Loren Data's SAM Daily™

FBO DAILY - FEDBIZOPPS ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 FBO #5059
SOLICITATION NOTICE

A -- Research, academic, and infrastructure/DARPA support

Notice Date

9/28/2015
 

Notice Type

Justification and Approval (J&A)
 

NAICS

541712 — Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
 

Contracting Office

Department of the Army, Army Contracting Command, ACC - APG - RTP, PO BOX 12211, RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, North Carolina, 27709-2211, United States
 

ZIP Code

27709-2211
 

Solicitation Number

W911NF-15-R-A0001
 

Archive Date

10/13/2015
 

Point of Contact

Justin H. Woolsey, Phone: 4073843942
 

E-Mail Address

justin.h.woolsey.civ@mail.mil
(justin.h.woolsey.civ@mail.mil)
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Award Number

W911NF-15-C-0049
 

Award Date

9/24/2015
 

Description

Revision P FedBizOpps 1 JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION Army Research Laboratory Human Research & Engineering Directorate Simulation Training & Technology Center (ARL-HRED-STTC) 1. Contracting Activity: U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground (ACCAPG), Research Triangle Park Division, Orlando Branch, P. O. Box 12211, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2211 2. Description of Action: ACC-APG-Orlando proposes to issue a new contract for four (4) years, (Base Year is twenty (24) months with two (2), one year options), with the University of Central Florida Institute for Simulation and Training (UCF-IST). The contract will be a Firm- Fixed Price type contract funded with Fiscal Year (FY) 15 through FY19 (when appropriate funding becomes available) Research Development Test and Evaluation Budget Activity 1, 2, and 3 (formally known as 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3 Science and Technology [S&T] funds), as well as funding from other Department of Defense (DoD) agencies seeking to leverage ARL-HREDSTTC's research and development capabilities. Name of Proposed Contractor: University of Central Florida Street Address: 4000 Central Florida Blvd. City, State, Zip: Phone: Orlando, FL 32816 The total estimated value of the proposed action is $ 9,300,000.00 3. Description of Services: This proposed contract will maintain essential infrastructure capabilities for Modeling, Simulation, and Training (MS&T) initiatives in which the ARLHRED- STTC resides. ARL-HRED-STTC mission is to addresses critical Army emerging needs and ARL Campaign Plan requirements in MS&T which include: adaptive training, virtual humans, advanced distributed simulation, medical technologies, augmented reality, and 3-D immersive environments. Via this proposed contract, UCF-IST will maintain essential core MS&T infrastructure capabilities and engineering support identified in this document. The current partnership with UCF-IST enables the ARL-HRED-STTC to focus its limited personnel on research project execution and laboratory work while the contractor is required to supplement professional, technical and administrative support related to aspects of laboratory operations. This support addresses the operational needs within the primary ARL-HRED-STTC facility and also satellite research laboratories located in other areas of the Central Florida Research Park. Support under this proposed effort shall include the following services: (a) Operation Coordination: Provide support for operations, facility coordination, tasker management, public affairs coordination, budgeting (mission and customer), ARL's unique time keeping processes, DoD force protection and security. This includes unique requirements for the medical simulation studies, human experimentation, large virtual multiplayer experimentation with Soldiers, Cadets and civilians and Joint Service Anti- Terrorism Exercises (ATX). Revision P FedBizOpps 2 (b) Technical/Administrative Support: Provide property management, unique budget processing requirements and all technical support tasks such as prepare reports, provide briefings, attend meetings, in support of MS&T areas of research and development to include non-mission funded customer work. (c) Operation and Strategic Planning: Provide personnel to support the strategic planning focused on the operation and facility efforts in support the MS&T unique initiatives. (d) Provide personnel to support the coordination of various sponsored activities within the ARL-HRED-STTC, PEO STRI, Major General Maddux events, and other unique requirements in the Orlando area to include; Team Orlando visitors, meetings, workshops and conferences: (e) Additionally, ARL's Director, Dr. Thomas Russell's has instituted the DARPA Enterprise Strategy. ARL-HRED-STTC is partnering with DARPA as a model for the DARPA Enterprise Strategy. UCF-IST has been working with DARPA for ten (10) years and has won several awards for their project management and acquisition excellence expertise with DARPA. UCF-IST stands alone in their holistic approach to providing engineering support and management support services required to maintain deep partnerships across DARPA Divisions. This support includes RM, IRB support and a nominal (10% to 13%) for engineering support. (1) Engineering Support: DARPA engineering services will constitute a nominal effort of 10 to 13 percent of the total annual labor for this contract. UCF-IST has assembled a unique team to work DARPA programs as well as dozens of DARPA SBIR efforts. Today, the ARL-HRED-STTC is one of the largest SBIR support offices to DARPA. The unique blend of engineering support provided by UCFIST constitutes a novel approach to providing engineering support services to include; design efforts and decision support in areas such as: cognitive neuroscience, robotics, advanced physics, team and individual training, information processing, material science, hardware and software development. (2) Resource Management: Support for the DARPA resource management to the maximum extent allowed by non-Government personnel. This includes fiscal tracking, audit preparations, and the tracking of contract and in-house funding and expenses on a per program basis. (3) Independent Review Board (IRB). Preparation for protocol review and approval: Provides support for work performed in the submission, approval and monitoring of Independent (Institutional) Review Board. These specialized studies include; animal studies in the specialize field of medical training as well as specialized chemical and materiel studies. 4. Authority: FAR 6.302-1, only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will Revision P FedBizOpps 3 satisfy agency requirements. 5. Reasons for Authority Cited: a. Background In 1992, with the establishment of the Army's Simulation Training and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM) in Central Florida Research Park, Orlando, Florida, UCF-IST was created to support collaboration among STRICOM, Other Government Agencies (OGAs), the MS&T defense industry, and other academic institutions. Today, UCF is the only academic center in the world supporting all members of Team Orlando's military complex located in the Central Florida Research Park. As time passed Central Florida became the unquestioned leader and hub to the world's largest MS&T community. Today it is home to more than 200 modeling, simulation and training companies and the world's best theme parks all leveraging modeling and simulation techniques. As part of the Team Orlando partnership between military organizations (Army, Navy, Marine Corp & Air Force) and those 200 modeling and simulation companies, UCF-IST continues to provide a national treasure of MS&T expertise. As the simulation and training mission grew it took on dimensions hardly imagined - even in the '90s. The discipline's horizons stretched far beyond mechanical engineering and computer science to encompass psychology, cognitive science, robotics, human factors engineering, mathematical analysis, philosophy, learning theory, culture studies, to name a few. With all these multidisciplinary underpinnings, modeling and simulation became a discipline worthy of its own advanced levels of scientific study. As such the Army needed additional support and that expertise came from UCF-IST as a resident partner with the establishment of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to establish an Open Campus laboratory with STRICOM (ARL-HRED-STTC was part of STRICOM until 2004 before it moved to RDECOM until 2010 and now resides as ARLHRED- STTC). Today, UCF-IST partnership with ARL-HRED-STTC is on their third CRADA. As part of the current CRADA ARL-HRED-STTC resides in a UCF owned building as well as several shared labs across Central Florida Research Park in Orlando, Florida. Today, ARL-HRED-STTC has several contract vehicles with UCF-IST awarded by ACC-RTP to include a five (5) year, with two (2) one (1) year options IDIQ which is valued at $75,000,000 for research and development work. This IDIQ has awarded over 90 different task orders for MS&T research and development that is used by all the military Services. The personnel under this IDIQ (W91CRB-08-D-0015) understand Army systems, databases, contracting, personnel initiatives and acquisition. As this IDIQ comes to a close other methods for Research and Development are being used to continue the partnership with UCF. However, the infrastructure support will not be covered under any of the other contract vehicles. Therefore, this J&A is submitted to maintain essential infrastructure capabilities identified in section 3 through the application of infrastructure services and nominal DARPA engineering support. b. Alternatives In developing the strategy to award a sole source contract to UCF-IST, there are three (3) Revision P FedBizOpps 4 alternatives that were addressed, none of which would satisfy the requirement to maintain the essential infrastructure service capabilities for the ARL-HRED-STTC needs: (1) Use In-House Resources: ARL-HRED-STTC does not have the depth or breadth across infrastructure services within each discipline to maintain an MS&T facility that a well-endowed research institution would provide. (2) Suspend Services: Since there is a critical Army need to maintain current R&D capabilities in MS&T, this alternative was not considered. (3) Award a new contract through competition: Peer industry and universities engaged in MS&T typically do not mix infrastructure support, top quality R&D services as well as administrative support. Therefore, substantial duplication of cost to the Government would be expected and not recovered through competition at this time. c. Impact It is in the best interest of the Government to award a new contract to UCF-IST. Failure to do so will negatively impact the ARL-HRED-STTC's mission and result in substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition. Since ARLHRED- STTC does not have the breadth and depth of personnel to meet the current demand on requirements of an Army lab this new contract is required for two reasons; (1) the duplication of costs and time concerns if the ARL-HRED-STTC Government personnel would vacate and try to move to a different facility, and (2) a substantial duplication of cost to the Government in order to ramp up a new contractor. By awarding this new contract substantial duplication of cost can be saved by the Government with no time delays or loss of mission. Below are some examples of areas of cost savings: (1) Cost of Moving to a New Facility: The Army has been located at its current facility since the early 2000's during that time several other agencies have been supported by the infrastructure personnel hired by the Army. The impact of moving spreads across Army agencies and partnerships in Team Orlando as other agencies seek to leverage MS&T work. Additionally, the Army has invested many millions of dollars in this facility to build out the infrastructure capability and upgrades to meet DOD requirements that cannot be found in typical commercial real estate space. Therefore a substantial duplication of cost to the Government would be expected and not recovered through moving to a new building. As an example of this, in Figure 1 shows costs of a typical Central Florida Commercial Property that the Army could move into if the decision was to vacate the current facility. This would result in is substantial costs to the Government. Using data acquired in the last 12 months during the Government Market Research and leveraging the Central Florida Office Research Report from the Colliers International Group who surveys sales and leasing activity in six (6) surrounding areas of Central Florida. Based on the potential four (4) year contract proposed, Figure 1 estimates that the cost to the Government for a comparable building would be $5,366,400 over four (4) years. Under our current approach the Army would only be expected to pay $647,720 for Revision P FedBizOpps 5 all the current building space. That would be a savings of $4,718,680 over the life of this four (4) year contract. This analysis demonstrates the substantial increase in cost to the Government; this cost would have to be taken from S&T funds which would impact our mission. Figure 1 ‐ Market Research Labor Justification Additionally, since the early 2000's the Army has invested over $5M in major facility renovations, security, classified facilities, and upgrades. These costs would most likely be required again if ARL-HRED-STTC moved to a new facility. This would not include the major loss of hours for the move as well as the mission loss from the use of mission funds to pay for the expenses. (2) Duplication of Cost Ramping Up a New Contractor: During the life of the partnership with UCF-IST the infrastructure personnel and DARPA engineers have established an extensive network of close and significant working relationships and collaborations with ARL, Army Research Institute, DARPA and other key Army laboratories. Additionally, the training, certification, travel for certification and expertise associated with these positions is voluminous and leads to the synergy created between labs. There would be substantial duplication of costs that would not be recovered in ramping up another contractor at this time. In figure 2 an estimate of the costs to ramping up a new contractor is documented. It is estimated that the cost in the first year would be $1,125,826 to the Government. Additionally, three (3) examples of these unique requirements are also documented below: Revision P FedBizOpps 6 Figure 2 - Estimated Ramp of Cost for New Contractor (1) Security Personnel. ARL-HRED-STTC has extremely unique electronic gates, security system and badge control. All of these systems have extensive training that needs to be undertaken for operation, safety and to meet the ARL-HRED-STTC Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). The gates alone are tens of thousands of dollars and have complex control systems. UCF-IST not only understands this but they supplement the Government by controlling the systems. UCF-IST security personnel are trained and certified through Army and state classes. Their job includes opening and closing the facility and working the gate procedures and entrance and exits for our buildings. Security personnel sit on the ARL-HRED-STTC quarterly security meeting and play an instrumental role in our ATX exercises