JA-00491_Tooling_Kit_Soft_Permaswage_W56HZV-23-D-0070_Redacted.pdf

CMO Control No: 2023 - 045

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL

FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

JA-00491 – W56HZV-23-R-0008

1. Contracting Agency: The United States Army Contracting Command-Detroit Arsenal (ACC-DTA) is the procuring activity for this action.

2. Description of Action: ACC-DTA intends to award a new sole source three-year Firm-Fixed-Price requirement contract to Designed Metal Connections, Inc., Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) 14798 or an authorized distributor, for National Stock Number (NSN) 5180-01-527-5603, Tooling Kit, Soft Permaswage Sizes 6, 8, & 16. Army Working Capital Funds (AWCF) will be utilized.

3. Description of Supplies/Services: The NSN 5180-01-527-5603, Manufacture / United States Government (USG) part number (P/N) DLTFRPSKT3119 / 13010501, Tooling Kit, Soft Permaswage Sizes 6, 8, & 16, is used on the M1 Abrams Family of Vehicles (FOV). The deliverables are as follows: 15 each per 12-month ordering period for an estimated unit price of $58,663.47 for a total of 45 each over three ordering periods. The total estimated value of this contract is $2,639,856.15 based on a unit price of $58,663.47.

4. Authority Cited: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition for this effort is 10 United States Code (U.S.C.) 3204(a)(1) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-1(a)(2), “Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements.”

Specifically FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(ii)(provides that, “supplies may be deemed to be available only from the original source in the case of a follow–on contract for the continued development or production of a major system or highly specialized equipment, including major components, thereof, when it is likely that award to any other source would result in a substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition”.

5. Reason for Authority Cited: The Permaswage Kit, P/N 13010501, is used for all Abrams M1 FoV. The kit includes repair tools for the Abrams hydraulic systems (Fuel, Hull and Turret actuating mechanisms and brake lines). Permaswage fittings are radial compressed (mechanically attached) onto compatible tubing to provide a permanent joint with metal-to-metal sealing.

. This kit provides necessary repair tools to provide leak proof protection for the various fluid transfer lines integral to the vehicle’s operation. These tools are used to provide effective hydraulic line fitting connections for all of the Abram’s hydraulic system lines. Due to this unique capability, the Permaswage Kit is critical to Abrams’s vehicle readiness.

The Permaswage Kit components are source controlled to Designed Metal Connections Inc. as shown on US Army drawing 13010502. There are no detailed drawings for these items or dimensions for their manufacture. The Government does not have the technical data necessary to competitively procure the Permaswage Kit components. The individual detailed dimensions of these components are not available to the Government and as such, a completely competitive Technical Data Package (TDP) is not available. There are no other commercial component sources available that have qualified to produce the Permaswage Kit components. A significant amount of time and money would be necessary to reverse engineer, procure and/or test prototypes before releasing the design.

Only Designed Metal Connections Inc. has the requisite technical and engineering expertise to perform all efforts required to provide the Permaswage Kit. The current source has qualified in accordance with all the necessary test requirements and performance parameters during initial test and development of the Abram’s weapon system. Designed Metal Connections has demonstrated the ability to establish and maintain the processing required to produce these items. Extensive use of Design Metal Connection's swaging components throughout the vehicle’s initial development and usage since, have proven these items to be acceptable.

Based on past experience, the estimated cost to develop a competitive package for these items through reverse engineering could run as high as $734.6K. This cost includes purchasing four Permaswage Kits for reverse engineering review, development, integration and testing of reverse engineered prototype units to be used for qualification and durability testing. This would require an estimated minimum twelve months which includes fabrication and laboratory pressure testing of swaged hydraulic lines from prototype hardware before releasing a validated TDP of which the development cost is estimated to be $200K. Qualification and durability testing of hardware would also be required.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition:

a. Effective competition: The Government will not seek further competition for this contract action for the reasons stated in paragraph 5 above. All notices required by FAR 5.201 will be posted, and any responses will be considered by the Government.

b. Subcontracting competition: A subcontracting plan is not required for this effort since the recommended contractor is a small business.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: There are no contractors currently in the process of being qualified as an alternate source of supply for this item, and the Government does not possess a fully defined and validated TDP. There are no planned efforts to reverse engineer the item. The Government does not have the technical data necessary to competitively procure the Permaswage Kit components as Designed Metal Connections, Inc. has no interest in licensing their TDP to the USG. The Government will continue to perform market research for future procurement actions.

