Visual_Context_LSJ_Final.pdf

Department of the Army Limited Source Justification

Purchase Request #: 0011145128

1. Contracting Activity: U.S. Army Contracting Command - Warren (ACC-WRN) is the procuring activity for this action.

2. Description of Action: This approval is for a new contract. The type of funds are FY 2018, Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E).

3. Description of the Supply or Service Purchased: This acquisition is for commercially available software developed and sold by ESI North America, Inc.

(“ESI”). TARDEC requires Visual Context licenses for engineering analysis and modeling & simulation purposes.

Suggested Vendor: ESI

North America, Inc.

32605 W. 12 Mile Road, Suite 350 Farmington Hills, MI 48334 248-381-8941

FAX: 248-381-8998

Rohit Ramanna – Business Development Manager

DUNS: 787508639

CAGE Code: 3EL43

4. Authority Cited: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C. 1901 as implemented in FAR 13.501(a) “Sole source (including brand name) acquisitions.”

5. Reason for Authority Cited: ESI North America is the sole provider of the Visual Context software package which is currently in use by the Government. This effort supports a wide range of teams within TARDEC and the TACOM LCMC. The software yearly lease that is needed is for ESI Visual. All of the software being requested in this waiver is for the TARDEC Defense, Research and Engineering Network (DREN). The ADCCP data center ID number is WRRN_MI_AMC_02. This is a specialized engineering application for doing computational fluid dynamics and blast simulation Computer Aided Design (CAD) meshing for vehicle programs such as MRAP, JLTV, GCV, and TECDs among others. Without this software purchase there are many projects that will be affected in a negative manner across TARDEC and the TACOM LCMC. Additionally, the engineers and analysts will not be able to perform and fulfill critical mission requirements in the area of thermal, signature, blast and many others computer based modeling and simulation. It will also affect the development of new and improved technologies to support and increase the safety of the warfighter and it will cause significant project downtime.

Switching to an alternate software would require extensive re-training of at least five

(5) TARDEC engineers in the use of alternate software, including government employee time (~$85/hour) and training costs (~$1500/person), and would take their time away from meeting the goals and objectives of TARDEC’s customers. Also, all models that have been developed over the last ten (10) years in ESI VISUAL Environment would have to be converted to a competitor’s software, which would be a time consuming and costly task. Using a software tool other than ESI VISUAL Environment would cost the Government in a loss of productivity without a gain in capability or cost savings. While license costs for alternate software are expected to be similar, the additional costs associated with training, inefficiency, and re-work is not expected to be recovered via competition.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: This action will be synopsized on the Government wide Point of Entry (GPE) using a combined synopsis/solicitation in accordance with FAR 12.603 “Streamlined Solicitation for Commercial Items.” The government will evaluate all responses to the combined synopsis/solicitation to determine if there are alternatives available that satisfy the requirement

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The government will continuously evaluate emerging commercial software solutions that have the potential to meet the government’s requirement for propulsion system modeling.

8. Market Research: There are several commercially available software packages that can be used for pre- and post-processing of modeling and simulation with LS-Dyna, such as ESI VISUAL Environment, HyperMesh and ANSA. TARDEC-Analytics carried out online research on these software vendor web pages in the summer and fall of 2017, attended vendor’s seminars on their pre and post processing software capabilities and communicated with these software vendors at those meetings during 2017. Of the three vendors, ESI VISUAL Environment provides the interface for LS-DYNA and MADYMO models in the best user friendly way. ESI VISUAL Environment is unique in terms of capability, ease of use and user friendliness. It provides a very similar user interface for LS-DYNA and MADYMO, both of which are currently being used by TARDEC-Analytics, which is a unique feature and makes Finite Element Analysis (FEA) model setup easier. No other vendors can provide similar tools, both in functionality and cost, at this time. The market research reflected in above paragraph was performed during the period of July, 2017 through October, 2017. The research was done by Jian Kang, a Research Mechanical

Engineer for TARDEC-Analytics Survivability & Protection Modeling and Simulation Team.

9. Interested Sources: The notices required by FAR 5.201 shall be published, and any bids or proposals received shall be considered.

10. Other Facts: Procurement history:

(1) Contract numbers and dates of the last award:

1. W56HZV-12-P-L667 on 19 April 2012

2. W56HZV-15-P-A304 on 27 April 2015

(2) Competitive status of these actions: Award was made on a sole-source basis.

(3) Authority previously used for less than full and open competition: FAR 13.106- 1(b) (1), “Soliciting from a Single Source.”

(4) Justification for previous procurement: Due to the vendor being the sole developer, maintainer and distributor of the VISUAL software, the previous procurement was awarded sole source upon approval of a Limited Source Justification (LSJ).

(5) There was no prior award using “full and open competition”.

(6) There were no “unusual patterns which may be revealed by the history”.

(7) There are no significant changes surrounding the sole source justification.

11. The POC for this action is Ray Samul, raymond.a.samul.civ@mail.mil 586-282-9375.

12. Technical Certification: I certify this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Name: Ray Samul Title: IT Specialist Signature: //s// Ray Samul Date: 30 Jan 2018

13. Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Name: Ray Samul Title: IT Specialist Signature: //s// Ray Samul mailto:raymond.a.samul.civ@mail.mil

Date: 30 Jan 2018

14. Contracting Officer Certification: I certify this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Name: MSG Mark Hirsch Title: Contracting Officer Signature:

Date: 2/22/2018

Approval

Based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the procurement of Visual Context Environment Modules licenses on an other than full and open competition basis pursuant to the authority of 41 U.S.C. 1901 as implemented in FAR 13.501(a) (1), subject to availability of funds, and provided that the services and property herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.

Date: 2/22/2018 Signature: