Notice of Intent to Sole Source - Maintenance Support Services for Custom Immersive Virtual Environments

Introduction
This is a notice of intent, not a request for a quotation. A solicitation document will not be issued and quotations will not be requested.

Purpose
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) intends to negotiate a firm-fixed priced purchase order on a sole source basis with Mechdyne Corporation located at 11 East Church Street, Marshalltown, IA 50158. The purchase order will be for one year of maintenance support service for custom immersive virtual environments.

Authority
This acquisition is being conducted under the authority of FAR Subpart 13.106(b)(1) allowing the Contracting Officer (CO) to solicit from one source. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 811219 – Other Electronic and Precision Equipment Repair and Maintenance with a size standard of $22 Million.
 

Description
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) High Performance Computing and Visualization Group owns and operates custom Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) on the NIST campus. To ensure continuity of research efforts, it is important that the IVEs be maintained at full operational performance. Therefore, annual maintenance support is required.

The IVEs at NIST were custom built by Mechdyne Corporation and the components are proprietary to Mechdyne Corporation, the original environment designer and manufacturer. No other contractor has the capability to service the proprietary environments and their equipment, or to provide compatible replacement parts when needed.  Use of any other contractor for the required support services would jeopardize functionality and reliability. It would also risk creation of unacceptable disruptions in on-going research activities. Accordingly, only Mechdyne Corporation is capable of supporting this requirement and a sole source acquisition is necessary.

Interested parties that believe they could satisfy the requirements listed above for NIST may clearly and unambiguously identify their capability to do so in writing by or before the response date for this notice. This notice of intent is not a solicitation.

Any questions regarding this notice must be submitted in writing via email to Ms. January Magyar, Contract Specialist, at January.Magyar@nist.gov. All responses to this notice of intent must be submitted via email to January.Magyar@nist.gov so that they are received no later than May 2nd at 10:00AM Eastern Time.

Each response should include the following Business Information:

1. Contractor Name, Address,
2. Point of Contact Name, Phone Number, and Email address
3. Contractor UEI
4. Contractor Business Classification (i.e., small business, 8(a), woman owned, hubZone, veteran owned, etc.) as validated in System for Award Management (SAM). All offerors must register in the SAM located at http://www.sam.gov/portal/SAM/#1
5. Capability Statement