Notice of Intent.
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 Thermo-Calc Software Inc., located at 4160 Washington Road, McMurray, Pennsylvania to purchase an annual agreement for maintenance and technical support of the Thermo-Calc, DICTRA, TC-PRISMA, TC-API, TQ-I, TC-Toolbox for
Matlab and associated thermodynamic and mobility databases in use at NIST.
Sole Source justification is based on the following:
The National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST's) Materials Science and Engineering Division (MSED) provides the measurement science, standards, technology, and data required to support the nation's need to design, develop, manufacture, and use materials. In partnership with U.S. industry, government agencies, and scientific institutions, the Division performs fundamental and applied research to enable those engaged in the materials science and engineering enterprise to adopt new materials and incorporate them into improved, successful products that solve problems in areas such as energy, electronics, transportation and the environment.
To meet mission requirements, the MSED must renew the maintenance contract for the currently owned Thermo-Calc software tools, including Thermo-Calc, DICTRA, and TC-PRISMA. These codes are used to perform multicomponent multiphase thermodynamic equilbria calculations (Thermo-Calc), multicomponent multiphase diffusion simulations (DICTRA), and multicomponent precipitation simulations TC-PRISMA. The databases are encrypted and can only be used with currently owned NIST software, which includes 2 Thermo-Calc network floating licenses and one DICTRA network floating license. Multicomponent databases developed by other companies are available however, they are encrypted in such a way that they can only be used with the company-specific software (these commercial databases cannot be mix-and-matched with other commercially available software tools) and will cause conflict.
Upgrading the currently NIST-owned thermodynamic and diffusion mobility databases is essential as new experimental and computational data are included in the database upgrades. This new data expands the use of the databases to additional alloys systems essential for designing new materials and processes. In addition, NIST staff are highly trained the use of these software tools and databases with combined experience of over 20 years. Switching to another database would be detrimental to both retraining of NIST personnel and the proposed possibility of data loss. Other available commercial databases cannot be used with the NIST owned-Thermo-Calc software due to encryption compatibility issues.
Thermo-Calc is the sole source and supplier for Thermo-Calc products in the United States. The resulting purchase order will be a Firm Fixed Price purchase order.
The NAICS Code is 519130 with a size standard of 500 employees.
No solicitation package will be issued. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive quotations; however, responses received by 12:00EST July 27th, 2015, will be considered by the Government.
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 normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement
Inquiry POCs
[email protected] Primary
[email protected] Secondary
National Institutes of Standards and Technologies NIST
Acquisition Management Division (AMD)
100 Bureau Dr. Mail Stop 1640
Gaithersburg, MD. 20899-1640

Bid Protests Not Available