The Army Contracting Command, National Capital Region, on behalf of the United States Information Technology Agency (USAITA) intends to award a sole source bridge contract under the authority of FAR 6.302-1, to Affigent, LLC, Herndon, VA 20171. Affigent, LLC. will provide Lexmark Multifunctional Device Maintenance Support. Affigent will provide for over 384 Multi-Functional devices within the National Capital Region for unclassified/classified network devices. These devices include copiers, printers, scanners, digital senders, plotters, and stand-alone fax machines. As part of the provided maintenance, the Contractor shall also be required to provide replacement parts in support of device sustainment. This action is necessary in order for USAITA to continue ongoing Operations & Maintenance sustainment of the reprographic multi-functional device infrastructure, inclusive of network copiers, printers, fax machines, and data scanners supporting the Headquarters, Department of the Army user community during the period beginning 22 September 2012 through 21 March 2013. Award of the contract is needed to maintain continuity by obtaining maintenance from the incumbent provider, as a follow-on action is procured. A failure to continue maintenance or any unacceptable delays would cause duplication of cost to the Government and harm the mission accomplishment, as they are critical to the customer. This action will result in a Firm Fixed Price contract. The Government anticipates that any new potential vendor: - would have to expend significant time and cost in order to fully inventory and inspect the multi-functional device infrastructure, to provide an assessment of current device functionality, review and become familiar with the historical maintenance trends on supported infrastructure, and to implement a proactive and comprehensive preventative maintenance program. - would require adequate time to adjust and familiarize themselves with USAITA's general technical/operational processes, and Help Desk standards and policies. - would also have to familiarize themselves with the supported devices such as; copiers, printers, faxes and data scanner devices under USAITA's responsibility. USAITA management considers a 30 day transitional period to be required in order to manage a support transition-in to an incoming vendor. This transition would include the familiarization of the ongoing program documentation, maintenance standards, and operating procedures. Transition-in activities would also include vendor attendance at program reviews, participation in working groups, briefings, on-site communications, and full disclosure of technical, cost, and programmatic information. A shorter transitional time period would introduce risk to the level of critical support provided to the USAITA customers and mission as the new vendor would have insufficient time to properly review, technically assess, and plan for the execution of this maintenance, resulting in additional delays in scheduling as well as impacting the ability of the HQDA users who depend on available multi-functional devices to perform normal mission operations within their organizations. No vendor would be able to complete transition in a time period less than what is identified within this justification. Depending upon the level of staff brought in by the vendor, considerable time would also be required to obtain building passes, Common Access Cards, network access, as well as the routine in-processing actions. USAITA is currently working with the Army Contracting Command - National Capital Region to compete and award a long term contract for this maintenance service. This Notice of Intent to award a sole source bridge contract is not a request for competitive proposals. There will be no Request for Proposal available for competitive proposals. Phone calls WILL NOT be accepted. Interested parties may express their interest and provide a Capability Statement to the Contract Specialist via email at
[email protected] no later than 10 September 2012 at 10:00 am EST. A determination not to compete this proposed contract action upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.