Industrial Dispensing Equipment

GENERAL SERVICE ADMINISTRATION Federal Acquisition Service Assisted Acquisition Services Division REQUEST FOR INFORMATION The General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Acquisition Services (FAS), Assisted Acquisition Services Division (AASD) anticipates the use of other than full and open competition procedures to obtain automated Point of Use (POU) Industrial Dispensing Equipment (POUIDE) from AutoCrib, Inc. (AutoCrib), CAGE: 4T5X6, for use throughout the Air Force Sustainment Center (AFSC) Air Logistics Complexes (ALC’s) at Tinker AFB (Oklahoma City ALC), Robins AFB (Warner Robins ALC), and Hill AFB (Ogden ALC). The items will be procured open market under FAR 15 and 12 procedures. The resulting contract will be an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) ordering vehicle, with a mixture of Firm Fixed Priced (FFP) and Cost Reimbursable (CR) elements. The contract ordering period will be five years from date of award. In accordance with Department of Defense FAR Supplement (DFARS) Procedures, Guidance, and Information (PGI) 206.302-1, the Government is issuing this RFI as part of market research; it does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP)/Request for Quotation (RFQ) or a promise to issue a RFP/RFQ in the future. The Government is not at this time seeking proposals/quotations and will not accept unsolicited proposals/quotations. Do not submit pricing information in response to this notice. Participation is in this request for information is voluntary and the Government will not reimburse participants for any expenses associated with their participation. Description of Supplies or Services The mission of the AFSC is to sustain weapon system readiness to generate airpower for America. The center provides war-winning expeditionary capabilities to the warfighter through world-class depot maintenance, supply chain management and installation support. Utilizing the technology of automated cabinets within industrial/production facilities provides for better cost management, increases operational effectiveness, provides standardization throughout AFSC and aligns with Department of Defense (DoD) strategic sourcing initiatives. Automated POUIDE allows AFSC to electronically manage, monitor and track usage of Etool computers for technical orders compliance, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), hand tools, test measurement and diagnostic tools, shop supplies, Industrial Product-Support Vendor (IPV) related items, and expendable items used throughout the production shops and office areas. Effective use of POUIDE requires communication of the individual machines through the Air Force network to allow the transmission of usage data from the machine to the secure server where all of the data is compiled. The following supplies and services will be procured under the resulting contract: AutoCrib POUIDE AutoCrib POUIDE accessories and/or spare parts Installation Services of AutoCrib products Training Services on AutoCrib products POU Program Office Support Services (e.x. database development/refinement, software enhancements, machine configuration, data analysis, troubleshooting, preventative maintenance, quality assurance, user support and program management) Primary Contributing Factors Restricting Competition to Only One Source (FAR 6.302-1) Common Platform to Support the Generation III (Gen III) Industrial Product-Support Vendor (IPV) Program : As part of a strategic initiative, an enterprise decision to have a common platform for the Gen III IPV program, which enables rapid replenishment of consumable parts across the ALC’s, was determined through the AFSC integration board. As part of the decision, the board mandated that an enterprise wide network solution be developed for the AutoCrib POUIDE system. The Information Technology (IT) Directors at each base in conjunction with the 24th Air Force Cybersecurity team was tasked to develop a single consolidated network solution that all three ALC’s would use to connect the POUIDE systems. This network solution, AFCSnet, was developed utilizing AutoCrib Web services protocols with two way communications between the AF, DLA and the Gen III Contractor. AFCSnet allows program vendors, such as the Materiel Support Integrator (MSI) or IPV contractor, to communicate with the POUIDE machines and databases for even greater efficiencies. Additionally, the current $1.5B Gen III IPV contract (i.e. SPE4AX-17-D-9006; awarded 09 March 2017) was written around replacing the existing open bin concept with the new AutoCrib POUIDE. Common Software for Machine-to-Machine and Machine-to-Database Communication : Every manufacturer of automated cabinets and dispensing machines has their own proprietary version of software that operates their machines. Software from one manufacturer will not work with a POUIDE from a different manufacturer. As such, a single manufacturer of POUIDE is required in order for AFSC’s strategic initiatives to be implemented and have the ability to manage the POUIDE program at the enterprise level. Otherwise there would be a mixture of POUIDE from different manufacturers, all operating on their own version of software, not communicating with each other effectively, and not sending consolidated demand and usage data to a single database. Air Force Network Requirements : AutoCrib.net (i.e. AutoCrib’s proprietary software) is approved by Air Force Network Integration Center (AFNIC) to run on the Air Force network, and is currently the only known point of use management software approved for the Air Force network. If another manufacturer’s POUIDE were to be used, that manufacturer’s software would have to receive Authority to Operate (ATO) via the Certification and Accreditation (C&A) process in order to run on the Air Force network. POUIDE Capabilities Required : Preliminary market research confirms there are other vendors whom manufacturer POUIDE; however, AutoCrib is the only POUIDE manufacture that can provide all the diverse types of POUIDE equipment that the AFSC requires. In the case of large scale POUIDE machines, such as the AutoCrib RoboCrib LX2000, the Government is not aware of another POUIDE company that manufactures a machine comparable in size or capacity. Additionally, market research did not find similar/comparable products for other variations of AutoCrib POUIDE, such as VLM, TX750, and ETOOL type machines, which are required by the AFSC. Substantial Duplication of Costs : AFSC’s current investment in AutoCrib specific products and associated network development costs between the three ALC’s is over $29M. Additionally, there are approximately twenty seven thousand (27,000) users trained on AutoCrib POUIDE across the three ALC’s today. Savings to offset the costs from the current investment, and costs to re-train users on another manufacturer POUIDE, is not expected to be recovered through competition. Request for Information The information provided in this notice is subject to change and is not binding on the Government. The Government has not made a commitment to procure any of the products discussed and release of this notice should not be construed as such a commitment or as authorization to incur costs for which reimbursement would be required or sought. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned. All interested parties are encouraged to submit company and product literature, a white paper no longer than five pages in length and/or other pertinent information, providing reasons why the Government should not procure this effort on a sole source basis as stated above and how your company could be a potential source for this requirement. Your response should address each of the primary contributing factors restricting competition to only one source above. All timely responses submitted will be considered by the Government as part of its market research and subsequent acquisition strategy decisions. Please provide your responses via email to [email protected] and [email protected] . R esponses must be received no later than close of business 14 Dec 2018 to be considered .