A03.3_-_REDACTED_Sole_Source_Maintenance_HMS_SSP_RAS.pdf

Control No. SPK18-0033

Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition US Army Corps of Engineers, Sacramento District

10 USC 2304(c) and FAR 6.302-1, Only One Responsible Source and No Other Suppliers or Services will Satisfy Agency Requirements

HEC HMS SSP RAS Maintenance

1. Contracting Activity:

US Army Corps of Engineers, Sacramento District, 1325 J. St., Sacramento, CA. 95814

US Army Corps of Engineers, Institute For Water Resources, Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC). 609 Second Street, Davis, CA 95616

2. Description of Action:

Sole Source Firm Fixed-Price Contract. This sole source justification is to provide HEC with support for software maintenance and minor enhancements to HEC-HMS, HEC-SSP and HEC- RAS models.

3. Description of Supplies/Services:

This sole source solicitation is to provide HEC with support by:

• Evaluating and classifying issues within the existing software code

• Performing bug fixes in code

• Providing minor modification or enhancements to the code.

• Providing field support activities

• Supporting HEC by attending and actively participating in meetings

• Providing supporting documentation

4. The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition.

10 USC 2304(c) and FAR 6.302-1, Only One Responsible Source and No Other Suppliers or Services will Satisfy Agency Requirements

5. Reason for Authority Cited:

Per FAR 6.302-2(ii), 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, or

(B) Unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency’s requirements. (See 10 U.S.C. 3304 (b)(2)) or 41 U.S.C. 253 (d)(1)(B).)

The source code for the HEC software suite, including HEC-HMS, HEC-SSP and HEC-RAS, is kept closed as if in a proprietary state. These are not new software packages and the tasks described in the PWS are to make corrections or minor enhancements to the software code.

HEC-HMS, HEC-SSP and HEC-RAS are software packages proprietary within HEC’s and RMA’s portfolio.

The architecture upon which the various HEC software and models are developed relies principally upon 9 million lines of closed source code owned/maintained by HEC. Closed source code is proprietary. It is not shared with the public which enables the owner (in this case HEC) to maintain quality control over the product. Conversely, open source code is publicly shared.

However, this public sharing of the code becomes vulnerable to rouge developers who may choose to break things for their own benefit or, more likely, will unwittingly break the code and never know the code they are using is no longer correct. Unfortunately and typically, the rouge developers do not change the name of the software and then, if used, USACE would then be perceived as distributing poor software. A common example of closed source code usage is Microsoft Office. Users of Microsoft Office (MS) can utilize the program(s) but not change the underlining software code. This is also true of the HEC code including HEC-HMS, HEC-SSP and HEC-RAS, as discussed in this single source justification.

Resource Management Associates, Inc. (RMA) brings a unique skill set which includes knowledge of water resources engineering in the context of the USACE mission requirements for hydrologic simulation, and a high level knowledge of and experience with the software code utilized for this work. RMA staff include professional engineers, mathematicians, and computer programmers who possess the programming skillset needed to support HEC-HMS, HEC-SSP and HEC-HMS, including hydrologic physical process representation and related numerical solution algorithms. RMA has been instrumental in implementing HEC designs into HEC-HMS, HEC-SSP and HEC-HMS software code and many of RMA’s staff possess over 15 years of experience working closely with HEC on this program. As an example of the types of HEC software applications RMA is skilled in supporting, the HEC-HMS code development started in 1992 and consists of over 800,000 lines of code residing in 2,414 Java code files. The HEC-SSP software team has developed over 100,000 lines of total code, and the HEC-RAS development team have developed 500,000 lines of computation code.

From a cost and time standpoint, the savings on the addition of new software features and maintenance tasks within this software package is tremendous due to the unique skillset and experience RMA possesses to rapidly access key parts of this codebase and re-use key software components and common libraries.

In addition to their extensive knowledge of integrating hydrologic processes into advanced software applications, RMA is very experienced with HEC’s standard software development process, including QA/QC, testing, framework design, and documentation. RMA is also proficient in the use of Gemini, Jira and Perforce for cataloging and tracking bug fixes and delivering frequent developmental software builds; all processes HEC depends on. Performance of tasks by another contractor would necessitate a lengthy (one year or more) on-boarding process for the contractor to develop knowledge of and expertise in the programming codebases of these software programs. HEC would also need to purchase multiple Gemini, Jira and Perforce licenses for contractor use and spend a significant amount of HEC staff time to integrate and educate the contractor into the standard HEC development workflow. Waiting and paying for additional licenses would further delay the development of products.