and documenting our security procedures. Their one-on-one relationships with Team Orlando community and working across ARL are an example of this collaboration. As stated in recent ARL findings for the Anti-Terrorism Exercise's After Action Review and showcased in the 2013 ARL Annual Awards. UCFIST was commended with the aid of the State of Florida on the ARL-HRED-STTC facility to meet DOD Anti-Terrorism Standards for Buildings in accordance with regulation UFC 4-010-01 signed 1 October 2013 per DOD Instruction 2000.12 and 10 USC 2859. This regulation instructs all DOD components to fully comply with these regulations with no exceptions authorized. This was a result of the upgrade made to the ARL-HRED-STTC facility costing $800,000 which was funded through UCF by the State of Florida to comply with the extremely unique requirements and led by the expertise of the UCF-IST security team. Any new source for this contract would result in a substantial duplication of cost to the Government and would not be expected to be recovered through that competition, as stated in FAR 6.302. Revision P FedBizOpps 7 (2) Public Affairs Officer (PAO). Our PAO must understand ARL, RDECOM and Army procedures and is our interface for all VIP visits and messaging going in and out of the building. The PAO also is the main interface to PEO STRI PAO as PEO STRI is the ARL-HRED-STTC main transition partner who recently moved under Command of a two-star general, MG Maddox. This brings unique requirements when interfacing with PEO STRI and their Command Group. Our existing PAO has over 20 years experience in the Army with Public Affairs and these added responsibilities since moving under ARL in 2010 creates a vital responsibility and significant uniqueness to the job. (3) Tasker and Budget Personnel. Most organizations have Government personnel doing this work. Because of the complexity of the tasker and budget systems in ARL, the Government has spent tens of thousands of dollars training UCF-IST personnel to support these efforts. UCF-IST personnel work side by side in partnership with Government personnel. They understand GFEBS, ATAAPs, MIPRs, WBS and all the unique characteristics of Army budgeting systems and databases. In 2014, ARL-HREDSTTC had over 300 taskers from various agencies. To accomplish this, the incumbent has unique expertise about the originations and mission of the ARL-HRED-STTC, interface to Team Orlando and historical databases to rely on. He also documents and manages all the ARL-HRED-STTC SOPs which are unique to the ARL-HRED-STTC. Taking collectively the unique training and certification requirements for each of the personnel from UCF-IST in order for them to work in their current infrastructure and service jobs would not be economically feasible as a whole to ramp up another contractor at this time. Losing the services as a whole will be detrimental to ARL-HRED-STTC resulting substantial duplication of cost to the Government. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: A notice of this requirement was publicized in accordance with FAR Subpart 5.2 on the Army's Single Face to Industry Registry from 3 March 2015 through 17 April 2015. There were no responses to this notice. 7. Actions to Increase Competition: DOD's Better Buying Power initiative guidance emphasizes the importance of removing obstacles from competition. ARL-HRED-STTC is committed to establishing best practices to increase Full and Open Competition. As such it is anticipated that three (3) actions will be taken: (a) Any follow-on contract would separate the requirements for infrastructure and engineering support for DARPA. Since the engineering support is nominal (10% - 13%) it was anticipated that this method of placing the two (2) different contracts: one (1) for infrastructure and the other for engineering support services may increase competition in the future. This is in line with the latest Better Buying Power initiative guidance just released in DOD Instruction 5000.02. Revision P FedBizOpps 8 (b) An industry day explaining the type of work ARL is doing with DARPA and their needed support will be held. (c) Additionally, ARL will utilize the Army's Single Face to Industry Registry for the engineering support to DARPA. This announcement will be placed online for an extended period of time. These actions may result in increasing the competition for this support in the future. 