NOTICE OF INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE: UPGRADE OF THE CAPSULE PACK COMPRESSOR UNITS IN THE -20 C UNITS OF A NORLAKE WALK -IN FREEZER

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) intends to negotiate on a sole source basis, under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b) (1), with Normco Cascade Inc., 1981 Moreland Parkway, STE 2, Annapolis, MD 21401, to address a reliability issue with the -20°C units in its Norlake walk-in freezers, specifically faulty coils within the compressors leading to frequent failures.

To address this, NIST previously upgraded one of its Norlake walk-in freezers in January 2024 using a custom installation solution that is specific to the contractor Normco Cascade Inc. This upgraded unit has been performing reliably from January through August 2024. The success of this upgrade has prompted NIST to pursue an identical upgrade for its second walk-in freezer to ensure consistency, reliability, and reduced administrative burden. The sole source justification is based on the following:

The two walk-in freezers at NIST are vital for maintaining the integrity of standard reference materials and reference materials, which are central to NIST's mission to provide standards used throughout the industry. To this end, the freezers are on a temperature monitoring system that calls a phone tree if any faults are detected so that personnel can respond at any time to avoid the consequences of the contents warming up.

Given the critical nature of these stored materials, it is in the government's best interest for these two systems to operate identically with the same performance characteristics and maintenance requirements. Identical configurations and performance lead to more straightforward oversight, administration, and troubleshooting. This risk mitigation is essential for the seamless operation of NIST's cold storage facilities.

Normco Cascade Inc. has been performing maintenance and repairs on NIST's walk-in freezers for several years. Their familiarity with the equipment and historical performance data uniquely qualified them to recognize the patterns in past operational failures and to determine the OEM design defects leading to those failures. The OEM Norlake does not offer a drop-in replacement for the -20 C condenser units that corrects the design faults.

Normco Cascade Inc. developed a custom installation of the OEM components (condenser, evaporators, filter driers, etc.) with custom plumbing and mounting solutions. This installation is unique to Normco Cascade Inc. The plumbing part of the solution corrects poor performance that had led to component failure, and the equipment mounting part of the solution corrects the increased likelihood and incidence of coolant leaks in a particular area.

The first walk-in freezer was upgraded with this custom installation in January 2024 and has been operating reliably since then. Since the custom installation upgrade that was installed on the first walk-in freezer is unique to Normco Cascade Inc. and NIST requires the two walk-in freezers to have identical configurations, award to Normco Cascade Inc. is the only solution that meets the Government's minimum requirement.

Given these facts, Normco Cascade Inc. is the only reasonably available source to fulfill the requirement. The resulting purchase order will be a Firm Fixed-Price purchase order. The NAICS Code is 811310— Commercial and Industrial Machinery and Equipment (Except Automotive and Electronic) Repair And Maintenance, with a size standard of $12.5M. No solicitation package will be issued.

This notice of intent is not a request for competitive quotations; however, interested parties who regard themselves as capable of fulfilling these requirements are invited to submit responses to the Government for consideration. The government will consider responses received by 10:00 AM EST on September 13, 2024. Responses must be submitted via email to the Government point of contact listed below.

A determination by the Government not to compete the proposed acquisition based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement.