Commanding Officer, NAVFACCO Bldg 41 Code 27, NCBC 1000 23rd Ave, Port Hueneme, CA 93043-4301

A -- BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCMENT FOR CONCEPTS AND TECHNOLOGIES IN SHIPBOARD WAREHOUSING AND DISTRIBUTION SOL N47408-98-R-3923 DUE 042098 POC Contract Specialist., Rosalie M. Hammonds, 805-982-5097 This announcement constitutes a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for the Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center (NFESC) under FAR 6.102 (d)(2) to solicit proposals for basic and applied research for new and innovative technology solutions to problems in the areas of CONCEPTS AND TECHNOLOGIES FOR SHIPBOARD WAREHOUSING AND DISTRIBUTION. Part of the proposed areas listed in this BAA is being considered 100% set-aside for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) or Minority Institutions (MIs) as defined by the clause at 252.226-7000 of the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement. Interested HBCUs and MIs should provide to the contracting office as early as possible, but not later than 15 days after this notice, evidence of their capability to perform the contract, and a positive statement of their eligibility as an HBCU or MI. If adequate response is not received from HBCU/MI's, then, institutions, non-profit organizations, and private industry proposal abstracts will be evaluated.The effective period of BAA is one year from the publication date of this requirement in the Commerce Business Daily. Awards maybe made at any time throughout the effective period of the BAA. Initial submittals to this BAA shall be in the form of an abstract describing the merits and objectives of what the contractor is offering. The abstract should describe concisely what the contractor is offering the Navy with sections discussing the following technical evaluation criteria: (1) the overall scientific or technical merit of the proposal; (2) the potential contribution of the proposed effort to the goals of the program/project; (3) the offeror's capabilities, related experience, facilities, techniques, or unique combination of these which are integral factors for achieving the proposed objectives; (4) the qualifications, capabilities, and experience of the proposed Principal Investigator, team leader, or key personnel (including students) who are critical in achieving the proposal objectives. Proposals, whenand if requested after evaluation of the technical abstracts, will be evaluated using the four criteria listed above and the following criteria: (5) the reasonableness and realism of proposed costs and availability of funds. Based on the abstract submittal, vendors with technology or methodology found to have merits will be requested to submit a full technical and cost proposal for contract award consideration. If requested to submit a detailed technical proposal, the offeror also shall submit a cost proposal. A cost proposal, when submitted, should contain a cost estimate sufficiently detailed by element of cost for meaningful evaluation. Persons wishing to respond to this BAA should submit an original and three (3) copies of their abstract to: Commanding Officer, Naval Facilities Contracting Office, Code 2714, Building 41, Naval Construction Battalion Center, 1000 23rd Avenue, Port Hueneme, CA 93043-4301, Attn: Rosalie Hammonds, 805-982-5097. Questions regarding this BAA may be sent by facsimile transmittal (FAX) to 805-982-3015. Abstracts are to be submitted no later than April 20, 1998. However, abstracts submitted after the cut-off date will be considered throughout the effective period of the BAA. Abstracts may not be submitted by FAX. Any abstract sent by FAX will be disregarded. The cognizant NFESC technical personnel for this requirement is Mr. Billy Karrh, Code ESC31, at 805-982-1332. Potential offerors are encouraged to contact Mr. Karrh directly regarding technical issues. Abstracts will not be evaluated against each other since each is a unique technology with no common work statement. Proposals identified for funding may result in a contract; however, there is no commitment by the Navy to make any awards; to make a specific number of awards; or to be responsible for any monies expended by the offeror before award of a contract. Any award will be subject to the availability of funds. Multiple awards for up to $40K each are planned for Phase I, based on merit of the proposals received and project funds available. Each Phase I contract shall not exceed ninety days after award. Each Phase I contract shall include a proposal for a Phase II development effort. Phase II awards of up $500K may be made for the development of one or more concepts or technologies selected from Phase I contracts, based on the merit of the proposed concept/technology to accomplish Navy objectives as demonstrated by the Phase I contract effort. Following is a description