Mandatory on-boarding tasks would substantially increase the funding and time necessary to deliver software bug fixes and minor enhancements for HEC-HMS, HEC-SSP and HEC-RAS.

Significant delays in product deliverables and increases in cost to the government would be expected, which would negatively affect HEC’s ability to maintain existing software that USACE districts rely on to execute their missions. As an example, it is estimated that HEC-HMS is used for 95% of planning studies requiring hydrologic simulation with additional uses for dam and levee safety studies, water management for USACE projects, and regulatory floodplain determinations. Delays in fixing software code capabilities for this critical software will have an extensive negative impact on USACE’s ability to support national flood risk management infrastructure investments and other USACE water resources studies for federal, state, and local sponsors.

As cited in FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(iii)(A) and DFARS 206.302-1, since RMA has been on the HEC- HMS, HEC-SSP and HEC-RAS development teams since the inception of the software, RMA is the one responsible source for a follow-on contract for continued development. RMA’s unique understanding of the computational code clearly sets them apart from available contractors.

Performance by another contractor would necessitate a significant duplication of effort through lengthy and expensive interactions with government staff members, far exceeding available employee time and budget.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition:

Notices required by FAR 5.201 will be published, and interest that is received will be considered.

However, based on past experience with similar contracting needs, there were no contractors besides RMA that could meet all of the requirements.

While working with CESPK-CT on awarding a sole source SATOC an Intent to Sole Source was posted on FBO for a large IDIQ contract. No responses or capability statements were received.

Calls were made to the five (5) highly potential vendors seeking feedback; the magnitude of the requirement was too much for these small businesses.

Sources sought notices were recently posted (May 2018) to FedBixOps for HEC’s major AIS CWMS (HEC-RAS and HEC-HMS are component models within CWMS). HEC software is all interrelated and interconnected. A vendor would need to understand the underlying code in CWMS to work on any other pieces of HEC software. Nine vendors provided responses. Of those nine only one, RMA, included the capabilities necessary to meet the requirements for the sources sought. CWMS is a major integrator of HEC’s software suite. The inability to work on CWMS demonstrates an inability to work on the other HEC software as well (see Appendix A, analysis of CWMS sources sought).

Another sources sought was placed on FedBizOps in June 2018 for work on another major piece of software titled REGI (Report Generation Interface). Again, the vendor would need to understand the underlying code to work on HEC-HMS, HEC-SSP and HEC-RAS. No vendors replied to that posting.

7. Actions to Increase Competition and Remove or Overcome Barriers to Competition:

Due to RMA's continuous history of integral involvement of the proprietary source code for the software packages RMA is the only practical choice for this effort. However, a synopsis will be posted to the FedBizOps website. Any firms that believe they can provide the same support are encouraged to submit capability statements to that effect.

8. Market Research:

A search of the Dynamic Small Business search engine with key word “water resource” under NAICS code 541511, Custom Computer Programming Services was conducted revealing 18 potential vendors. Each of the 18 potential vendors were contacted. Of the 18 vendors, none of them specialized in both software development/software engineering and hydrologic engineering. When contacted the reasons cited by the companies were, they dealt primarily in water resource consulting, hesitation regarding learning the coding, dealt primarily with training workforces, did not do software development, lacked modeling experience, declined immediately stating manpower issues and some just simply declined.

9. Price estimate, including options, if applicable.

Estimated dollar amount is The Subject Matter Expert (SME) for this contract looked at each task separately and the contract as a whole. This software development work can be completed in-house by software developers on the each of the HEC-HMS, HEC-SSP and HEC-RAS teams. However, HEC is reaching out for assistance due to resource challenges at HEC and short deadlines to accomplish software development given funding cycles.

10. Interested Sources:

Resource Management Associates, Inc.

1756 Picasso Avenue Suite C Davis CA 95618-0559

(530) 564-7043

DUNS: 076561893