Upright Microscope

Added: Jan 23, 2017 2:59 pm The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) intends to negotiate a purchase order on a sole source basis, under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b)(1), with Olympus America, Inc. at 48 Woerd Avenue, Waltham, MA 02453 to deliver an Upright Microscope for Fluorescence Analysis and Polarized Light Microscopy.

To meet mission requirements, the NIST Materials Measurement Science Division (MMSD) needs to expand its automated microscope capacity to include an additional Automated Microscope Platform. Procurement of this additional microscope platform will enable the continuation of current research while freeing up the development platform of our existing microscope for a mission critical R&D project. Pursuant to this application, the Automated Microscope Platform must be fully compatible with the MMSD currently-owned Olympus VS120 microscope so that the additional microscope can be reconfigured with the light sources, objectives, analyzers, and camera systems that have been purchased for the primary automation platform (which represent 10s of thousands of dollars that can be leveraged). Additionally, the MMSD-developed custom software will not have to be rewritten for an incompatible microscope platform which would cause significant delays in meeting mission deadlines. Moreover, the automated microscope platform components must be fully compatible with Olympus microscopes to yield optimal imaging characteristics with respect to optical aberrations (objectives and inter-scope optics), spectral coverage (light sources), and color correction. Pin-to-pin compatibility with optical design and other optomechanical elements are essential to keep the system matched/tuned and to maintain a high level of detection efficiency. Deviation from these items could result in a reduced level of data collection efficiency, frequency agility and/or a total failure of the imaging platform. To maintain performance and interoperability across this system and current systems, MMSD requires optical components that are equivalent to the Olympus optical and optomechanical elements. Olympus America Inc. is the only authorized dealer for Olympus Industrial Microscopes for NIST's region. Further, attempting to source to a vendor other than Olympus for the new microscope would compromise the Olympus limited warranty NIST currently has.

The NAICS Code is 333314 with a size standard of 500 employees.

No solicitation package will be issued. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive quotations; however, responses received by the response date and time will be considered by the Government.
A determination by the Government not to compete the proposed acquisition based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement.