Sole_Source_Justification_-_ASCET_Redacted.pdf

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Department of the Army Sole Source Justification for Purchases under the SAT

(Using FAR Part 13)

Purchase Request #:

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

2. Description of the Supply or Service Purchased: Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC) currently has a requirement to procure a permanent license for use of ASCET software from ETAS, Inc. Real Time Control Systems (RTCS) group is utilizing this software to enable authoring of embedded control system software design artifacts and documentation, as well as design modeling and simulation capability. GVSC obtained and utilized a free, trial license for ASCET from ETAS, in order to begin the current embedded software development effort. The initial design was completed using the trial license, and software construction has begun. The trial license has now expired, and RTCS requires a permanent license in order to maintain the design as necessary revisions are encountered. In addition, this license will be utilized for software modeling, simulation, and additional designs for future projects, going forward.

Recommended Supplier:

ETAS Inc.

3021 Miller Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 United States Phone +1 734 474-7412

CAGE: 31TV4

DUNS: 006619316

3. Dollar Amount: The estimated total purchase price is $ for the base year and two separately priced options at each for a total of $ . The type of funds for the base year is Fiscal Year 2019/2020 Research, Development, Test & Evaluation

(RDT&E).

4. Authority Cited: FAR 13.106-1(b)(1), “Soliciting from a Single Source.”

5. Reason for Authority Cited: This requirement will be restricted to ETAS Inc. as they are the only vendor of this software. There are no authorized resellers.

ASCET is highly specialized to support development of embedded control systems for automotive powertrain applications, containing a number of inherent features that streamline the design, modeling, coding, testing, and simulation process, and featuring a graphical programming language. These features are desirable for shortening the

ACC-WRN FT 4293, 03 MAY 2018 Previous Edition is Obsolete Page 2 of 4 software development lifecycle, which in turn benefits both RTCS and its Program Office customers.

The RTCS group already utilizes a number of ETAS software development tools to support its embedded systems development projects. These include ETAS INCA, LabCAR Operator, and EHandbook, as well as many of the low-level underpinnings of the Real-Time Operating System and related utilities that form the basis underneath the embedded system software that RTCS develops. The ETAS ASCET package integrates perfectly with these existing tools and low-level software, eliminating compatibility issues that would be encountered with products from other vendors, minimizing training time for RTCS associates, and eliminating the potential for human and machine error that can result from switching back and forth between dissimilar environments. In the medium-to-long term, this reduces the risk of schedule slip, and increases the potential for quality results with less time and effort.

In the short term, switching to a different tool in place of ASCET would require retraining of the three engineers that have been using ASCET for the current project, just to get back to the level of productivity that they currently have. This would incur a two-to-four week slip in the project schedule, as well as the cost of vendor training for the three individuals, estimated to cost and require 9 person-weeks for training. There would also be the difficulty of scheduling the 7 different courses to fit into the schedules of the individual engineers, and the vendor’s availability as well. There would also very likely be travel costs included.

Additionally, there is a difference in cost between ASCET software, and its closest competitor, as described below, in the Market Research section.

6. Market Research: Competetive tools are available from National Instruments and Mathworks Inc. The National Instruments solution would be a product called Labview, which can be immediately excluded as it does not support the specification of algorithms or generation of code for production embedded systems. Instead, their focus is on rapid deployment of test systems for use in laboratory environments. The work of RTCS is focused on production embedded powertrain control systems.

The Mathworks solution uses MATLAB Simulink as the base component, but also requires additional MATLAB “toolboxes” (additional add-on software components) in order to provide the same functionality as ASCET provides in its base package. This is due to the fact that Simulink attempts to provide solutions in many different applications for widely varying customers across many industries, and for them to bundle all capabilities into one software package would result in a cost-prohibitive product for their customers. ASCET focuses on providing focused and optimized functionality for the automotive engineering industry alone, and in particular, embedded powertrain control systems. (Price comparison between the ASCET and the Simulink solutions is provided in the Market Research section below).

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The output files that are produced by ASCET are incompatible with Simulink, and vice versa. Given that RTCS has already generated a complete system design for an ongoing project using ASCET, choosing Simulink would require shelving the current design files, and starting over again with Simulink. This would also mean foregoing approximately two months of effort that was used to generate the current ASCET design, and then necessitating another three months of effort to install Simulink, go through the learning curve, and recreate the design.

Market research was conducted via Internet search from 26 - 30 July, 2019. The results revealed that ETAS, Inc. is the only U.S. supplier for ASCET. Subsequent research produced pricing for Mathworks, Inc. software. The base Mathworks components that would be required for a package that competes with ASCET are MATLAB and Simulink, which themselves are site-licensed for GVSC. However, the add-on “toolboxes” and other add-on components are not site-licensed, and would have to be purchased. What follows is a price comparison between a single full-price license of ASCET and the full suite of Mathworks add-ons that would be required.

Components required for ETAS ASCET solution ETAS ASCET-Developer (full price)

Components required for Mathworks Simulink solution

MATLAB ------

Simulink ------ MATLAB Control System Toolbox MATLAB Robust Control Toolbox MATLAB Vehicle Network Toolbox MATLAB Coder Simulink Control Design Toolbox Simulink Design Optimization Toolbox Simulink Powertrain Blockset Toolbox Simulink Real Time Toolbox Simulink Requirements Toolbox Simulink Check Toolbox Simulink Coverage Toolbox Simulink Test Toolbox Simulink Coder Simulink Embedded Coder

TOTAL

The price comparison shows that a single license of ASCET, is less than the full bundle of MATLAB Simulink components that would be required to provide the same functionality.

7. The POC for this action is

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

Printed Name: Kimberly A. Nelson //KAN// Title: Contracting Officer Date: 12 August 2019