Inactive

ION CHROMATOGRAPHS Amendment 1 to the RFQ: The purpose of this amendment is to provide questions and answers, provide USGS Method I- 2057-89, and extended the quotation due date. 1. This solicitation ... ION CHROMATOGRAPHS Amendment 1 to the RFQ: The purpose of this amendment is to provide questions and answers, provide USGS Method I- 2057-89, and extended the quotation due date. 1. This solicitation is issued as a Request for Quotations (RFQ). Submit written quotations on RFQ Number 140G0223Q0048. This solicitation will utilize the policies in the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Products and Commercial Services, and in conjunction with the policies and procedures for evaluation, and award prescribed in FAR Part 13.1 Simplified Procedures, as appropriate for this acquisition. 2. The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2023-02. 3. The solicitation is a NOT a Small Business Set-Aside. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 334516 (Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing) and the size standard is 1,000 employees. 4. Vendors are required to be registered in System for Award Management (SAM) when submitting an offer or quotation. Register at https://www.sam.gov/index.html prior to submitting your quotation. See FAR provision 52.204-7(b)(1). 5. Please download attached Solicitation 140G0223Q0048 for all Clauses and Provisions.

Inactive

ION CHROMATOGRAPHS THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE ONLY. NO FORMAL SOLICITATION IS BEING REQUESTED UNDER THIS NOTICE. This Sources Sought Notice is for market research purposes to identify interested ... ION CHROMATOGRAPHS THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE ONLY. NO FORMAL SOLICITATION IS BEING REQUESTED UNDER THIS NOTICE. This Sources Sought Notice is for market research purposes to identify interested firms for the potential requirement detailed below. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 334516 (Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing) and the size standard is 1,000 employees. The Government will review the information requested in this announcement to determine the type of set-aside (if any) for this requirement, should it come to fruition. NOTE 1: The Buy American Act (41 U.S.C. 8301-05) is the primary federal procurement law providing a preference for domestic goods and manufactured products. As such, the USGS is seeking information on sources that can supply the described instrument either mined, produced or manufactured in the U.S. in sufficient and reasonably available commercial quantities of satisfactory quality. NOTE 2: The full specifications and requirements will be provided with any solicitation that may be issued. The Government is not required to issue a solicitation. A. Introduction: The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL), Denver, CO has a requirement to purchase four new ion chromatographs, which shall include installation of the analyzer at the National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL), all required software, warranty, and training of NWQL staff. The Ion Chromatograph (IC) Workstation will be used to analyze filtered environmental water samples for anions on a high-production line. The instrument will be used for a range of environmental samples including estuarine water, groundwater, agricultural runoff, seawater, hypersaline water, and flowback waters. B. Background: Ion chromatographs are currently used at the National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL) to measure environmental water samples for concentrations of bromide, fluoride, chloride and sulfate. The NWQL currently has one ion chromatograph dedicated to bromide analysis and analyzes approximately 30,000 samples annually. The ion chromatograph instruments currently used for these analyses range in age but are about ten years old and have started to show signs of decreasing reliability. The purchase of four new ion chromatographs will allow the NWQL to continue to provide reliable major anion data to their customers in a timely manner. C. References: Fishman, M.J., and Friedman, L.C., eds., 1989, Anions, ion-exchange chromatographic, automated, p. 523¿526, in Methods for the determination of inorganic substances in water and fluvial sediments, 3rd edition: US Geological Survey Techniques of Water Resources Investigations, book 5, chapter A1. Fishman, M.J., and Friedman, L.C., eds., 1989, Anions, ion-exchange chromatographic, low ionic- strength water, automated, p. 527¿530, in Methods for the determination of inorganic substances in water and fluvial sediments, 3rd edition: US Geological Survey Techniques of Water Resources Investigations, book 5, chapter A1. Fishman, M.J., and Friedman, L.C., eds., 1989, Chloride, ion-exchange chromatographic, automated, p. 161, in Methods for the determination of inorganic substances in water and fluvial sediments, 3rd edition: US Geological Survey Techniques of Water Resources Investigations, book 5, chapter A1. Fishman, M.J., and Friedman, L.C., eds., 1989, Sulfate, ion-exchange chromatographic, automated, p. 479, in Methods for the determination of inorganic substances in water and fluvial sediments, 3rd edition: US Geological Survey Techniques of Water Resources