Air-Cooled Chiller System

This is a request for information (RFI) issued by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) for information and planning purposes only. No awards will be made from the responses to this announcement. However, responses may be used to determine the appropriate acquisition strategy for a future acquisition. The NRL's Surface Electronic Warfare Systems Branch is requesting information and rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate of cost for an air-cooled chiller system. The Surface Electronic Warfare Systems Branch is responsible for research, design, and development of on-board electronic warfare (EW) technologies, techniques, and systems to deny or degrade hostile use of the electromagnetic spectrum and protect naval ships. This includes threat assessment and definition, development of EW operational concepts, EW requirements definition, electronic countermeasure technique research and analysis, EW signal processing research, EW system research and prototype system development, EW technique and system effectiveness evaluation, field experimentation, and system effectiveness assessments. The NRL is requesting information from industry for an air-cooled chiller system to condition and distribute a 50/50 mixture of ethylene glycol and water (EGW) to the advanced development model (ADM) systems as part of the Integrated Topside (InTop) Program. The draft requirements document and draft statement of work are attached. NRL requests information on air-cooled chilling systems that have comparable or better characteristics than those in the attached specifications. If NRL decides to purchase this system, NRL would issue an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract with firm-fixed-price delivery orders. Industry is invited to comment on contract type. Examples of what key technical evaluation criteria might be included in a potential future purchase are the following: (1) overall technical approach (understanding of the basic functional operation required, overall design approach to achieve the functional operation required, overall detailed design and design implementation approach, overall approach to factory fabrication and assembly and field assembly, overall approach to demonstration and testing) (2) proposed milestone schedule of system design (3) proposed milestone schedule of system manufacturing (4) proposed factory demonstration plan (5) proposed acceptance test plan (6) overall schedule Interested parties should submit the information requested herein, as well as a ROM cost estimate. This RFI is for planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a request for proposal (RFP) or as an obligation on the part of NRL to acquire any product or services. The NRL does not intend to award a contract based on this RFI or otherwise pay for the information requested. Submission of a response to this RFI is voluntary. The voluntary submission of a response to this RFI shall not obligate the NRL to pay or entitle the submitter to any compensation. All information and data received in response to this RFI marked or designated as corporate or proprietary information will be protected as such. Please transmit responses by e-mail to Patricia Woodhouse, contract specialist, at patricia.woodhouse@nrl.navy.mil in either Microsoft Word, Excel, and/or Adobe pdf formats. All responses must be received on or before 20 July 2012, 2:00 p.m., eastern daylight time (EDT). Other business opportunities for NRL are available at NRL's Web site at http://heron.nrl.navy.mil/contracts/rfplist.htm.