Advisory and Assistance Services

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION 1. Nature and/or Description of Action The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) contracting activity proposes to extend the ordering period, period of performance and increase the ceiling amount of Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Contract HDTRA1-05-D-0003 with Northrop Grumman Information Technology (NGIT), without using full and open competition. This IDIQ contract provides Advisory and Assistance Services (A&AS) to DTRA. 2. Description of the Supplies/Services Required The A&AS IDIQ Contract HDTRA1-05-D-0003 was awarded to NGIT on October 27, 2005 as a result of a full and open competition. The A&AS is an agency-wide contract, which provides a wide-range of professional support including but not limited to mission areas in support of research, planning, designing, developing, implementing, integrating, testing, applying and evaluating emerging and mature technologies as well as developing and transitioning DTRA capabilities. These services will support/improve: (1) organization policy development, (2) decision making, (3) management and administration, (4) project management and administration, (5) effectiveness of management processes or procedures and (6) provide scientific, engineering and technical support services. The ordering period under this A&AS IDIQ contract is 57 months or October 27, 2005 through July 26, 2010. The period of performance of this contract is 60 months or October 27, 2005 through October 26, 2010. After this J&A is signed, the contract will be modified to reflect a new ordering period and period of performance through April 26, 2011. Due to the fact that the A&AS ordering period has expired and performance of active Task Orders is nearing completion, DTRA has been developing the Acquisition Plan for the follow-on, full and openly competed effort for the A&AS support requirements. During the process of market research and the development of an acquisition strategy, the government and industry identified opportunities to combine efforts to improve synergy between the Operations (OP) enterprise and the Nuclear Deterrent and Weapons of Mass Destruction Support Program (NDWSP) support efforts. Consequently, the planned award of new task orders under this delayed competitive follow-on IDIQ will not be in place by October 27, 2010, which is the expiration date of the current contract for A&AS support services. As the support provided under the current IDIQ contract/Task Orders is critical to DTRA's mission to safeguard the United States from Weapons of Mass Destruction, a gap in performance of these requirements is unacceptable. To sustain continued support with no disruption in service and allow sufficient time for the follow-on acquisitions to be in place, DTRA proposes to extend the ordering period and period of performance of the contract an additional 6 months in accordance with FAR 52.217-8 and under the provisions of FAR 16.505(c)(3). DTRA currently anticipates that the follow-on procurements will be in place before April 26, 2011. This extension will require that the contract ceiling be increased by $75,000,000 from $375,000,000 to $450,000,000, and the date be extended from October 27, 2010 to April 26, 2011. 3. Statutory Authority The statutory authority for this non-competitive action is 10 United States Code (U.S.C.) 2304(c)(1) or 41 U.S.C. 253(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, Only One Responsible Source. 4. Applicability of Authority NGIT was awarded the subject IDIQ contract in October 2005 under full and open competitive procedures. NGIT was the only contractor to submit a proposal and has provided A&AS support for the last five years. The agency has a wide range of responsibility to provide international and national support pertaining, in part, to biological, chemical and radiological weapons of mass destruction. NGIT has in-depth knowledge and provides a wide range of services to the Agency, including the critical subject matter expertise services for nuclear control missions, efforts to counter weapons of mass destruction, and development of significant technology updates. The current contractor has a well-defined knowledge of the functions and responsibilities of the disciplines, and of agency functions, a level of expertise which would be difficult to replicate over the short term. It is a complex process, and a significant learning curve period would be unavoidable with any other contractor. Obtaining a short term contract would cost more than the extension and would put this agency's ongoing national strategic programs at risk for failure with the steep learning curve that would be created with any other contractor. NGIT has the requisite qualified staff to continue performance without any impact or delay. It is expected that the use of any other source for this modification would result in duplication of costs and time to develop the capability within another contractor's workforce that is not expected to be recovered through competition. For another contractor to progress efficiently without impact to current efforts, it would depend in part on having working level knowledge of the agency's programs and the ability to sufficiently perform on-going day to day services without disruption. The knowledge and procedures gained within DTRA takes a considerable amount of time to acquire. If these services are not continued, the results will impact critical responses required by the DTRA Director, Chief of Staff, Directorates and Staff Offices. In addition, the loss of critical staff continuity at this time would mean that the mission critical support to DTRA would have numerous serious impacts to include: Loss of knowledge among the contractor operations team within DTRA only replicable after significant experience within the organization Loss of personnel already cleared and functioning in several highly secure, and limited access programs critical to the agency mission Loss of skilled personnel to cover operational activities during daily operations briefs Loss of coordination and tracking skills required to expeditiously process policy reviews Loss of knowledge of requirements and procedures to support DTRA's Outreach program Loss of current knowledge resources in support of the Agency's programs without a transition to implement those resources under the new contracts Accordingly, NGIT is the only contractor capable of providing the agency support at the necessary skill level without an unacceptable delay, which would cause some disruptions of agency operational missions. 5. Effort to Solicit Potential Sources This effort was synopsized in Fedbizopps on May 4, 2010 in accordance with the provisions of FAR Part 5. No responses were received. 6. Fair and Reasonable Costs The anticipated cost/price of this contract action will be determined to be fair and reasonable based on field pricing support and historical data. DCAA has reviewed approximately 90% of the costs for FY 2009. These reviewed costs were used to arrive at the November 2009 negotiated cost plus fixed fee for the current period thru 15 November 2010. The Contracting Officer has adequate information to ensure that the cost to the Government for this acquisition will be fair and reasonable. 7. Market Research Market research, in accordance with FAR Part 10, was conducted by synopsis of the proposed acquisition in the FEDBIZOPS, advising industry of the pending acquisition, and soliciting inquiries from interested parties. No inquiries were made. 8. Other Facts The requested ceiling increase estimate of $75,000,000 is based on current and anticipated requirements to support the A&AS effort over the extended ordering period and period of performance through April 26, 2011. This ceiling increase results in no change to the existing scope of the IDIQ contract. A new contractor would require substantially more cost to perform the services. This is based on the significant learning curve required, typically a two or three month transition period, causing duplication of effort and increased cost of as much as $9M. This includes the cost of two contractors, the incumbent and successor contractors, performing the same efforts during a 2-3 month transition period. 9. Interested Sources No company responded to the synopsis, as stated in paragraph 5. 10. Subsequent Actions The follow-on contracts are currently being procured with three competitive solicitations. A competitive solicitation for the acquisition of Research and Development (R&D) support was solicited as an unrestricted full and open competition under Request for Proposal Number HDTRA1-10-R-0006 for Advisory & Assistance Services (A&AS) requirement. The solicitation was released on June 16, 2010 and anticipated to be awarded in March 2011. A second solicitation for the OP and NDWSP acquisition is in preparation, and expected to be solicited in late October 2010. This has an estimated award date of March 2011. A third acquisition for Strategy and Plans (S&P) released a synopsis in FEBIZOPS on August 31, 2010 and is expecting an award in April 2011. By extending and increasing the ceiling of this contract, NGIT will continue to provide the continuity of services that are necessary to meet current critical mission requirements until the follow-on acquisitions are awarded.