Investigations, book 5, chapter A1. USGS and Department of Interior computer security protocols and requirements may be acquired by contacting the Contracting Officer. NWQL SOP INCF0465.3, Determination of bromide by ion chromatography may be acquired by contacting the Contracting Officer. Stevenson, D.L., and Barnard, A.R., eds., 2013, U.S. Geological Survey National Water Quality Laboratory quality assurance and quality control: unpublished U.S. Geological Survey Report, version 1.0, 26 March 2013, viii + 75 p. U.S. EPA, EPA 40 CFR part 136, last accessed at: http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=&SID=54207f182573ae32ae871b0a5de9f05a&mc=true&n=pt40.23.136&r=PART&ty=HTML on 5/17/16. USEPA Method 300.0, `The Determination of Inorganic Anions in Water by Ion Chromatography¿, USEPA, Cincinnati, OH, 1993. In the event of a conflict between the referenced documents and the specification, the contents of the specification shall be considered a superseding requirement. D. Technical Specifications: The following specifications shall be met or exceeded in order to fulfill NWQL requirements: I. System: 1. The system shall be capable of unattended (¿walk-away¿) processing of at least 70 samples within a run sequence over a 24-hour or less period. 2. The system shall be able to perform automated preparation of calibration and continuing calibration verification [CCV] working standards from stock standard solutions. 3. The system shall perform automated dilution(s) and reanalysis within a run sequence, or as an immediate follow-on sequence, for any samples having results that exceed the upper calibration range such that the dilution result will fall within the calibration range. 4. System shall have the power requirements of 100-120 V. Instrument: a. The workstation shall be an integrated system and shall include a pump, column heater, suppressor, autosampler and injector, guard and analytical IC columns, and conductivity detector. b. Shall have the capability to perform isocratic and high-pressure gradient separations. c. Shall have electrolytic or chemical suppression. d. Shall have automated eluent degassing. e. Shall have automated eluent generation. f. Shall have a dilution accuracy of a minimum of ± 2%. Detector: a. A detector consisting of a conductivity cell with a measurement range of 0- a minimum of 15,000µS/cm. b. Shall have a linear dynamic range for the following analytes: i. Bromide: 0.01 mg/L to 5 mg/L. ii. Fluoride: 0.01 mg/L to 1 mg/L. iii. Chloride: 0.02 mg/L to 100 mg/L. iv. Sulfate: 0.02 mg/L to 100 mg/L. Column: a. Analytical column capable of separating fluoride, chloride, sulfate, bromide, and nitrate in fifteen minutes or less. b. Shall have baseline peak resolution > 1.5. c. Shall have < 1% carryover when an instrument blank follows a 50 mg/L standard for fluoride, chloride, sulfate, bromide, and nitrate (<0.1 mg/L). d. Column shall fully resolve bromide from other sample constituents, including but not limited to disinfection byproducts, in hypersaline and high conductivity waters. e. Shall have ability to control temperature of column. Autosampler: a. Shall hold a minimum of 100 samples. b. Shall have ability to access any cup in any rack at any time, which will enable automatic repeated measurement of samples. c. Shall have inline sample filtration capabilities. d. Shall have the ability to auto dilute samples at a dilution factor specified by the user. Sensitivity, precision and accuracy: a. Shall be capable of meeting a Method Detection Limit (MDL) for the following analytes: v. Bromide of 0.01 mg/L. vi. Fluoride: of 0.01 mg/L. vii. Chloride: of 0.02 mg/L. viii. Sulfate: of 0.02 mg/L. b. Reproducibility (n=7) of reagent water spiked at 80% of the upper calibration limit for Bromide shall be less than or equal to 10% of the mean of the n determinations at the 95% confidence interval. c. Standard reference materials shall be analyzed with an accuracy of ± 5% d. QC Shall fall within established limits listed in table 1 below. Table 1. Anions determined in filtered water by suppressed ion chromatography by the NWQL NWQL Lab Code Analyte Method detection limit (mg/L) Range (mg/L) USGS method Reference 651 Fluoride 0.01 0.01 to 1.0 I-2057-89 Fishman and Friedman, 1989 1571 Chloride 0.02 0.02 to 100 I-2057-85 Fishman and Friedman, 1989 1572 Sulfate 0.02 0.02 to 100 I-2057-85 Fishman and Friedman, 1989 3166 Bromide 0.01 0.01¿0.4 I-2057-85 Fishman and Friedman, 1989 II. Software 1. Shall include IC controlling software. 2. Shall be compatible with Windows 10 and higher operating systems. 3. Shall have utilities that can be used to build a tab or comma-delimited result files for data transmittal to LIMS. 4. Calibration a. Shall be capable of producing a multi-point calibration with linear or quadratic fits. b. Instrument shall produce calibrations with correlation coefficients of a minimum of 0.999. c. Shall be capable of automatically calculating correlation coefficients d. Calibration and other parameters can be changed, and results can be recalculated after a run. e. Shall provide the ability to modify the run sequence in the software as the instrument is running. 5. Software installation and performance verification with government supplied computer shall be included. 