A03-Justification__Approval_(JA)-W56JSR_18_R_0033-FBO_Redacted.docx

JUSTIFICATION REVIEW DOCUMENT

FAR PART 6 JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR OTHER THAN

FULL AND OPEN COMPEITION

Program/Equipment: U.S. Army CECOM Software Engineering Center (SEC) Army Food Management Information System (AFMIS) Software Engineering and Support

Authority: 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(5) and Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-5(b)(5), Authorized or Required by Statute

Amount: $ 3M-4M

Prepared By:

Contracts Analyst XXXXX.XXXXXXXXXX.civ@mail.mil

Procuring Contracting Officer:

XXXXX.XXXXXXXXXX.civ@mail.mil

Technical Representative:

XXXXX.XXXXXXXXXX.civ@mail.mil

Reviews: I have reviewed this justification and find it adequate to support other than full and open competition.

Program Manager:

Name: XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX, AFMIS System Manager Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX

Legal Counsel:

Name: XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX, Attorney Advisor Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX

Control No: JA-18-E-497 Contractor: Freealliance.com, LLC Supply/Service: Army Food Management Information System (AFMIS) Software Engineering and Support

FAR Part 6 Justification and Approval For Other Than Full and Open Competition

1. Contracting Activity: U.S. Army Contracting Command

ATTN: CCAP-CCE

Bldg 6001 Combat Drive Army Contracting Command - Aberdeen Proving Ground (ACC-APG), APG, Maryland, 21005

2. Description of Action: The requiring activity SEC requests a twelve (12) month Cost Reimbursement contract for software engineering and support services for the Army Food Management Information System (AFMIS) program at Fort Lee, Virginia. The requested contract will be Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) Level Of Effort (LOE) Term for labor services, and Cost No Fee for Travel, Materials, and Other Direct Cost (ODC) expenses. The contractor for this requirement is Freealliance.com LLC of 113 East Market Street, Suite 120, Leesburg Virginia 20176-3112, CAGE Code 6P8F3. The Government projects contract award for September 2018, and Fiscal Year 2018 (FY2018) Operations and Maintenance, Army (OMA) appropriations will be used for this requirement. The awarded contract will therefore cover the Period of Performance (PoP) of 31 September 2018 to 30 September 2019. The Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) for this requirement is $ 3M-4M, which was generated by using current performance data to estimate applicable labor categories, and then map them against anticipated labor rates and small business indirect cost rates.

The required combined Acquisition Plan (AP) and Service Acquisition Strategy (SAS) is currently being routed for Legal Counsel and Branch Chief review, with the Branch Chief as the approval authority. The combined AP/SAS will be completed prior to soliciting this requirement.

3. Description of Supplies/Services: Army Food Management Information System (AFMIS) is the management information system that supports the Army food program. AFMIS is operational at Army installations, U.S. Army Reserve centers, and Army National Guard armories worldwide. AFMIS is currently operational at 65 Active Army installations in troop issue subsistence activities, food program management offices, and dining facilities. Each installation has one subsistence supply activity and one food program management office. AFMIS is also operational in about 450 Active Army dining facilities and at about 3,500 Army Reserve and 2,500 National Guard units. AFMIS includes a Decision Support System (DSS) available to food program managers and logisticians at all levels of Command. AFMIS architecture is based on virtual servers to host web sites and centralized data bases. AFMIS also includes 3 client applications to collect and manage automated headcount deployed to applicable AFMIS units.

The AFMIS contract provides software engineering support services to the SEC for sustainment and enhancement of AFMIS. The AFMIS program for the upcoming September 2018 to September 2019 PoP has 3 parts. The first part is the continuous sustainment support to keep AFMIS operational, while the second and third parts are one-time (completion) enhancement projects, ‘Cloud Migration’ and ‘Automated Meal Card Management System’.

The Cloud Migration project is driven by the requirement to close/consolidate Army datacenters and successfully migrate AFMIS to an approved cloud provider. This includes migrating both the production and development software environments, while insuring that Information Assurance (IA) is maintained to the standard of Risk Management Framework (RMF) security certification for information systems. This project has progressed through the initial phases of requirements definition, readiness assessment, Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA), and the migration planning and approval as per Army Application Migration Business Office (AAMBO) and Army Directive (AD) 2016-38 guidance. The Cloud Migration initiative is currently in the execution/build phase for the commercial cloud of Microsoft Azure software. Associated with the Cloud Migration is the expiring Authority to Operate (June 2019).

The Automated Meal Card Management System is a joint initiative of Head Quarters of the Department of the Army (HQDA) and Deputy Chief of Staff for Army Logistics (G4) to eliminate the paper system of meal card management. The goal of this project is to tie payment and tracking of meal plans to CACs, expediting and simplifying the payment process at dining facilities. This initiative has high visibility at HQDA to correct weakness identified by Army Audit Agency (AAA) in FY14. The project is organized for phased implementation to deploy different Army Commands based on unique requirements, readiness of each command, and increase the capability for payroll deduction. Phase 1 is U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) and U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) with the majority of Warfighters requiring meal cards. Phase 2 will automate U. S. Army Medical Command (MEDCOM), United States Army Reserve (USAR) and Army National Guard, National Guard Bureau (ARNGB) requirements and train/deploy units. Phase 3 will develop and deploy an automated process for payroll deduction to provide payment options to Soldiers and reduce cash management in the dining facilities. Currently the project is in phase 1.