of the research required for this BAA Topic 98-003, CONCEPTS AND TECHNOLOGIES FOR SHIPBOARD WAREHOUSING AND DISTRIBUTION. Background Information: With the decline of the Cold War era, the white paper, "Forward From the Sea," marked a new approach to naval warfare for the Marine Corps and the Navy by placing unprecedented emphasis on littoral warfare. The Marine Corps/Navy team is moving forward boldly to support this national strategy of maneuver warfare by participating with the Naval Doctrine Command to develop a Sea Base Logistics Concept. The essence of sea based logistics is that the logistics functions to support maneuver forces ashore are performed from ships up to 200 miles from the objective instead of establishing a supply base on the beach. From these distances, air transport will be the primary delivery mode with the LCAC to provide supplementary surface transport. The doctrine of maneuver warfare has been adopted to ensure that future amphibious operations are keyed to exploitation of enemy weaknesses through the utilization of highly mobile landing parties with capabilities to strike at those weaknesses and avoid enemy strong points. The concept of massed assaults on limited beachheads and subsequent buildup of supplies and logistics facilities ashore are no longer envisioned as a desirable amphibious assault strategy. Sea based logistics (SBL) is not a new concept to Naval operations. SBL has been conducted for many years on a limited scale by ships of the Amphibious Ready Groups (ARGs) in support of MEU-sized forces. The primary difference now is the requirement to perform sea based logistics on a large scale to support larger force sizes for longer periods of time. Large scale Seabasing is a Naval concept not presently supportable by the ships of the Amphibious Task Force (ATF), the Combat Logistics Force (CLF), and the Maritime Pre-positioned Force (MPF). Today's amphibious ships were designed to discharge their cargo load to support the establishment of a supply base on shore. A sea base may consist of various mixes of ships from the ATF, the CLF, and the MPF, as well as the shipping resources of the Military Sealift Command's (MSC) Ready Reserve Ships. The Navy must adapt its amphibious and sealift logistics capabilities to support these new operational concepts. Science and technology (S&T) developments in seabasing are required to ensure that the Navy will be capable of carrying out its mission to support the Marine Corps into the year 2020. Today's ships are not capable of performing large scale, sea based logistics. They will require modifications and new technology enhancements to perform the SELECTIVE OFFLOAD and LONG TERM SUSTAINMENT demanded by sea based logistics. For example, amphibious ships are configured to handle palletized cargo, while current MPF ships are not configured to transfer cargo by air. In addition, S&T technologies will be required to tailor future Navy shipping, such as MPF-2010, the LPD-17, and the ADC-X, to support sea basing. To perform sea basing on such a large scale will require changes to the way Naval forces currently operate and provide sustainment to forces ashore. Four key changes in the way Naval forces operate were identified by the Naval Doctrine Command's Sea Based Logistics Concept Team as follows: (1) operate from a base at sea; (2) reduce logistic demands of operating forces; (3) implement in-stride sustainment; and (4) be able to transition smoothly to joint and land based operations. The far term objectives in Sea Basing are to develop improved hardware concepts in the areas of a.) Sea Based Warehousingand Distribution; b.) Sea Base Cargo Transfer; and c.) Sea Base Cargo Configuration. Only Sea Based Warehousing and Distribution are being addressed in this solicitation. BAA REQUIREMENTS: This BAA seeks new concepts and technologies in shipboard warehousing and distribution. These concepts and technologies must enable tomorrow's Navy to support the Marine Corps strategy of ship to objective maneuver (STOM) on a large scale. Technologies and concepts of interest include (but are not limited to) those that enhance shipboard warehousing and distribution capabilities in the following areas (listed in order of decreasing interest): 1) AUTOMATION OF SHIPBOARD WAREHOUSE TO STORE, RETRIEVE AND DISTRIBUTE MILITARY SUPPLIES; 2) OPTIMIZATION OF SHIPBOARD SPACE FOR CARGO STORAGE AND WAREHOUSE FUNCTIONS; 3) ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY MATERIALS HANDLING EQUIPMENT (MHE) TO SUPPORT SHIPBOARD WAREHOUSE AUTOMATION AND DISTRIBUTION; 4) BREAKOUT OF MILITARY RE-SUPPLY CARGO FROM ISO CONTAINERS; 5) PACKAGING OF SUPPLIES FOR AIR TRANSPORT TO USERS BY HELO & MV-22; 6) ABILITY TO ACCESS ANY SUPPLY ITEM AT ANY TIME; 7) ABILITY TO MANAGE THE FLOW OF SUPPLIES DURING SEA BASE OPERATIONS. (0064)

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