Award details have now been posted showing a recent win to this Service Disabled Veteran Owned small business focused on developing intelligent web applications for desktop and mobile devices at the enterprise level with millions of users.
Awardee Name: COGNETIC TECHNOLOGIES
Unique Entity ID: DAENMCWWLKH4
Total Contract Value: $20,895,282.62
Action Obligation: $1,080,000.00
Department Name: DEPT OF DEFENSE
Funding Agency: DEPT OF THE NAVY
Funding Office: NIWC PACIFIC
Number of Bidders: 1
Award ID: N6600125C0005
Referenced IDV ID:
Contract Vehicle:
RFP ID: N6600125R0005
Set Aside Used: No set aside used.
NAICS: 541511
Award Type: Definitive Contract
Start Date: 2024-12-20
Ultimate Completion Date: 2029-12-19
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Award of a follow-on Cost-Plus-Fixed-Fee services contract on a sole source basis to Cognetic
Technologies in support of the Personnel Accountability and Assessment System (PAAS) suite of
systems and ultimate joint PAAS system.
PAAS standardizes a method for the Armed Forces and Department of Defense (DoD) agencies to
account, assess, manage, and monitor the recovery process for personnel and their families affected
and/or scattered by a wide-spread catastrophic event. PAAS provides valuable information to all levels of
the chain of command, allowing commanders to make strategic decisions which facilitates a return to
stability.
Support provided includes:
New functionality new module development driven by Stakeholder needs (ex., customized data
engine reporting tools, and Evacuation Orders (EO) module) two-way notification integration, and
geo-mapping/GIS overlay integration.
Data Management processing and ingesting source data, transmitting data to external partners,
data structure configurations, data validations, data analysis and Machine Learning (ML)
optimization.
System Modernization/Maintenance modifying PAAS to include modern look-and-feel as well
as optimizing user workflows, ensuring the system continues to function as required, and quickly
addressing software and data issues that arise to minimize breaks in end-user functionality.
The anticipated period of performance includes a base period of one (1) year and four (4), one (1) year
options
Rationale Justifying Use of Cited Statutory Authority.
The incumbent, Cognetic Technologies, hereby referred to as Cognetic, developed PAAS from the ground up in response to DoD Instruction 3001.02 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (2005). Cognetic has unmatched experience and a core knowledge of PAAS. PAAS is classified as a Mission Support system for which any functional failure will severely cripple the Armed Forces and DoD Agencies ability to support their personnel during catastrophic realworld events.
PAAS is composed of highly complex data structures and data workflows which includes 800,000 lines of system code. In addition, the nature of PAAS data is a persistent flow from authoritative data sources, as well as data
pushes from PAAS to external data partners. Failure at the data level will render PAAS useless since
correct/updated data is paramount when accurately accounting for affected personnel during real world events.
Cognetic is the only company capable of satisfying this requirement and has demonstrated this capability by
supporting over three hundred (300) real-world events since the inception of PAAS in 2005.
PAAS is in a major developmental transition period as it is being designed and transformed into DoD PAAS. DoD PAAS will combine support for all Armed Forces and DoD Agencies into a single joint PAAS system. Cognetic is the primary architect for the design and development of DoD PAAS. DoD PAAS is scheduled to meet its initial operating capability in the spring of 2025 with final operating capability scheduled for spring 2027. Having been the sole viable developer for nineteen (19) years and being mid-transition from PAAS to DoD PAAS, forfeiting the knowledge and experience that is only available from Cognetic presents an unacceptable risk to the systems health and the success of the transition. With the complex nature of the PAAS system software and data structures, there is a high risk that the ramp-up process for a new development team may not be successful. Even with a highly qualified team, the type of innate core system knowledge may not be possible to transfer. If Cognetic is not able to continue their performance in service of PAAS, all progress towards DoD PAAS will be halted and possibly squandered, resulting in a Mission Support project floundering and an unacceptable assumption of futility for all of the effort and progress achieved to date.
With over nineteen (19) years of experience developing and serving PAAS, Cognetic is the only source capable of ensuring a continuous capability to all PAAS military stakeholders. Mitigation strategies have been considered
which leverages NIWC Pacifics in-house developers further integrating with Cognetic to ramp-up key
development areas of PAAS. The complete ramp-up time to the point of being effective, if possible, would be a multi-year transition.
Since the inception of PAAS in 2005 work was initially performed by Cognetic through single award task orders via N66001-05-D-5028 and N66001-10-D-0004. In 2015, in an attempt to foster competition, the PAAS effort was solicited under the Enterprise Personnel Systems Engineer (EPSE) Multiple Award Contract (MAC) N66001-15-D-0141/0142/0143. Cognetic was the only bidder on the two PAAS orders N66001-15-D-0141-0001/0003. The other two MAC holders, VSolvit and Geocent, would not bid on PAAS-related efforts, citing their lack of qualified personnel that would not meet the required technical experience. In 2020, Cognetic was awarded a sole source
contract N66001-20-C-0027. This proposed sole source contract was synopsized on NAVWARs e-commerce
portal (which syncs into Sam.gov, formerly FedBizOpps) on 01 May 2020. No companies expressed interest when the synopsis expired on 08 May 2020.
No reasonable amount of experience for a new contractor starting on the PAAS effort today would accumulate
to a place of equitable capability that the incumbent currently has as the architect and developer of the PAAS
systems. There is no replacement for the incumbents nineteen (19) years of experience with the PAAS system
and this timeframe represents an estimated $30M of government cost invested into the PAAS system. Currently, there is no Transition Plan required on this contract and there are no in-house Government personnel with the
proper systems expertise to perform the technical engineering and development tasks to replace the work being done by Cognetic. It is not possible to forecast the probability that 1) Cognetic would work on a Transition Plan that was not originally solicited for; and 2) be available to train a new engineering firm. Assuming an agreement were reached and Cognetic were to assist with the implementation of a Transition Plan, it is estimated that it
would cost the Government roughly $4.5 – $6 million and the timeframe to execute and would span roughly
three-four years for the incumbent to transition their sophisticated methods not originally expected to be
duplicated, to another company. This represents roughly 56,000 labor hours spanning 9 labor categories to
include Software Engineer I, II and III; Systems Engineer I, II and III; Database Engineer I and II; and Training Specialist II; (assuming ~1750hrs/pp/work year x 8 individuals). These are costs that would not be recovered
through competition.