500 Gallon Lox Trailer

This effort is for the procurement of QTY 4 500 Gallon Liquid Oxygen (LOX) Trailers for the Royal Canadian Air Force F/A-18 program. The 500 Gallon LOX trailer as a means to transport liquid oxygen to support flightline maintenance activities. Under authority 10 U.S.C.2304(c}(l) and implemented in FAR 6.302-l(b}(l) (i), this authority shall be used when the program needs can only be satisfied from only one source with unique capabilities.

Any attempt to procure a different part number would require the Government to fund a Preliminary Design Review (PDR) Critical Design Review (CDR) First Article Test (FAT) and Test & Evaluation (T&E} effort for a new vendor. The Government would have to fund personnel to be on the Source Selection Team to review proposals.

Any change in form, fit or function would require changes to the existing Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) (technical publications, spares inventory, calibration) which would incur additional costs for update in the amount of $200,000 to $250,000. The process required to obtain an alternate asset is cost-prohibitive and would force the FMS Partner to utilize an asset that is not supported, compatible or interchangeable with the assets in their fleet.

This requirement will be processed under the authority FAR 6.302-l(b)(l) (i), whereby only one source with unique capability can supply the requested item. Market Research was performed by the Lakehurst Technical team. The Original Equipment Manufacturer of these items is Essex Industries INC., CAGE: 19062. The US Government does not own the technical data rights, therefore is unable to compete this request due to specific proprietary items to Essex within the design of the end item.

Acquisition Method Code: 3H - acquire directly from the manufacturer/US GOV does not have sufficient data. No additional market research was conducted for the reasons discussed above, and thus, the government will be issuing the repair procurement on a sole-source basis to Essex Industries INC., CAGE: 19062.