Service Contract for 2 Waters HPLC and 1 LC-MS Systems

INTRODUCTION

This is a pre-solicitation non-competitive (notice of intent) synopsis to award a contract without providing for full and open competition. THIS IS A NOTICE OF INTENT, NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL. A SOLICITATION WILL NOT BE ISSUED AND PROPOSALS WILL NOT BE REQUESTED.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), intends to negotiate and award a purchase order to the Waters Technologies Corporation on a sole source basis to service, maintain and repair 3 Waters' instruments:
(1) 1 manual HPLC system;
(2) 1 automatic HPLC system; and
(3) 1 LC-MS system.

NORTH AMERICAN INDUSTRY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM (NAICS) CODE

The intended procurement is classified under NAICS code 811219 with a Size Standard of $20.5 million.

REGULATORY AUTHORITY

The resultant contract will include all applicable provisions and clauses in effect through the Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2019-01 dated December 20, 2018.

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 13-Simplified Acquisition Procedures, Subpart 13.106-1 (b) (1), Soliciting from a single source and is not expected to exceed the simplified acquisition threshold. Contracts awarded using FAR Part 13-Simplified Acquisition Procedures are exempt from the requirements of FAR Part 6-Competition Requirements.

DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENT

We have acquired 1 manual HPLC system, 1 automatic HPLC system, and 1 LC-MS system. The 3 HPLC-related systems are critical to our primary mission of developing and investigating novel PET radioligands, from the early research stage to developing processes for producing these radioligands for clinical studies in human subjects. In order to maintain the systems in operating conditions, we need a service contract.

a. Waters Quality Parts: Approximately 50% of all Waters HPLC and UPLC parts are manufactured by Waters directly. The majority of these parts cannot be alternatively sourced; Waters manufactures its parts using specific quality standards, packaged under proprietary critical clean conditions; Waters stocks the largest inventory of parts so that global supply is assured.
b. Technical Expertise: Customer technical support on Waters instruments, informatics and chemistry are only available from Waters on Waters systems; Applications support on Waters systems is only available from Waters; Waters service engineer support is only available to Waters service engineers.
c. Training: Waters service engineers are trained by Waters factory-certified trainers who are kept up to date on all system updates and global customer feedback. This cannot be replicated by any other service organization; Customer training on Waters systems is only available from Waters; Only Waters offers complete systems-certified training to Waters service engineers.
d. Upgrades: Waters instruments may be entitled to factory-directed updates and these are produced only by Waters; Instrument and software upgrades for Waters systems are only available from Waters.
e. Compliance: Waters offers the only automated qualification protocols on Waters systems.
f. Remote monitoring & diagnostics: Waters offers the only platform capable of accessing instrument diagnostics remotely on Waters systems.

The Government will award a purchase order resulting from this notice to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the Statement of Work (SOW) will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered.

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE

The anticipated period of performance is Base Year and 4 Option Years.

INTENDED SOURCE

Waters Technologies Corporation
34 Maple Street
Milford, PA 01757-3604

CLOSING STATEMENT

THIS SYNOPSIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR COMPETITIVE PROPOSALS. However, interested parties may identify their interest and capability to respond to this notice. Responses to this notice shall contain sufficient information to establish the interested parties' bona-fide capabilities for fulfilling the requirement and include: unit price, list price, shipping and handling costs, the delivery period after contract award, the prompt payment discount terms, the F.O.B. Point (Destination or Origin), the Dun & Bradstreet Number (DUNS), the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and the certification of business size. All offerors must have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) www.sam.gov."

A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The information received will normally be considered solely for the purposes of determining whether to proceed on a non-competitive basis or to conduct a competitive procurement.

All responses must be received by the closing date of this notice and must reference the solicitation number. Responses may be submitted electronically to both michellececilia.cecilia@nih.gov and valerie.whipple@nih.gov. Fax responses will not be accepted.

Contracting Office Address
6001 Executive Boulevard
Room 4211, MSC 9559
Bethesda, Maryland 20892-9559
United States

Place of Performance
Bldg10/Rm B3C346, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, MD 20814 and/or another location
on the NIH Main Campus.

Primary Point of Contact
Valerie Whipple,
Contracting Officer
valerie.whipple@nih.gov
Phone: 301.827.5218

Secondary Point of Contact
Michelle M. Cecilia,
Contract Specialist
michellececilia.cecilia@nih.gov
301.827.7199

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