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FBO DAILY - FEDBIZOPPS ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 21, 2016 FBO #5416
SOLICITATION NOTICE

R -- MUVES Code Suite Software Development Support - Limited Sources Justification

Notice Date

9/19/2016
 

Notice Type

Fair Opportunity / Limited Sources Justification
 

NAICS

541330 — Engineering Services
 

Contracting Office

Department of the Army, Army Contracting Command, ACC - APG (W911QX) Adelphi, 2800 POWDER MILL RD, ADELPHI, Maryland, 20783-1197, United States
 

ZIP Code

20783-1197
 

Solicitation Number

W911QX-16-T-0027
 

Archive Date

10/19/2016
 

Point of Contact

Joseph M. Dellinger, Phone: 3013940769
 

E-Mail Address

joseph.m.dellinger2.civ@mail.mil
(joseph.m.dellinger2.civ@mail.mil)
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Award Number

W911QX-16-F-0013
 

Award Date

9/14/2016
 

Description

Limited Sources Justification (LSJ) - MUVES Code Suite Software Development Support JUSTIFICATION REVIEW DOCUMENT FAR 8.405-6 LIMITED SOURCES JUSTIFICATION UNDER THE GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION FEDERAL SUPPLY PROGRAM Supply/Service: The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) Survivability/Lethality Analysis Directorate (SLAD) requires Modular Unix-based Vulnerability Estimation Suite Stochastic Analysis of Fragment Effects (SAFE) and Stochastic Quantitative Analysis of System Hierarchies (SQuASH) models (MUVES) code suite software development support. Authority: Title III of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (41U.S.C. 251, et. Seq) and Title 40 U.S.C 501, Services for Executive Agencies, as implemented by FAR 8.405-6. Amount: $5,866,173.97 Prepared by:Joseph DellingerDSN: Contract SpecialistDate: 16 March 2016 Email: joseph.m.dellinger2.civ@mail.mil Contracting Officer:Phillip AmadorDSN: Contracting OfficerDate: 16 March 2016 Email: phillip.j.amador.civ@mail.mil Technical:Michael GillichDSN: CORDate: 16 March 2016 Email: michael.j.gillich.civ@mail.mil Requirements:Michael GillichDSN: CORDate: 16 March 2016 Email: michael.j.gillich.civ@mail.mil Reviews: I have reviewed this justification and find it adequate to support limiting competition. Program Manager: Legal Counsel: Department of the Army FAR 8.405-6 Limited Sources Justification Under the General Services Administration Federal Supply Schedule Program 1.Contracting Activity: Adelphi Contracting Division, Army Contracting Command- Aberdeen Proving Ground (ACC-APG), 2800 Powder Mill Road, Adelphi, MD 20783 2.Description of Action: ARL-SLAD requests a firm fixed price-level of effort (FFP- LOE) type contract under the General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) Program with Applied Research Associates (ARA), Inc., 4694 Millennium Dr., Suite 100, Belcamp, MD 21017. The Government will execute this action against FSS contract GS-00F-341CA. Projected award is 01 September 2016 and fiscal year 2016, Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) funds will be used. X An acquisition plan is not required because this procurement does not meet the threshold at Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement 207.103(d)(i)(B). (Insert approval authority title approved an acquisition plan in accordance with DFARS 207.103(d)(i)(B) on (insert date). The required acquisition plan in accordance with DFARS 207.103(d)(i)(B) is currently awaiting (insert approval authority title) approval. 3. Description of Supplies/Services: The estimated value of the proposed action is $5,866,173.97. This request is for a follow-on three (3) year contract in support of SLAD's MUVES development. This contract supplies commercial software development expertise for the MUVES code suite, to include the Fast Air Target Encounter PENetration (FATEPEN) module, which is critical to the ballistic SLV analysis process that is the tri-service (Army, Air Force, Navy/Marines) standard for predicting penetration of ballistic threats into materiel targets, specifically for the Joint Technical Coordinating Group for Munitions Effectiveness (JTCG/ME) and the Lethality and Weapons Effectiveness Branch of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division (NSWC/DD). FATEPEN is an integral part of MUVES, which compiles and links to the code suite in order to compute fragment penetration of targets testing within MUVES for SLAD's research and development of the suite for Army systems. This work requires approximately five (5) continuous Contract Manpower Equivalents (CME) to achieve current ARL and tri-service model development mission goals. This action provides continuation of activities under the existing contract. W911QX- 11-F-0054, without a stoppage in critical mission activities. The estimated value of the proposed action is $5,866,173.97, inclusive of one (1) base year and two (2) one (1)-year option periods. The firm requirement is for a one (1) year effort. The optional efforts are not firm requirements and funds are not available for the optional efforts. However, there is a reasonable likelihood that the option requirements will materialize and funds will be provided to continue these efforts. By using the options, the Government is not obligated to exercise the option if the mission or funding changes. The exercise of option is the most advantageous method of fulfilling the Government's need, price and other factors considered, while also mitigating risk. A new solicitation will fail to produce a better price or a more advantageous offer than that offered by the option. The estimate is as follows: FY Annual Labor Cost Estimate Travel Total Annual Cost 2016$1,875,644.54$20,000.00$1,895,644.54 