FTRUCKERJ A.pdf

Control No: 13-024 Contractor: Circle City Telecom, Inc

Program/Item: I3MP OSP Fort Rucker, AL Est. Dollar Value:

Department of the Army Justification and Approval for Other than

Full and Open Competition

1. Contracting Activity: U.S. Army Contracting Command, Rock Island (ACC-RI), Rock Island, IL 61299-8000.

2. Description of Contract Action: This action will result in a Firm Fixed Price contract with Circle City Telecom, Inc (CCTI), a veteran owned small business. Award is projected for the 3rd quarter of Fiscal year 2013, and FY12 Other Procurement, Army (OPA) funds will be used.

An acquisition plan is not required because it does not meet the dollar threshold for an acquisition plan.

3. Description of Supplies/Services: The Installation Information Infrastructure Modernization Program (I3MP) supports global efforts for net-centric information technology (IT) and telecommunication systems, expansions, and other modernization upgrade requirements for the Army and other Department of Defense (DoD) agencies. The proposed action is consistent with the objectives of the I3MP program and will result in the services necessary to complete the installation, and then secure and test upgrades to the IT infrastructure at Fort Rucker, AL. As described in paragraph 5, this installation was begun under a previous contract but not completed.

The proposed action will provide the necessary efforts required for installation of the remaining outside plant (OSP) core backbone fiber optic cable, inside plant (ISP) fiber optic cable terminations, completion of site preparation work at two communications shelters, core data node installations, completion of data network fielding at the remaining end-user building (EUB) locations, and the the cutover and migration of data users to the new I3MP network at Ft. Rucker, AL. The Period of Performance (PoP) is from date of award through twelve months. The estimated dollar value is The proposed contract will not include an option provision.

4. Authority Cited: 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements.

5. Reason for Authority Cited: As implemented by FAR 6.302-1(a) (2) When the supplies or services required by the agency are available from only one responsible source, or for DoD, NASA and the Coast Guard, from only one or a limited number of responsible sources, and no other type of supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements, full and open competition need not be provided for.

Current Impacts Award of the proposed action to any source other than CCTI would result in unacceptable delays to the project as well as continued adverse operational impacts to the Army user community at Ft.

Rucker, AL. Current impacts to the Ft. Rucker Network Enterprise Center (NEC) are a result of managing a disparate data network (new switches installed under S3 and pre-existing and

Program/Item: I3MP OSP Fort Rucker, AL Est. Dollar Value:

outdated switches) resulting from the previous S3 contract effort not being completed, as well as a reliance on, and the associated service down-time, resulting from existing data equipment being well past its operational end-of-life (EOL). EOL for data equipment in Army networks is typically five years. The existing data equipment in Ft. Rucker’s network is 9-10 years old resulting in frequent maintenance issues and service interruptions being experienced by the Ft.

Rucker data user community.

Other issues that are currently being experienced by the NEC due to the disparate network are compatibility issues such as spanning tree protocol conflicts. These conflicts can be managed by the NEC but they are resulting in extra man-hours/costs that the NEC and Army are currently not budgeted for.

Finally, based on expectations of a fully replaced data network, Ft. Rucker and the Army did not budget for an FY13 maintenance agreement on the existing equipment as the new network and warranty were expected to be in place. Any hardware issue at a Main Communication Node (MCN) or at an Area Distribution Node (ADN) would cause a major and prolonged outage to data network end users. Until the remaining OSP, ISP, and fiber optic termination work is completed, allowing for the full migration to new MCNs and ADNs, the Ft. Rucker NEC remains at risk for a major failure and network outage.

Procurement History The original effort to install, expand and modernize information and telecommunications systems to include transmissions and transport services, servers and data storage systems, email, directory and network systems at Fort Rucker, AL was awarded by the Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground (ACC-APG) to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) on 13 June 2011 under the S3 contract W15P7T-06-D-E404, Task Order 0018, as CLIN 2002BB.

The funded amount was and the contract type was time and materials. The PoP for CLIN 2002BB was from 13 June 2011 through 05 March 2012, however, the PoP was extended to 04 September 2012 along with the rest of the Task Order.

Task Order 0018 primarily supported PM DCATS (Defense Communications Army Transmission Systems) another PMO (Project Management Office) of the PEO-EIS (Program Executive Office-Enterprise Information Systems), however, because of the working relationship between the two program offices, I3MP was able to have work placed on the order under a discreet CLIN (CLIN 2002BB).