8. Market Research: A Sources Sought Notice was posted to SAM.gov on 11 Aug 2022 for Tooling Kit Soft Permaswage. The notice was open for 19 days, revised 23 Aug 2022 to include a revised commercial market survey with economic production range quantities and extended to 29 Aug. Two responses were received from authorized Designed Metal Connections, Inc. distributors: Adept Fasteners, Inc. (CAGE 1V0G6) and Orkal Aerospace (CAGE 4M1Q2). Both authorized distributors replied they are capable of providing the tooling kit.

Accordingly, on 22 Mar 2023, online market research was conducted by Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC) engineer for publicly available and capable sources with expertise of Tooling Kit Soft Permaswage (NSN 5180-01-527-5603) on websites:

https://www.opwglobal.com/products/us/retail-fueling-products/piping-containment-systems/pipe-couplings-fittings/installation-tools/swage-kits , https://www.gghyd.com, https://shamrocktools.com/product/hydraulic-swage-tool/, https://www.hilmor.com/products/family/swaging-toolsSwaging Tools | hilmor – HVAC/R Tools and https://www.mastercool.com/product/71700-hydraulic-flaring-swaging-tool-copy/.

Keywords searched were Swage Kits, Swaging, Hydraulic Line Repair, High Pressure Hydraulic Lines, Hydraulic Swage Tools. Review of the vendors show that although these companies have technical capabilities to produce the items comprised in the kit, they don’t provide the exact type of components needed. New vendors would require extensive analysis, prototyping, and vehicle testing as described in Section 5 above to ensure that the Abrams will properly meet performance specifications with a new supplier’s hardware. As a result of an extensive internet search performed by the requirements office, no other vendor was found who meets the system specification for these items. There are no other sources who have the potential to make this kit to meet the needs of an immediate procurement.

9. Interested Sources: To date no additional manufacturing sources have expressed interest in this item.

10. Other Facts:

a. Procurement History.

(1) Contract SPRDL1-18-C-0326 was awarded to Wesco Aircraft Hardware Corp.

(Distributor) on 27 July 2018; total contract value: $3.51M. Contract SPRDL1-17-C- 0166 was awarded to Wesco Aircraft Hardware Corp. (Distributor) on 23 May 2017;

total contract value: $458M.

(2) All previous contract actions were awarded using other than full and open competition.

(3) All previous contract actions were awarded under the authority of 10 U.S.C.

2304(c)(1), as implementd by FAR 6.302-1, “Only One Responsible Source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements."

(4) Paragraph 7 of the previous J&A (signed 15 March 2018) stated “there is no TDP available to support a competitive procurement. Due to the costs associated with developing a competitive TDP that cannot be recovered, the Government is not actively pursuing the development of a competitive TDP for future procurements. The Permaswage Tooling Kit appears on the Competition Advocates Shopping List dated July 31, 2017. Contractors interested in becoming a source of supply need to meet the requirements of the Source Approval Program including vehicle level qualification testing, at their own expense. The TACOM Life Cycle Management Command, Competition Management Office (CMO), is the lead proponent for the Source Approval Program. To date, there has not been any expressed interest by any known vendor(s) to become qualified source(s) to produce this item.”

(5) No prior contracts for the M1 Abrams Family of Vehicles utilized full and open competition.

(6) There are no unusual patterns identified in the procurement history.

(7) All previous justifications for the Tooling Kit Soft Permaswage cite FAR 6.302-1 “Only One Responsible Source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements." There are no significant changes to these circumstances.