2017$1,941,292.10$20,000.00$1,961,292.10 2018$2,009,237.33$20,000.00$2,029,237.33 TOTAL $5,826,173.97 $60,000.00 $5,886,173.97 Base Period: 01 September 2016 to 30 August 2017Value: $1,895,644.54 Option Period 1: 01 September 2017 to 30 August 2018Value: $1,961,292.10 Option Period 2: 01 September 2018 to 30 August 2019Value: $2,029,237.33 Total: $5,886,173.97 4.Authority Cited: Title III of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (41U.S.C. 251, et. Seq) and Title 40 U.S.C 501, Services for Executive Agencies, as implemented by FAR 8.405-6 and substantiated by the following: _X_ FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(C). In the interest of economy and efficiency, the new work is a logical follow-on to an original Federal Supply Schedule order provided that the original order was placed in accordance with applicable Federal Supply Schedule ordering procedures. The original order or BPA must not have been previously issued under sole-source or limited-sources procedures. 5.Reason for Authority Cited: The ARL-SLAD requires continued development of the MUVES code suite and its related modules, a continuation of the efforts completed under task order W911QX-11-F- 0054 issued to ARA. MUVES is used for conducting the ballistic analyses that are provided to materiel developers, system evaluators, and senior decision makers at the Departments of Army and Defense (DoA and DoD). In addition, MUVES is the key component of the Advanced Joint Effectiveness Model (AJEM), the standard tri-service (Army, Air Force, and Navy) SLV analysis code. Continued development and maintenance of this code suite is critical to SLAD's Ballistic Vulnerability Lethality Division (BVLD) mission and that of our tri-service partners, specifically the JTCG/ME and the Lethality and Weapons Effectiveness Branch of NSWC/DD. ARL-SLAD is the Army's focal point for SLV analysis and expertise. SLAD assists Product/Program Managers (PMs) with the enhancement of the survivability/lethality of weapons and weapon platforms being developed, deployed, or improved. SLAD also focuses on improving the survivability of soldiers using these systems. Results from SLAD's SLV analyses for a spectrum of battlefield threats are provided to PMs, system evaluators, and decision makers at the DoA and DoD. SLAD conducts the necessary investigations, simulations, laboratory/field experiments, and analyses to quantify the SLV of combat, combat support, and combat service support systems when faced with these battlefield threats: ballistics; electronic warfare; information warfare; chemical/biological/radiological/nuclear contamination; and environment. The BVLD of SLAD develops and maintains conventional ballistics SLV analysis codes to handle the Army's current and future SLV analysis needs. Among these SLV analysis codes suites are MUVES, Operational Requirements-based Casualty Assessment (ORCA), FATEPEN, MUVES Took Kit (MTK), and associated SLV tools that are required to work interactively with, or as a module of MUVES. Under the previous contract, ARA (with government assistance) started the development and configuration of the MUVES code in order to have the FATEPEN system interactively work with MUVES. FATEPEN is the primary penetration sub model for MUVES, and its use is critical to ARL and the tri-service for SLV analyses. MUVES is a key component of AJEM, a standard DoD lethality evaluation computer simulation and it is coded primarily in ANSI C in the UNIX programming environment but also incorporates FORTRAN 95, C++, JAVA, and a variety of scripting interfaces and libraries, notably Tcl/Tk, X11, and UNIX-based shell scripts. MUVES's core code base is JAVA. Currently, the next generation SLV suite is under development at SLAD and it is intended to incorporate current and future capabilities associated with each of the above SLV code suites which are all required to interact with MUVES. As stated prior, the development of the next generation SLV suite software has become a critical need item which the government is seeking continuation of development services picking up directly from the three (3) years of service provided by ARA under contract W911QX-11-F-0054. ARA has provided the development services for MUVES since the beginning initial stages of critical code modernization which will methodically re-architect and rewrite two (2) decades worth of legacy code to take advantage of modern parallelization and vectorization techniques, providing significantly increased performance and visual analysis capabilities. It is expected that this will be a concerted effort between ARA and the Government that will be attainable within a three (3) year period required to revise the modern codebase to be delivered in incremental steps. This will be the principal deliverable during the course of the follow on contract. To date, the only contractor that has knowledge of the MUVES and FATEPEN code is ARA due to their efficient and effective model development derived from their background knowledge in code development. The required services requires in-depth knowledge of not only how FATEPEN works but there is a need to know of the systematic function along with knowing the rationale behind how FATEPEN was developed and what data was utilized (and why that data is appropriate) in the development of the model. ARA is uniquely qualified to provide this knowledge to the Government as ARA provided extensive development of the code under the current contract, W911QX-11-F-0054, which this contract intends to follow-on. ARA is not permitted to distribute FATEPEN without express written approval by NSWC/DD. In order for another Contractor to gain access to the FATEPEN