SPECIAL NOTICE
A -- Short-Term Bridge Contract for Maintenance of Complex NRC Codes
- Notice Date
- 1/2/2013
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 541330
— Engineering Services
- Contracting Office
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Administration, Division of Contracts, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, 20852-2738, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20852-2738
- Solicitation Number
- Special_Notice_MONC_II_Bridge_Contract
- Archive Date
- 1/18/2013
- Point of Contact
- Michael D. Turner, , Joseph Widdup,
- E-Mail Address
-
michael.turner@nrc.gov, Joseph.Widdup@nrc.gov
(michael.turner@nrc.gov, Joseph.Widdup@nrc.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This is a notice of intent to negotiate and award a short-term sole source contract to ensure continuity of complex critical services pending completion of a competitive acquisition. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research requires a short-term, sole-source "bridge" contract with Information System Laboratories (ISL), Inc., of Rockville, Maryland for them to continue to perform TRAC/RELAP Advanced Computational Engine (TRACE) code and model development, and improvements, as well as configuration control, correction of code errors, documentation updates, and user support to the NRC, its contractors, and members of Code Applications and Maintenance Program (CAMP) and the domestic User Support Group for TRACE. The contractor will be required to provide configuration control, correction of code errors, code maintenance, documentation updates, and user support to the NRC, its contractors, and members of CAMP and the domestic User Support Group for RELAP5. TRACE is a three dimensional (3D) code capable of modeling the reactor core and includes 3D kinetics. It is the result of the consolidation of several earlier thermal-hydraulic (T/H) and neutronics codes. RELAP5 is a one-dimensional (1D) best-estimate T/H code that is primarily used for small-break loss of coolant accidents (SBLOCAs) and other transients. In addition, the contractor will also be required to maintain the NRC Reactor Safety Databank, provide CAMP program management support, and organize and conduct TRACE and/or RELAP5 training workshops to NRC staff and external code users. The contract will support the Agency's safety mission by providing high-quality and timely regulatory research, tools, expertise and other technical products that facilitate regulatory decision making and system safety. Presently, the aforementioned services are being provided to NRC by ISL under NRC Contract No. NRC-04-07-048 which expires on February 5, 2013. Proposals received for the competitive follow-on acquisition to that contract (Solicitation No. RS-RES-12-110) are currently under evaluation by NRC; however, because of a number of factors that have significantly complicated the evaluation of proposals, award of a contract resulting from that solicitation cannot be made before the current contract with ISL expires on February 5, 2013. The period of performance for the bridge contract will be six (6) months, starting on February 6, 2013, through August 5, 2013, plus one six-month option to extend the term of the contract if that should become necessary. The bridge contract will include the clause at Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 52.237-3, Continuity of Services and the clause 52.217-8, Option to Extend Services in case either of those clauses are needed. 3. This bridge contract acquisition will be conducted under the authority of 41 United States Code (U.S.C.) 253(c)(1) as set forth in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-1(b)(1) which provides for limiting competition in those situations where the services are available from only one responsible source and no other type of services will satisfy NRC's requirements. ISL has the necessary knowledge, experience, and staff to maintain services currently being performed under NRC-04-07-048 while the competitive follow-on acquisition is completed and awaded. ISL is the only source that can seamlessly perform those requirements while NRC completes its evaluation and award process for the follow-on acquisition. It is not feasible to award a new contract to provide the required support between now and award of the follow-on contract for the following reasons: - A new contractor would require several months to be able to comply with NRC Security standards. All contractor personnel with access to NRC thermal-hydraulic computer codes must be granted IT Level 2 access by NRC before they can access those codes, and that security process typically takes several months. - It would not be cost effective for the NRC to negotiate and award the short-term bridge contract with any source besides ISL. If NRC were to do so, NRC would incur tens of thousands of dollars in transition costs for personnel and IT infrastructure (source code, website database, experimental data, training materials, etc.), and those costs may very well have to be incurred yet again after the award of Solicitation No. RS-RES-12-110. That duplication of costs could not be recovered by NRC through competition or any other means. For the reasons noted above, NRC intends to award the short-term bridge contract to ISL to ensure that NRC is able to meet its mission without any lapse in critical services while it completes the competitive process for the follow-on acquisition.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/NRC/OA/DCPM/Special_Notice_MONC_II_Bridge_Contract/listing.html)
- Record
- SN02957484-W 20130104/130102233717-d686eda3b5575a0285e1034b89223a74 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
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