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This notice will be distributed solely through the General Services Administration's Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) Website (www.fedbizopps.gov). Interested parties are responsible for monitoring the FBO site to ensure they have the most up-to-date information about this acquisition. The North American Classification System Code is 334516, Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing; the size standard is 500 employees.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) intends to award a non-competitive, sole source contract to Malvern Instruments Incorporated, 117 Flanders Road, STE 110, Westborough, MA 01581 for a Particle Analyzer.
The FBI has a requirement to directly and accurately measure the particle size of explosive compositions or their precursor materials. This capability will add greater flexibility in terms of answering time sensitive requests, as well as provide the FBI the ability to evaluate the effects of different particle sizes on the hazards and performance of an explosive which is of great importance to the intelligence community. Having the capability to precisely and accurately determine the particle size of an improvised explosive will also all the FBI to design better, more detailed, full-scale tests in that estimates of changing various technical parameters can be more thoroughly assessed before these tests are performed, saving crucial time and funding since not as many full-scale tests need to be performed.
The FBI has found that the Malvern Mastersizer 3000 Laser Diffraction System is the only particle size analyzer that can meet the FBI requirements listed below:
1. System must be a laser diffraction type instrument;
2. System must be able to measure particle sizes in the range of approximately 0.02 - 3500 microns;
3. System must be able to measure samples in both dry and liquid suspensions;
4. System must possess an angular detection span of approximately 0.02 - 140 degrees;
5. System must allow the operator to change samples easily and quickly ( ~ < 30 seconds);
6. The power of the blue laser light source must be greater than 15mW to facilitate a particle size resolution in the sub-micron range;
7. The system must be able to produce a reproducible dispersion of powder samples;
8. The system must come equipped with a vacuum system for sample collection;
9. The system must come equipped with applicable in-take filters;
10. The system must come equipped with specific dry and wet sample cells that the system interface control automatically recognizes;
11. System must come with its own computer and software environment that facilitates stand-alone operation, interface control, data processing and printing;
12. The software must be able to easily output graphs and tables for use in technical reports;
13. The software must be able to display data results in various graphical formats, such as bar and scatter graphs, including appropriate error bars.
The FBI performed market research to determine if any other company manufactured a particle size analyzer meeting the requirements of the FBI. Other manufacturers were considered, however, did not meet the particle size range technical requirements. The Malvern Mastersizer 3000 Laser Diffraction System was the only system that met all the requirements of the FBI. Malvern Instruments Incorporated is the sole manufacturer and distributer of the Mastersizer 3000 Laser Diffraction System and therefore is the only vendor that can fulfill the specialized and unique technical research requirement of the FBI.
This notice of intent is not a request for competitive quotations; however, interested parties may identify their interests and capability to respond to this requirement to this office by 08:00 am, EST, April 13, 2015, by email to the attention of Jerry Varnell, Contract Specialist, at [email protected]. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether or not to conduct a competitive procurement. Telephone requests will not be considered. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon response to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.
Vendors must be registered in SAM, effective July 29, 2012 to receive government contracts. The FBI uses a financial system that has a direct interface with SAM. Please ensure that your company's SAM information is updated and accurate. This includes TIN, EFT, DUNS, addresses and contact information. The EFT banking information on file in SAM will be what the FBI uses to process payment to your organization.