JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION 1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Acquisition Operations Technology Acquisition Center 23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724 2. Description of Action: The proposed contract action is for a 12-month firm-fixed price (FFP) effort with three 12-month option periods for sustainment and maintenance support for the existing Workload Tracking Tool (WTT) utilized by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Human Resources and Administration (HR&A), Office of Human Resources Management (OHRM), Central Office of Human Resources Services (COHRS). The proposed source for this action is Micropact, Inc.,12901 Worldgate Drive, Suite 800, Herndon, Virginia 20170. 3. Description of Supplies or Services: The proposed action is to provide baseline workload tracking capability, hosting services and maintenance of the WTT, which includes the required software and licenses, to capture workload and performance metrics for COHRS. The WTT system was developed to provide COHRS with a tool to track personnel, recruiting and hiring packages from initial receipt through completion. By tracking these packages, it enables COHRS to provide improved customer service to its internal and external customers. Additionally, COHRS utilizes the WTT to log and track all workflows, personnel actions, and customer inquiries to aid in its delivery of customer service to VA employees and Veterans. WTT is utilized VA-wide, affecting over 300,000 VA employees. The WTT system was developed in response to the concern that the quality of services provided by the COHRS staff was suffering, due to high workload demands. As a result of its increased workload, COHRS experienced delays in responding to customers and resolving problems. As a result, in Fiscal Year (FY)11, FY12 and FY13, significant progress was made with quality of services through the implementation of a WTT. This contract action will allow COHRS to continue improving quality of services through use of WTT in FY 14. The total estimated value of the proposed action is 4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C.3304(a)(1) as implemented by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 6.302-1 entitled, "Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements." 5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: WTT is a proprietary system built by Micropact as part of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Interagency Agreement (IAA) OPM1912C0039 - COHRS Reform Project. WTT is a proprietary system built by Micropact, thereby making Micropact the only contractor with the specialized expertise needed to provide the required hosting services and maintenance. Given that this system contains both proprietary software as well as a proprietary operating system, specialized and proprietary engineering and knowledge support services are required. Maintenance ensures that the operational environment is kept in the most optimal operating condition possible. Support ensures that when a problem arises, the best available resources are available and ready to address the problem. Together, this maintenance and support effort maintains the integrity and operational readiness of this system. In addition, Micropact is the only vendor that can provide the required software and licenses since WTT software is proprietary and requires the supplies and services available from only one source, Micropact. The WTT was built to the specific needs and requirements of COHRS to enable them to track workflows, personnel actions, and customer inquiries. As such, WTT provides an integral part of the daily operations in COHRS. The support expires on March 5, 2014 and it is imperative that an award is made in order to prevent a break in service. If a break in service occurs, COHRS staff will lose access to WTT and a subsequent work stoppage will occur. As a result, COHRS staff will experience a significant backlog in responses to customer inquiries, thereby jeopardizing the COHRS mission to deliver quality customer service in human resources processes. Micropact is the only vendor that will be able to maintain operations of the WTT system for COHRS by the required March 6, 2014 award date. If not, there will be an eight month learning curve associated with award to any other vendor, as a new vendor would need to build a brand new system. 6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted, details of which are in the market research section of this document. This effort did not yield any additional sources that can meet the Government's requirements. There is no competition anticipated for this acquisition. Additionally, the proposed action will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities Page in accordance with FAR 5.201. Any proposals that are received shall be evaluated. 7. Actions to Increase Competition: The Government will continue to conduct market research to ascertain if there are changes in the market place that would enable future actions to be competed. 8. Market Research: Market Research was conducted on November 29, 2013 by HR&A technical staff consisting of reviews of existing requirements against commercially available software maintenance vendors using General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule 70, Special Item Number (SIN) 132-51, Information Technology Professional Services. Since WWT is a proprietary system built by Micropact, no other vendor is capable of providing the required workload tracking capability, hosting services, maintenance, and software licenses for the WTT system. Micropact customized this commercially available off-the-shelf WTT system specifically for VA. As such, no other vendor has the specialized workforce capable of providing the required services to ensure continued operation of the existing WTT by the March 6, 2014 need date. Interruption of these services would cause a significant backlog in response to customer inquiries, which would in turn negatively affect COHR's ability to meet mission requirements. 9. Other Facts: None.