*Full Time Equivalents (FTE) employees

4. Authority Cited: 10 U.S.C.2304(c)(5) and FAR 6.302-5(b)(5), Authorized or Required by Statute. Sole source awards fall under the HUBZone Act of 1997.

5. Reason for Authority Cited: In accordance with FAR 6.302-5(b)(5) and FAR 19.1306, award may be made on a sole source basis to a Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) small business, provided none of the conditions at FAR 19.1304 apply. The exclusions at FAR 19.1304 do not apply to this requirement, as detailed below.

a) The requirement cannot be satisfied by Federal Prison Industries (FPI), since the software engineering services required for sustainment and enhancement of AFMIS are not part of data services which FPI can provide (https://www.unicor.gov/Category.aspx?iStore=UNI&idCategory=1632).

b) The requirement cannot be satisfied by AbilityOne non-profit agencies for the blind and severely disabled, since the software engineering services required for sustainment and enhancement of AFMIS are not part of data services which AbilityOne can provide (https://www.abilityone.gov/procurement_list/services_list.html).

c) The AFMIS requirement is not currently, nor is it intended to be, awarded as a Task Order under an indefinite-delivery contract.

d) The AFMIS requirement is not currently, nor is it intended to be, awarded as a Task Order under a General Services Administration (GSA) contract. Also, in accordance with FAR 8.002(a)(2) GSA is not a mandatory source for services.

e) The currently performing incumbent contractor, SAWTST LLC, graduated out of the SBA’s 8(a) program on 25 February 2018, and is no longer an 8(a) small business. The AFMIS requirement has not been offered, and so has not been accepted, into the SBA’s 8(a) program.

f) The requirement value of $ 3M-4M is greater than the FAR part 2 Micro-Purchase Threshold of $5,000.00.

g) The requirement is not acquiring resale items for the Department of Defense commissaries or exchanges.

The conditions of FAR 19.1306 which permit a sole source HUBZone award have been met as follows:

a) The Government does not have a reasonable expectation that offers would be received from two or more HUBZone small business concerns. Responses to a Request For Information (RFI) Sources Sought (SS) notification issued by SEC on 30 November 2017 indicate that there is only one interested HUBZone small business which has been determined to be technically capable of providing the full breadth of required services.

b) The anticipated price of the contract, including options, will not exceed

(i) $7 million for a requirement within the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes for manufacturing as this requirement is not for manufacturing.

(ii) $4 million for a requirement within any other NAICS codes; this requirement is valued at $ 3M-4M and falls solely under NAICS 541519.

The anticipated price of the contract at $ 3M-4M is certainly higher than the Simplified Acquisition Threshold (SAT) of $150,000.00.

c) The requirement is not currently being performed by an 8(a) participant under the provisions of subpart 19.8 or has been accepted as a requirement by the Small Business Administration (SBA) under subpart 19.8;

d) That HUBZone small business, FreeAlliance.com LLC, is considered a responsible contractor for performing the AFMIS requirement per the process and reasoning present in document “A01-Memorandum for Record (MFR)-Contractor Responsibility”.

e) A contract award will be made for this requirement at a fair and reasonable price since the contractor’s proposal will receive cost/price analysis, and will be negotiated to a fair and reasonable price. In the event that the HUBZone small business contractor cannot be negotiated to a fair and reasonable price, the acquisition strategy will be amended to permit offers from other technically capable and interested parties.

Alternatives: The following alternatives were considered, but ultimately rejected for the acquisition strategy of the requirement.

a) Use or develop in-house personnel/expertise: This alternative was considered by SEC, but ultimately rejected on the basis that the SEC’s need for LOE support services often changes as a result of the number of customer locations operating the AFMIS system, directed system enhancement projects, and alterations in program budget. Hiring new SEC employees to provide the required support services would not provide the flexibility to efficiently meet the AFMIS program’s needs, nor the ability to scale back staffing in the event of budget cuts.

b) Competitive small business set-aside: This alternative would target competing the requirement among small businesses or a small business sub-category. The drawback of this alternative is that achieving a contract award by this acquisition strategy will take longer due to factors such as the full length (30-day) solicitation period, increased number of contractor proposals to evaluate, and the source selection process. With this lengthened timeline to contract award, incumbent contract W56JSR-15-C-0038 will expire before the new contract is in place. A discontinuation of support services to AFMIS would degrade or disrupt the ability to provide food to hundreds of Army dining facilities. The unavailability of the AFMIS system would require each Army dining facility to fall back to using paper forms for tracking and ordering food supplies. At the very least this will result in greatly increased administrative costs as each dining facility and food distribution facility inefficiently

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: The CECOM SEC posted a Request For Information – Sources Sought (RFI-SS) notification to the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) to verify if multiple HUBZone small businesses were capable and interested in this requirement. Only a single capable HUBZone small business was identified, so a competitive HUBZone award is not possible.