module required by the Army, NSWC/DD would have to provide written authorization to them after verifying their technical aptitude and knowledge with MUEVES and FATEPEN which would delay the follow-on work a jeopardize the advancements that SLAD has made during the performance under W911QX-11-F-0054. There is a high risk of delaying the modernization program initiated under the current contract which will methodically re-architect and rewrite two (2) decades worth of legacy code to take advantage of modern parallelization and vectorization techniques, providing significantly increased performance and visual analysis capabilities. The risk associated with adopting new outside contractors that do not know the inert operative functions of MUVES, and given the three (3) years of Government investment with ARA, is high and would jeopardize and cause delays in SLAD's primary mission of SLV analysis for materiel developers, test and evaluation, and Army and DoD acquisition decision makers. SLAD is seeking out ARA to develop new methodologies required for meaningful analysis of emerging systems and improve efficiencies necessary to meet ongoing needs with limited resources. It will take approximately two (2) years of development by a new Contractor to replicate the current methodologies and gain the necessary expertise to develop the FATEPEN module which has recently become integral to SLAD's mission. SLAD will also be unable to accomplish critical mission requirements on behalf of our tri-service analysis partners which have a goal of standardizing the ballistic SLV analysis capabilities for all of the DoD partners promoting continuity amongst the partners. It is in the Government's best interest to have ARA continue this modernization program so that all current data is not lost due to a new Contractor learning how to develop the MUVES code suite. In addition, due to the steep learning curve at the current stage of development with MUVES, acquiring another Contractor would also require a great amount of Government resources requiring additional Government oversight, technical direction, and time spent providing training to ensure that all systems and support are fully operational, as well as approval to access FATEPEN from NSCW/DD. ARA currently has the necessary trained personnel to fulfill the requirements on the first day of performance without any downtime and can pick up with development right where they left off. Should a lapse of time or service gap occur, SLAD will not be able to complete their technical programs on schedule or provide deliverables that other organizations are awaiting in order to complete the tri-service programs. It is estimated that a loss of up to REDACTED could potentially impact the tri-service community if there was a delay or stoppage in this research and would also impact ARL/SLADs reputation within the tri-service community as the Army‘s focal point for SLV analysis and expertise. Customer funding of REDACTED has been allocated to continue, and make use of capabilities associated with, the modernization program Control No: JA-Adel-16-053 Contractor: Applied Research Associates, Inc. (ARA) Supply/Service: MUVES-S2 code suite support and the continual development of MUVES; if a new Contractor is used to continue services this funding would be lost due to the inability to perform the analyses required to complete the modernization program. The Government still has a need for software development expertise for the MUVES code suite and the only Contractor available that can provide immediate continuation of services with no stoppage is the current Contractor, ARA. SLAD is currently utilizing FATEPEN for testing that was started during the original order W911QX-11-F-0054 issued 30 June 2011 which expires on 01 July 2016; without the follow-on continuation of service this testing would be delayed approximately two (2) years to allow a new Contractor sufficient time to create a new model or for the SLAD to receive permission from NSWC/DD for the distribution and access of FATEPEN. ARA has a unique background and skillset and familiarity with the hardware, software and current ARL SLAD laboratory facilities and is licensed by the NSWC/DD to configure the source code of the MUVES and, specifically, the FATEPEN module. Based on the aforementioned, it is in the Governments best interest for this requirement to pursue a follow-on from the original FSS order W911QX-11-F-0054 in the interest of economy and efficiency by awarding this contract to ARA for MUVES development which is compliant with the requirements of FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(C). 6.Actions to Increase Competition: Based on information provided in paragraph five (5) above, competition for this action is not feasible as no other source is capable of providing seamless support; however any future service contract requests will include new market research for the services required. This will include posting a sources sought synopsis as a mechanism to expose the requirement and determine if any new companies have gained access to, or expanded their expertise in MUVES and FATEPEN. In addition to the market research noted in section 7, the Government will continue to contact NSWC/DD to inquire what requirements are needed for any other source to gain access to MUVES and FATEPEN and continue to search the internet and GSA website to locate other potential sources for MUVES/FATEPEN development services. As MUVES and FATEPEN matures, the Government expects to release new versions of MUVES, to include FATEPEN, for various uses such that other contractors may be able to gain the detailed and in-depth knowledge that will