Notice of Intent to Sole Source - Pipette Repair Service

The contract involves a sole-source acquisition for onsite cleaning, calibration, and minor repair of approximately 1,000 pipettes and 76 balances during a one-week visit at NIOSH facilities in Morgantown, West Virginia, and Cincinnati, Ohio. The service must cover all major brands including Rainin, Eppendorf, Gilson, Thermo Scientific, and others, accommodating both single-channel and multi-channel pipettes. Work includes full preventative maintenance, recalibration at high, mid, and low volume settings, seal replacement, lubrication, and application of service date stickers and warranty labels. All services must result in ISO/IEC 17025:2017-compliant documentation with calibration reports traceable to NIST standards, and each unit must receive a one-year warranty on repairs and calibration. The vendor is required to perform all work onsite without shipping equipment, and deliverables must be submitted to designated government contacts. The contract period runs from June 1, 2026, to May 31, 2027, but no estimated value is provided due to lack of unit pricing. The award was made under FAR 13.106-1(b) and FAR 8.405-6 as a sole-source procurement because only one vendor demonstrated full compliance with mandatory technical and compliance requirements. Key evaluation criteria were pass/fail and included on-site service capability, ability to service all major pipette brands, ISO/IEC 17025 certification, provision of NIST-traceable calibration certificates, and a one-year warranty. Compliance with Section 508 accessibility standards for all electronic documentation and communication materials was mandatory, requiring submission of an Accessibility Conformance Report based on VPAT or the HHS Section 508 Conformance Checklist. No other vendors met all requirements, making competition infeasible. Price was not evaluated, and the selection was based solely on technical capability and regulatory compliance. The vendor must remediate any accessibility or calibration non-conformities at its own expense. No packaging, marking, bar-coding, or MIL-STD requirements are specified, and payment details, accounting codes, invoicing methods, and contracting officer information are not provided.