This is a SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE for market research purposes.  THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS OR A REQUEST FOR QUOTATIONS.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) utilizes instruments manufactured by Carl Zeiss Microscopy LLC (Carl Zeiss) to support its mission.  This is a market research inquiry relevant to an anticipated contract for maintenance of equipment owned by NIST and manufactured by Carl Zeiss. Some equipment includes third party accessories. Third party accessories require coverage as well.

The list of equipment that NIST anticipates will be covered is attached.  The full-service maintenance is anticipated to include all of the following:

-(1) preventive maintenance visit per year for all equipment;

-Service provided by personnel who are trained and fully competent in the operation of the covered instrument and third-party accessories;

-Parts that are approved for use by Carl Zeiss and the manufacturer of the third party accessories;

-Use of tools, instruments, test apparatus, methodologies, techniques, and practices approved for use with the instrument by the manufacturer;

-Unlimited number of requests for service calls in the event of instrument failure which requires immediate repair;

-Response to service calls Monday through Friday, during regular business hours only;

-On-site service within 48 hours after the service call is placed by the Government;

-Telephone support and on-site support as needed during regular business hours;

-All parts required for all repairs and maintenance;

-All commercial software updates for the purposes of instrument optimization not later than 60 days afterany such update is released;

-One tip change per year for all some equipment.

NIST is seeking responses from all responsible sources. Small businesses are defined under the associated NAICS code for this effort, 811219 (Other Electronic and Precision Equipment Repair and Maintenance).  The small business size standard is $20.5M. Please include your company’s size classification in any response to this notice.

Companies that possess the capability to perform the required work are requested to email a written response documenting their capability to [email protected] no later than the response date for this sources sought notice.

After the results of this market research are obtained and analyzed, NIST may conduct a competitive procurement and subsequently award a contract. If at least two qualified small business are identified during this market research stage, then any competitive procurement that resulted is anticipated to be conducted as a small business set-aside.

The following information is required to be provided as part of the response to this sources sought notice:

1. Documentation/description of capabilities which clearly demonstrates the Contractor’s capability to perform the required maintenance;
2. Documentation of any relevant experience performing maintenance and repairs on the equipment identified;
3. Documentation of any relevant experience in providing software updates for the equipment identified;
4. Documentation/description of availability of engineers or technicians that have at least two (2) years of experience performing preventive maintenance and repair of equipment listed in the attached table;
5. Documentation which demonstrates that the Contractor has access to parts and loaner equipment that will be required to compete the required work;
6. Name and business size of the company; 
7. Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider in finalizing its market research.

Submission must be received not later than February 25, 2020, at 3:30 PM Eastern Time.