Execution History A subcontract was awarded by CSC to a local subcontractor, CCTI to perform the work in the field. CCTI operated as the integrator for the project, installing equipment and hiring second tier subcontractors to perform additional functions in order to complete efforts outlined in the original Performance Work Statement. Due to differing site conditions and Government caused delays detailed below, physical work by CCTI did not commence onsite until 4 June 2012, approximately one year after the task order was awarded.

Program/Item: I3MP OSP Fort Rucker, AL Est. Dollar Value:

The initial Government/CSC site survey took place in Sep 2011 and numerous discrepancies were discovered that required significant re-engineering and an associated scope reduction to fit within the available funding threshold. During this performance timeframe (June 2011 forward), PM DCATS made the decision to remove all requirements not related to their mission specifically from their contracts due to As a result of this change, the initial Material Purchase Requests (MPRs) made by CSC to the PM DCATS Contracting Officer Representative were repeatedly denied over a period of four months. Approval of these MPRs were required before CSC could purchase the materials required to start the effort under CLIN

2002BB.

In addition, the original contract period of performance, along with CLIN 2002BB was set to expire on 5 March 2012. PM DCATS requested and was granted a six month PoP extension through 04 September 2012. The contract extension was awarded by ACC-APG, however, did not include CLIN 2002BB. In addition, PM DCATS was still not approving any requests made by I3MP or CSC. As such, the entire program remained in limbo until PM DCATS eventually agreed to continue the support. A separate modification extended CLIN 2002BB to align with the period of performance of the balance of the contract to 04 September 2012. However, work could still not start as CSC’s Task Execution Plan, Revision 9 (TEPREV 9) then required approval by PM DCATS/ACC-APG before actual work could commence onsite.

This approval did not officially occur until 27 April 2012.

Due to the early and unforeseen engineering changes, and the internal Government delays, the project that was initially estimated to take nine months to complete was not allowed to begin implementation until May 2012, and then had to stop four months later, as the period of performance for the entire order had expired.

Current Status The result of the delay is that the Ft. Rucker infrastructure that was installed is, for the most part, unusable at this time. The OSP and ISP and data infrastructure at Ft. Rucker was left in various stages of completion when the Task Order 0018 PoP expired.

On the previous S3 effort, the project was broken down into 2 phases: “Core” and “Other-than- Core” for which the CCTI team only had 55 actual working days to complete this effort excluding rain days, holidays and base requested “no dig days” with working days consisting of 0730 until 1600 by direction of the Ft Rucker officials: the main point of focus for CCTI during the implementation time available was the “Core” portion of OSP infrastructure: 82.4% of all Maintenance Holes (MHs) and Hand Holes (HHs) are installed, 38.7% of all cabling is installed, 87.4% of all trenching/digging and installing of ductwork is complete to include the construction of two RSU shelters which are currently 90-92% complete. This completed work translates to approximately 58% of the total OSP effort. The “Other-than-Core” work focused on the most critical plowing, trenching, and boring work required to connect the most infrastructure in the quickest fashion. Next, 29% of the boring of 1x4”HDPE was completed, 72% of the cut and repair gravel was completed, 60% of the Hand Holes were installed, and 58% of the 1”HDPE was installed. This completed “Other-than-Core” work translates to approximately 6% of the

Program/Item: I3MP OSP Fort Rucker, AL Est. Dollar Value:

total OSP effort. Combined, approximately 64% of the total OSP effort was completed under the CSC contract. After the period of performance expired, there was a large amount of contractor acquired property (approximately of which I3MP took possession. As there was no room at Ft. Rucker to store the materials and equipment the Government awarded a purchase order to W52P1J-13-P-0005 to inventory, store and maintain the material and equipment

Path Forward CCTI is uniquely qualified to accomplish this task as it is the incumbent engineering design developer and integrator for the majority of work requiring completion for this effort. As a result, CCTI possesses intimate knowledge of the prior incomplete tasks, status of work in progress, and the engineering design and OSP cutover plan required to successfully complete this effort. CCTI could begin work immediately to complete the required tasks. Use of other than CCTI as the prime integrator for this action would result in an estimated of delay.

