Introduction: Pursuant to FAR Subpart 13.106-1(b) (1), the U.S. Army RDECOM Contracting Center, Natick Contracting Division, on behalf of the Warfighter Protection and Aerial Delivery Directorate (WarPAD) at the Natick Soldier Research, Development, & Engineering Center, intends to award a firm fixed price purchase order on a sole source basis to: Specialty Defense Systems, An Armor Holdings Co, of Jessup, Pa. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS. No solicitation document is available. 1) Nature and description of the supplies or services required to meet the agencys needs: The Commander U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command wrote an Urgent Statement of Need for a load-bearing chest rig to be compatible with the ESAPI ballistic plate carrier- change 6. The Army may have an item that meets this need. This procurement is to conduct a rapid evaluation of the Army Tactical Assault Panel (TAP) Modular Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment (MOLLE), BAE part number 4090NS coyote brown to meet this urgent need. The Marine Corps will refer to the TAP as the Marine Chest Rig. 3) A demonstration that the proposed contractor is the only source available to provide these services or goods (i.e. unique qualifications, proprietary rights, etc.): BAE (Specialty Defense) is the only source of this military unique item. No other supplier has a production line for this item that integrates with the MOLLE system or ESAPI Carrier. No other company sells it commercially. 4) A description of the market research that was conducted and the results, or a statement of the reason a market research was not conducted: An internet web survey was conducted. Attendance at the recent Sergeant Majors Nominative Conference identified no other possible sources for this item. No other item meets the requirements for this combat load-carrying device for direct attachment to body armor. 5) Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition: BAE has a production line available for producing this small quantity of test items in 3 weeks. Any other vendor would need to reverse engineer it, learn how to make this item, and order materials. This would be a 9-month effort. 6) A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required: If this item is bought in large quantities by PM-ICE or DLA, it will be procured from a Mil-Spec TDP package produced so it can be full and open competition or it will replace the current MOLLE Fighting Load-carrier already under contract with BAE and Eagle. 6. Information received will be considered solely for determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement in the future. Interested parties may identify their interest and capability to respond to this requirement to the U.S. Army RDECOM Acquisition Center, Natick Contracting Division, via e-mail at
[email protected], no later than 26 January 2010, 12:00 pm EST.