8. Market Research: Infrastructure Support & DARPA Engineering Support FAR 10.002, (b.1) states that the extent of market research will vary, depending on such factors as urgency, estimated dollar value, complexity, and past experience. In conducting the Market Research over the past twelve (12) months the ARL-HRED-STTC personnel Dr. Neal Finkelstein, Ms. Thao Pham, Mr. Jose Rentas, Mr. Joe Traugott and Mr. Jim Nelson got involved with leadership and discuss the requirements for this contract. Identifying and understanding the characteristics of the service requirements was the key to the Market Research. ARL Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) have extensive knowledge in working with support contractors. They are continually reading trade journals, contact knowledgeable people (Government, industry and academia) concerning support that other organizations received. In Team Orlando, we are surrounded by the other Services, all who work with support contractors for various acquisition needs. Although our S&T support is uniquely different as well as our lab security needs, having additional eyes and ears go over these requirements in terms of how the other Services receive this help aided with the market research. Contacting specialists and other SMEs all are part of this process. In the past twelve (12) months, taking advantage of the lessons learned with previous infrastructure support personnel was collected. These SMEs evaluate White Papers, review market surveys prepared by companies, conduct site visits and attend trade shows, conferences, and symposia. All of this information obtained and surveyed over the last twelve (12) months aided in the Market Research. Additionally, in the past twelve (12) months SMEs used Internet tools, to perform Web searches, review results of recent market research on support requirements and visited the Better Buying Power Initiative Web Portal all providing valuable information when looking for similar requirements. Obtaining source lists from other contracting activities such as PEO STRI was also helpful. Furthermore, in preparation for the past IDIQ awarded to UCF-IST in 2007 which contained infrastructure support, ARL-HRED-STTC assessed other potential candidates. Universities that had both strong technical as well as administrative skills were evaluated. In an effort to determine the feasibility of competition, ARL-HRED-STTC's Principal Investigators conducted telephone interviews, attended various trade shows, conducted web searches, reviewed White Papers, reviewed engineering publications and participated in the Inter-service/Industry Training Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) to see if any other universities had the desired qualifications. In reviewing the possible candidates, it was considered essential that the Revision P FedBizOpps 9 candidates have an established and extensive link to the Central Florida military Services and MS&T community. It was also necessary that laboratory space be available to conduct numerous MS&T experiments and perform research within the ARL-HRED-STTC core competencies. The results from this Market Research analysis indicated that individually, a few institutions had some level of capabilities and knowledge needed to meet the ARL-HRED-STTC mandated support. However, each of the comparison institutions had strengths in certain areas over some but none of the institutions compared with UCF-IST's overall strengths. The Market Research indicates UCF-IST is the only institution that has the depth and breadth of capabilities, expertise and experience to address all core capabilities with a focus that is directed to specific ARLHRED- STTC laboratory needs. Furthermore, Figure 2 continues the Market Research which shows a comparison of labor rates under contract number W91CRB-08-D-0015 comparing them to the Government Services Administration (GSA) rates. The main labor category rates from GSA are compared to the current cost rates from UCF-IST. The rates for the labor for each category range from -86% to +39% with an average of -13% lower overall. Figure 2 - Market Research Budget Justification Cost Comparison 9. Procurement History: Contract number W91CRB-08-D-0015 awarded on 24 March 2008 by the U.S. Army RDECOM Acquisition Contracting Center was a sole source IDIQ named Research, Academic and Operations Support (RAOS) in the amount of $75,000,000. Task Order 0087 under that IDIQ was awarded 26 Sept 2013 to the UCF-IST for infrastructure support. The value of that task order was $1,500,897. Revision P FedBizOpps 10 10. Additional Information to support the justification: a. Acquisition Data Availability: This requirement is for essential infrastructure support for the ARL-HRED-STTC consequently since this is an infrastructure support contract there are no acquisition packages, technical data packages, or specifications under this effort. b. Unusual and Compelling Urgency: Not applicable since FAR 6.302-2 - Unusual and Compelling Urgency, is not the authority cited for this proposed action. c. Competition in Subcontracting: FAR 52.244-5, Competition in Subcontracting, will be included in the solicitation and resulting contract. It is not anticipated that any major subcontracting will result under this proposed contract. However, the PCO will encourage the maximum use of subcontracting competition for supplies, materials, and non-technical services.
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/4891a8df0aa840c4fff5fd1a1082882f)
 

Place of Performance

Address: 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando, Florida, 32816, United States

Zip Code: 32816
 

Record

SN03906902-W 20150930/150928235900-4891a8df0aa840c4fff5fd1a1082882f (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)

---

| FSG Index  |  This Issue's Index  |  Today's FBO Daily Index Page |