Preventive Maintenance of Aquaneering Equipment

INTRODUCTION

THIS IS A PRE-SOLICITATION NON-COMPETITIVE (NOTICE OF INTENT) TO AWARD A CONTRACT OR PURCHASE ORDER WITHOUT PROVIDING FULL OR OPEN COMPETITION (INCLUDING BRAND-NAME). 

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), Office of Acquisitions (OA) intends to award a purchase order without providing for full and open competition for preventative maintenance to Aquaneering LLC.

NORTH AMERICAN INDUSTRY CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM (NAICS) CODE

The intended procurement is classified under NAICS code 332999 with a Size Standard of 750 employees.

REGULATORY AUTHORITY

The resultant contract will include all applicable provisions and clauses in effect through the Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2025-06 effective October 1, 2025.

This acquisition is conducted under the procedures as prescribed in FAR Subpart 13.106-1(b).

STATUTORY AUTHORITY

This acquisition is conducted under the authority of 41 U.S.C. 1901 – Simplified Acquisition Procedures.

DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENT

BACKGROUND

This preventative maintenance service is needed to maintain proper functionality of the machinal components of the Propeller Bead Filters (PBF) of the aquatic life support systems (LSS) used daily in building 6 shared zebrafish facility to carry out the research mission. It is imperative that the equipment be serviced and maintained in good working order to ensure the facility can maintain its function of providing clean and habitable water to the aquatic research animals. In addition, the current media in all Propeller Bead Filters are past their shelf life and are no longer effectively filtering the water and thus need to be replaced to ensure the PBF continues to effectively filter the facilities system water as to not compromise the health and welfare of all aquatic animals in the facility.

CONTRACTOR REQUIREMENTS

The following tasks are required for this requirement:

• Preventative maintenance services to be conducted on PBF’s, LSS pumps, motors, computer-controlled frequency drives, mixers, air blowers, ultraviolet sterilizers, specialized valves, and miles of PVC pipes threw out the facility.
• Removal of old media and installation of replacement filter media on the PBF’s.
• System monitoring to ensure units’ heating and cooling features are operating properly.   
• Walk through visits to evaluate potential upgrades and/or repairs needed to maintain unites optimal function.
• Annual installation of replacement gaskets, seals, and bearings.

Four quarterly preventative maintenance visits and one annual preventative maintenance service will be conducted during period of performance.  

ORDER TYPE

The anticipated purchase order will be a Firm Fixed Price.

CLOSING STATEMENT

As the manufacture of the equipment to be serviced, Aquaneering has a local service and supply network that ensures a rapid turnaround for new parts when replacements are needed. This is particularly important because each piece of equipment does a specific task/function and if rendered inoperable the facility has no other means of performing that specific task. The vendors familiarity with NIH protocol and the equipment in the Aquatic facility allow them to effectively and efficiently maintain each equipment to ensure they are operating under the standards set by the facility and NICHD.

Aquaneering makes it so they can arrive onsite for immediate emergency repairs. This is critical for the facility because the equipment is needed for daily use and should one of them be inoperable for more than 24 hours, it would result in compromising the research time, filter changing schedules, and the inability to provide the animals with clean water. Aquaneering’s extensive history with maintaining equipment throughout NIH as well as the Aquatic animal facility has allowed them to have a wide antiquity of the inner workings of the Aquatic building’s utilities systems so they can effectively and efficiently maintain the equipment.

This is not a request for competitive proposals.  However, interested parties may identify their interest and capability to respond to this notice.  Responses to this notice shall contain sufficient information to establish the interested parties’ bona-fide capabilities for fulfilling the requirement and include: unit price, list price, shipping and handling costs, the delivery period after contract award, the prompt payment discount terms, the F.O.B. Point (Destination or Origin), the Unique Entity Identifier (UEI), the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and the certification of business size. All offerors must have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) www.sam.gov.

A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.  The information received will normally be considered solely for the purposes of determining whether to proceed on a non-competitive basis or to conduct a competitive procurement.  

All responses must be received by Thursday, December 18, 2025 at 12:00 PM EST. Responses must be submitted via email to Kimesha Leake, Contracting Officer at Kimesha.leake@nih.gov   

All responsible sources may submit a bid, proposal, or quotation which shall be considered by the agency.