This contract will include FAR clause 52.244-5, Competition in Subcontracting, in accordance with which the prime contractor must select subcontractors on a competitive basis.

The Government will make public notification of this requirement in accordance with the publication requirement of FAR 5.201

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government is currently working towards being able to issue a competitive small business set-aside solicitation for a five (5) year duration AFMIS support contract. The estimated solicitation date for this requirement is the 2nd quarter of FY2019, with contract award estimated for the 4th quarter of FY2019. The most recent milestone schedule estimate is embedded below:

[Redacted]

8. Market Research: A FedBizOpps RFI-SS was published by the CECOM SEC on 30 November 2017, with responses due 14 December 2017. A total of twenty-two (22) companies expressed interest in performing the requirement; all responses with the exception of one (1) were from small businesses. Of the twenty-one (21) interested small businesses, five (5) business were found to be capable of meeting the full scope of the requirement. Of the five (5) capable small businesses that responded to the RFI-SS, there were one (1) HUBZone small business, 2 8(a) small businesses, 2 Woman Owned Small Businesses (WOSB), and 3 Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) represented. The breakdown of the market research responses is below.

[Redacted]

FAR part 19 directs that a set-aside to the 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, or WOSB program shall be considered before a general small business set-aside. Per FAR 19.203, there is no order of precedence among the 8(a) Program, HUBZone Program, SDVOSB Procurement Program, or the WOSB Program. For each of the aforementioned programs, except the 8(a) program, the presence of two or more interested and capable offerors necessitates that the requirement be competed. With the 8(a) program, a set-aside on this basis restricts future contract awards to 8(a) small businesses only. Based upon the short timeframe available to award a contract before the incumbent W56JSR-15-C-0038 contract expires, and the intent not to restrict future AFMIS requirements to the 8(a) program, the best path forward is a HUBZone sole-source award. The selected contractor, FreeAlliance.com LLC, is the single interested and capable HUBZone small business.

9. Interested Sources: Of the twenty-one (21) small businesses that responded to market research inquiries, the technical capabilities review indicated that only one (1) HUBZone small business responded and was both capable and interested in performing the entire requirement.

10. Other Facts:

a. Procurement History: Contract W56JSR-15-C-0038 was competitively awarded as a three (3) year Small Business set-aside on 31 August 2015 with a total estimated value of $6,647,995.43. The contractor for W56JSR-15-C-0038 is SAWTST LLC (CAGE 4DDK6) of 169 Hillwood Circle, Newnan Georgia 30263.1088. At the time of award of W56JSR-15-C-0038, SAWTST held SDVOSB and 8(a) status. SAWTST’s 8(a) status expired on 25 February 2018. W56JSR-15-C-0038 was not set-aside under the SBA’s 8(a) Program.

b. Procurement History: Contract W15P7T-12-C-C913, a three (3) year Small Business set-aside, was competitively awarded on 19 June 2012, with a total estimated value of $11,273,496.76. The contractor for W15P7T-12-C-C913 is SAWTST LLC (CAGE 4DDK6) of 169 Hillwood Circle, Newnan Georgia 30263.1088. At the time of award of W15P7T-12-C-C913, SAWTST held SDVOSB and 8(a) status. SAWTST’s 8(a) status expired on 25 February 2018. W15P7T-12-C-C913 was not set-aside under the SBA’s 8(a) Program.

c. Small Business Utilization Goals: For FY2018, the Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP) recognizes that the customer activity SEC has not met its WOSB and general Small Business utilization goals. The intended HUBZone awardee Freealliance.com is also a WOSB and 8(a) small business. Thus, an award to Freealliance.com will assist bringing up SEC’s under-performing utilization metric in WOSB and general Small Business, while reinforcing SEC’s above-goal metrics in HUBZone and 8(a).

11.

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

XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX Date: 13 June 2018 AFMIS Contracting Officer’s Representative

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

XXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX Date: 13 June 2018 Software Engineering Center (SEC) Contracts Analyst

14. Procuring Contracting Officer Certification/Fair and Reasonable Cost/Price Determination: I hereby determine that the anticipated cost/price for this contract action will be fair and reasonable, based on cost analysis, to include comparison of proposed prices with current market rates and the independent government cost estimate. Certified cost or pricing data will be obtained for these services to determine that the price is fair and reasonable in accordance with FAR 15.403-4(b). I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

XXXXX XXXXXXXXXX Date: 14 June 2018 ACC-APG Contracting Officer

Approval

Based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the procurement of Army Food Management Information System Software Engineering and Support services on an other than full and open competition basis pursuant to the authority of 10 U.S.C.2304(c)(5) Authorized or Required by Statute under authority FAR 6.302-5(b)(5) and FAR 19.1306 subject to the availability of funds, and provided that the services described herein have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.

Signature: