUBJECT: Justification and Approval for Other Than Full and Open Competition

4. IDENTIFICATION OF STATUTORY AUTHORITY PERMITTING

OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION:

The authority permitting other than full and open competition is 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)( l ),and FAR 6.302-l(a). This service is to transition an R&D effort for the continued provision of highly specialized services because it is likely that an award to any other source would result in unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency's requirements.

5. DEMONSTRATION THAT THE PROPOSED CONTRACTOR'S

UNIQUE QUALIFICATIONS OR THE NATURE OF ACQUISITION

REQUIRES USE OF CITED AUTHORITY:

The Agency's requirement is to have a vastly more efficient method of developing, changing, and curating technical requirements for Combat Clothing and Individual Equipment items. Cmrently, these requirements are documented in specifications, standards and Commercial Item Descriptions. For example, the complete ABU Coat's technical requirement is spread over a network of 98 documents (5,053 pages).

The R&D program has developed a new capability for digital document modeling- called TexSpecs- to manage this network ofrequirements. However, the precise format and structure of the interface between the converted legacy documents and digital document model is still evolving. An interactive process is required to conve1i enough documents to reach critical mass in order to refine the digital document model development by the end of the R&D contract performance period, March 2021. The document conversion effmi and the digital document models' technical development is required to ensure that conversion requirements are well understood for the extremely wide variety of document types and content. The complexity of the conversion effort and the short development schedule makes competitively soliciting additional document conversion sources risks significant delays in development schedule.

6. DESCRIPTION OF EFFORTS MADE TO ENSURE THAT OFFERS ARE

SOLICITED FROM AS MANY POTENTIAL SOURCES AS IS

PRACTICABLE:

After the completion of this 12 month effort, a detailed understanding of the conversion process and the required outputs from the conversion process will be achieved and documented. Future conversion activities can be acquired under "full and open" competition process for contract award.

7. DETERMINATION BY THE CONTRACTING OFFICER THAT THE

ANTICIPATED COST TO THE GOVERNMENT WILL BE FAIR AND

REASONABLE:

It is anticipated that the Government will use various price analysis techniques including, but not limited to, (1) comparison of proposed prices received in response to the solicitation; (2) comparison with competitive price lists; (3) comparison of proposed prices obtained through market research for the same or similar items in order to obtain a fair and reasonable price, and (4) historical price comparison. The Contracting Officer will determine prices fair and reasonable prior to award.

8. DESCRIPTION OF THE MARiillT RESEARCH CONDUCTED AND

THE RESULTS: