Consolidation of Maintenance Agreements for Laboratory Instrumentation

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has traditionally entered into well over 500 contracts annually for maintenance agreement coverage (to include repairs, preventive maintenance and calibration) from original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to maintain its laboratory instrumentation valued at over $268 million dollars. Properly maintained instrumentation is critical for CDC to successfully execute the mission of protecting the nation's health from infectious disease and other environmental hazards. Due to the complexity and volume of instrumentation, CDC is interested in understanding from the market if there is a capacity to consolidate, realize economies of scale and reduce CDC's administrative burden for its portfolio of instrumentation. Any suggested strategies should demonstrate a cost savings, enhance the CDC's understanding of its maintenance portfolio (linking equipment to the repairs and services needed to maintain for use in establishing reliability data and developing a more transparent agency-wide understanding of available resources) and meet or exceed current levels of service (responsiveness and quality) provided by OEM maintenance agreements for this ongoing need. The purpose of this announcement is to seek information on consolidation and/or management strategies relative to maintenance agreements for a comprehensive and diverse portfolio of laboratory instrumentation from multiple manufacturers. A draft document regarding the manufacturers of the instrumentation (Appendix A) and categories of equipment (Appendix B) is attached to this announcement. Information being sought from vendors is: 1. Suggestions regarding alternative approaches to traditional maintenance agreement mechanism to include: a. General approach to implementation b. Identification of the benefits/risks associated with proposed strategy c. Identification of specific laboratory instrument, either by category or name that would not be amenable to the proposed solution d. Any minimum expense threshold at which a consolidation strategy is viable if applicable e. Any volume restrictions that would need to be considered if applicable f. A rough estimate of the total cost of this project and any major cost drivers you feel are involved. 2. Capability statements demonstrating the vendor's capability to successfully implement a consolidation strategy including the vendor's capacity to perform preventive maintenance, calibrations and repairs, as desired. 3. Your business size status as it relates the identified NAICS code (or nonprofit, educational institution, etc. 4. Feedback regarding alternative NAICS you believe would be more applicable to this work. The applicable Small Business North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this type of work is 811219 - Other Electronic and Precision Equipment Repair and Maintenance, $19M revenues. All contractors who have the capability and interest in this requirement are asked to submit a response addressing the items listed above to the Contracting Officer no later than 16 September 2011. The statement should not exceed ten (10) pages in length. Please note this is not a request for proposals but rather a request for information. Detailed information regarding your approach or pricing is not being requested at this time. Information obtained will be used for purposes of market research only. Should the Government determine to obtain proposals for this requirement; a separate solicitation will be issued and posted. All information provided by vendors in response to this announcement marked as proprietary will be protected as such and no information obtained through this announcement will be released outside the Government. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. Please forward responses to Contracting Officer Nancy Norton via email at nnorton@cdc.gov no later than 4:30 PM 16 September 2011. Please contact Nancy Norton with any questions or concerns at the email above or via phone at 770.488.2056.