Provide maintenance and repair of thermo electron equipment

This is a SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE for market research purposes.  THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS OR A REQUEST FOR QUOTATIONS.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) utilizes instruments manufactured by Thermo Electron North America (Thermo) to support its mission.  This is a market research inquiry relevant to an anticipated contract for maintenance of equipment owned by NIST and manufactured by Thermo. Some equipment includes third party accessories. Third party accessories require coverage as well.

The Contractor shall provide a comprehensive maintenance agreement for approximately 100 pieces of equipment. The types of equipment that will be covered includes all the following:

      -Pumps                                                -Chiller

      -Autosamplers                                     -Dual Pump Systems

      -UV/Vis Detectors                              -Column Compartments

      -Orbitrap Elite                                    -Neptune

      -Orbitrap Fusion LUMOS                  -Freezers

      -Mass Spectrometers                           -Fluorescence Detectors

      -Plasma Mass Spectrometer                -DNA Sequencer

      - Capillary Electrophoresis System    - Quantitative PCR Instrument

      -SpeedVac                                           -Element XR

The full-service maintenance is anticipated to include all of the following:

-(1) preventive maintenance visit per year for all equipment;

-Service provided by personnel who are trained and fully competent in the operation of the covered instrument and third-party accessories;

-Parts that are approved for use by Thermo and the manufacturer of the third party accessories;

-Use of tools, instruments, test apparatus, methodologies, techniques, and practices approved for use with the instrument by the manufacturer;

-Unlimited number of requests for service calls in the event of instrument failure which requires immediate repair;

-Response to service calls Monday through Friday, during regular business hours only;

-On-site service within 72 hours after the service call is placed by the Government;

-Telephone support and on-site support as needed during regular business hours;

-All parts required for all repairs and maintenance;

-All commercial software updates for the purposes of instrument optimization not later than 60 days after any such update is released.

-The Government procures a service agreement for the primary purpose of securing on-site service for emergency repairs within 72 hours of notifying the Contractor of the issue. The Contractor must have control over the ability to schedule qualified technicians/engineers for on-site service. This control is most important for repair requests as these are unplanned events.

NIST is seeking responses from all responsible sources other than the equipment manufacturer. Small businesses are defined under the associated NAICS code for this effort, 811219 (Other Electronic and Precision Equipment Repair and Maintenance).  The small business size standard is $22.0M. Please include your company’s size classification in any response to this notice.

Companies that possess the capability to perform the required work are requested to email a written response documenting their capability to carol.wood@nist.gov no later than the response date for this sources sought notice.

After the results of this market research are obtained and analyzed, NIST may conduct a competitive procurement and subsequently award a contract. If at least two qualified small business are identified during this market research stage, then any competitive procurement that resulted is anticipated to be conducted as a small business set-aside.

The following information is required to be provided as part of the response to this sources sought notice:

1. Documentation/description of capabilities which clearly demonstrates the Contractor’s capability to perform all required maintenance;
2. Documentation which demonstrates the Contractor’s ability to control the schedules of qualified technicians/engineers for on-site service;
3. Documentation of any relevant experience performing maintenance and repairs on the equipment identified;
4. Documentation of any relevant experience in providing software updates for the equipment identified;
5. Documentation/description of availability of engineers or technicians that have at least two (2) years of experience performing preventive maintenance and repair of equipment listed above;
6. Documentation which demonstrates that the Contractor has access to parts and loaner equipment that will be required to compete the required work;
7. Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider in finalizing its market research.

Submission must be received not later than Thursday, March 6, 2025, at 3:30 PM Eastern Time.