permit competition in future procurements. Although some aspects of MUVES are currently available for distribution to the public, FATPEN remains limited to only ARA (reference A07 - Miscellaneous Documentation (Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) in file). Distribution of FATEPEN is solely limited to U.S. Federal Government Agencies and their contractors. FATEPEN software is unable to be released nor disclosed to third parties and it may not be redistributed or transferred without written authorization from the NSWC/DD. However, the enhancement of this program through the services to be provided under this requirement will allow SLAD to further develop and prepare a more complete technical data package to include an advanced version of MUVES and FATEPEN for a competitive procurement. The FATEPEN code is currently not releasable to industry due to the current development of the module, which is in its early stages of development. The nature of battlefield threats and the magnitude of analyses from those threats is constantly shifting and those variables must be built into the code. Releasing the code to industry prematurely will not realize any competitive benefit nor would ARA gain a competitive advantage by continuing the development of FATEPEN. 7. Market Research: Market Research was completed by Michael J Gillich, Computer Scientist for the Software Development Branch with 12 years of experience. Market research was conducted during July-December 2015 by viewing pricing and services of similar GSA companies and calculating the essential time and costs needed to train personnel in MUVES Development and related SLV analysis codes, ORCA, FATEPEN, BRL-CAD, Projectile Penetration (PROJPEN), etc. in accordance with FAR 8.405-6(c)(2)(vi). FATEPEN code is a necessary support mechanism to the tri-service community. Currently, no other contractor has access to FATEPEN and therefore are unable to adequately supply the current skills, experience, and expertise required to perform the modeling and methodology development that is needed to perform the required tasks or be able to expand upon the FATEPEN code required to conduct certain ballistic penetration scenarios in MUVES. Continuity in service is crucial in order to meet near and long-term DoD support requirements and therefore a sole source procurement is in the best interest of the Government in terms of technical quality, efficiency, time and cost. SLAD will continue to work with NSWC/DD to build a technical data package and inquire about the requirements for allowing other vendors access to FATEPEN which will allow other vendors to gain the access required to meet potential future Government requirements in this area and allow for a possible competitive procurement. 8.Other Facts: a.Procurement History Contract: W911QX-11-F-0054 Contractor: ARA, Inc. Award Date: 30 June 2011 Competitive Status: Competitive b.Other The previous award, W911QX-11-F-0054, was competed under GSA; however, there was only one (1) proposal submitted for evaluation. During the course of this contract, ARA, Inc. the incumbent, acquired an in-depth knowledge of MUVES and FATEPEN as they assisted Government personnel in the development and extension of MUVES. Although currently no other company has the required expertise developed by the incumbent over the course of the current contract or the access required to FATEPEN, it is anticipated that for future requirements of the MUVES Development support will be issued on a competitive basis. 9.Technical Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Signer's Title: Contracting Officer's Representative 10.Requirements Certification: I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance which are included in the justification are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Signer's Title: Contracting Officer's Representative 11.Best Value Determination/Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination: I hereby determine that the order represents the best value to the Government in accordance with FAR 8.405-6(c)(2)(v). Additionally, I hereby determine that the anticipated cost or price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable. This determination will be made using the following: _X_ Price analysis _X_ IGCE _X_ Other: Detailed documentation and justification of cost/price reasonableness will be disclosed in the official contract file to include a published price list, and comparison of the proposed price with prices found reasonable on previous purchases. Cost or Pricing data is not required, in accordance with the threshold at FAR 15.403-4(a) (1) 12.Contracting Officer Certification: I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Approval Based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the procurement of MUVES-S2 code suite software development under Title III of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (41 U.S.C. 251, et Seq.) and Title 40 U.S.C 501, Services for Executive Agencies, as implemented by FAR 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(C) subject to availability of funds, and provided that the services or supplies herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition. (End of LSJ)
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/db45dcb4c54345ba829c2876c69ba859)
 

Place of Performance

Address: U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, 21005, United States

Zip Code: 21005
 

Record

SN04278760-W 20160921/160920000117-db45dcb4c54345ba829c2876c69ba859 (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

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

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