84--Body Armor and Load Carriage (BALCS) Backpack Suite

The U.S. Army RDECOM - Natick Contracting Division, Kansas Street, Natick, MA on behalf of the United States Army  Soldier Systems Center, Natick, MA has a requirement for a commercially available Body Armor and Load Carriage System(BALCS) Backpack Suite utilizing Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 12 Acquisition of Commercial Items. This requirement includes a back pack system comprised of a large Recce ruck, a medium Patrol pack, a small Assault Pack and a butt/courier style pack that accom modates the needs of the operational force. The new back pack system is required to be compatible with all existing BALCS components as well as other SPEAR issued equipment. The new BALCS back pack suite is required to reduce the overall weight of the BAL CS system and be readily adapted to the mission. Three Production Demonstration Models (PDM)s shall be fabricated for each submission (frame style or volume) with proposals. Each contractor may submit up to two proposals in each frame type (Internal, Exte rnal or Hybrid) or component pack type/per required volume (Butt, Assault, Patrol or Recce) as desired. Manufacturers may propose on the suite as a whole or individual components of this suite. The government anticipates making multiple awards, but reserv es the right to make one or no awards. This will be a 100 % small business set-aside. The NAICS code for these items is 316991, and the business size standard is 500 employees. This is not a request for proposals (RFP). The Government intends to make mult iple awards on a Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract as a result of the Request for Proposals (RFP). The Government anticipates a five year ordering period. The anticipated total minimum requirement is 4,000 with a maximum total requirement of 40,000 units per component. Comments relating to this synopsis should be submitted via email to Christopher Heim, at [email protected], no later than 10 May 2006. The Government anticipates releasing the RF P on or about 22 May 2006.