Due to the varying stages of completion, any contractor besides CCTI the incumbent would need to perform a site survey to determine and quantify the level of effort required to finish the project, resulting in an estimated additional project costs and expected delays of approximately additional weeks.

According to the previous effort documentation, the ISP/Data effort consisted of 441 Telecommunication Room (TR) locations indicated by the Baseline Building List (BBL) and 111 of these were completed under the S3 effort. This results in 330 TR locations remaining for completion. This would account for an approximately 25% completion level for installed and operational ISP/Data. While this seems low, the subcontractor who performed the work experienced a learning curve and was completing three times as many locations at the conclusion of the S3 PoP than they were completing at the start of implementation. This familiarity and installation efficiency would be lost if a new integrator was chosen. Additionally, all data equipment was purchased under the S3 contract and has been previously configured/programmed under the S3 effort. A new integrator would have to review and reconfigure every switch in order to assume or provide a new system warranty to the Government. This would result in 4-6 weeks of additional effort and approximately in associated rework costs.

CCTI must complete this work to allow the Government to receive an end-to-end I3MP warranty on approximately 124,000 feet of fiber optic cable (FOC) and two communications shelters previously installed by CCTI. Based on the nature of OSP fiber installation, it was impossible to complete end-to-end testing on any of the installed fiber optic strands within the severely curtailed schedule on the previous effort. Since the end-to-end testing was not completed, CSC could not be required to provide the warrantee on the installed fiber optic strands. In addition, as a result of this situation and the incomplete (non-terminated) state of the currently installed fiber, other integrators would necessarily charge the Government a significant premium in order to retest the currently installed fiber, and would require additional funding if any of CCTI’s previously installed fiber was found to be deficient or damaged. As the incumbent installer, CCTI has stated they will repair/replace their prior work (if necessary)

Program/Item: I3MP OSP Fort Rucker, AL Est. Dollar Value:

Further, as stated above, CCTI currently has the order to store existing Government OSP materials from the previous order

The materials will become approximately worth of OSP Government furnished property (GFP) in support of the follow on acquisition. If CCTI was not awarded this follow-on effort, a second contracting action for shipping and storage of GFP would have to be awarded. The costs associated with awarding this effort would include significant additional shipping, inventorying and transferring of material to a different integrator and are estimated to be a minimum of

In summary, an estimate of additional months will be lost if the effort is not awarded to CCTI to coordinate and accomplish the movement of GFP materials from CCTI’s location to the new integrator’s storage/staging location. Further the Government will incur administrative costs related to the delay, and additional requirements for Government engineering resources and reviews in order for an outside integrator to obtain the required project design and engineering knowledge in order to begin installation work. Additional outlays estimated to be at least for inventory shipping and storage) and unknown risk of supplying the work in progress in the field as GFP, makes it necessary to award to CCTI.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: No additional efforts are expected to be made to complete this phase of the Ft. Rucker project.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: All new sites are competed among the ten IMOD contractors, which is the main contract supporting the I3MP requirements. Any additional new FY13 communications requirements at Fort Rucker, AL will be competed among the ten IMOD contractors, to the maximum extent practical.

8. Market Research: Market research is performed continually by I3MP. For this action, from July 2012 through October 2012, I3MP researched multiple contracts to fulfill the requirement including, Long Term Life Cycle Sustainment (LTLCS) contract, Strategic Services Sourcing (S3) contract and the Program Management Computer Hardware Enterprise Software and Solutions (PM CHESS) suite of contracts.

Due to the nature of the requirements, such as implementing the remaining OSP portion in a timely fashion this requirement doesn’t fit under the scope of any the traditional vehicles. For contract vehicles that appeared to be a good fit for the effort, many issues prevented use. For instance, several of the contract vehicles were set to expire, or no longer available for use by

I3MP.

In addition, I3MP approached the Ft. Rucker local contracting office as well as the onsite Network Enterprise Center to research local vendors and contractors currently working on base.

No other sources were identified.

MCGEE.RANDY.EU

GENE.1086763130

Digitally signed by

MCGEE.RANDY.EUGENE.1086763130

DN: c=US, o=U.S. Government, ou=DoD, ou=PKI, ou=USA, cn=MCGEE.RANDY.EUGENE.1086763130 Date: 2013.04.04 14:10:28 -05'00'