6. Software control shall be established by LAN, serial, or USB connection from controlling computer to instrument. 7. The Contractor shall comply with all USGS and Department of Interior computer security protocols and requirements. 8. The Contractor shall certify that all software and hardware are free of malicious code. 9. Phone technical service shall be available for the 8.5-hour (or longer) period from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM Mountain Time, Monday through Friday (U.S. Federal Holidays excepted), and contractor shall return calls within four hours. 10. System software/control also shall include the ability to: a. Input sample (including QC sample types) lists using a barcode reader or from a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) (import from LIMS via comma separated values (CSV; preferred) or tab delimited file format) for samples requiring measurement of any of the parameters per sample. b. Monitor sample measurements and sequence status and to pause the sequence to add new samples to the sequence, to add reagents, or, if needed, to terminate the sequence prior to sequence completion with system retention of all acquired measurement results prior to termination. c. Create and store multiple analytical methods. d. Define quality control samples at user-specified intervals or sequence positions. e. Record and report operational conditions and run audit information for each sequence including at least sample identification number, sample type, sample analysis date and time (date-time stamp), identification and concentrations of calibrators, calibration models used, and user-defined quality control (measure range, accuracy) criteria, and an audit trail with date and time stamp of instrument errors. f. Flag results that fall outside of user-defined operation specifications and quality control criteria. g. Perform automated re-analysis of groups of samples based on performance of bracketing QC samples in the event of a failure in one or both bracketing QC sample. h. Provide all sample results and operational meta data for the sequence run, including calibration and quality control sample results, in comma delimited (.csv; preferred) or fixed field (ASCII .txt) file format that can be user modified and that can be direct imported (reported) to a LIMS, Excel spreadsheet, stored on a data server, and that can be printed, including as pdf file format. E. Requirements: 1. Training and Installation: At least two days of on-site training for a minimum of four (4) NWQL personnel shall be provided no later than four (4) weeks after delivery of the instrument, at a date and time agreeable to the Government. Training topics shall include daily operation, routine maintenance, method development, software familiarization, and troubleshooting. All training conducted shall be accomplished between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., local time, Monday through Friday, except for Federal holidays. Contractor personnel shall be required to sign in upon arrival and out upon leaving Bldg. 95. Contractor personnel shall comply with all NWQL safety requirements. The Contractor shall comply with all Denver Federal Center security protocols. 2. Warranty: System shall have a minimum one-year warranty which starts on the date of instrumentation acceptance; the warranty period shall not start on the date of instrumentation shipping or on the date of installation. Two (2) preventative maintenance visits, one at six (6) months and one at twelve (12) months shall be included in the warranty period. All business concerns who believe they can responsibly provide this type of product should submit the following information to the Contracting Officer: 1. The firm shall specify the brand name products that meets the specifications/requirements listed above along with product specification sheet and product brochure. 2. For equipment/supply requirements, business responses must include: (1) the place of manufacturing (i.e. address if supply/equipment is a domestic end product and include country of manufacture) 3. The firm shall also specify if they offer leasing of instruments listed in the specifications above and provide leasing options available. If the firm does not offer leasing of instruments, please include a statement as such. 4. The firm shall specify that they are either a small business (8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, etc.) Or other than small business under the NAICS Code listed in the announcement. 5. The firm shall provide a point of contact name and e-mail information, and the firm's Cage Code, and SAM.gov UEI. NOTE 3: All information submitted in response to this announcement is voluntary - the Government will not pay for information requested nor will it compensate any respondent for any cost incurred in developing information provided to the Government. Materials submitted to the Government for review will not be returned. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the evaluation. This is not a request for quotations. The Government does not intend to award a contract based on responses received under this announcement. In order to be responsive to this Notice, a firm must provide the appropriate documentation for consideration by February 8, 2023 at 2:30 p.m. (MST). Responses that do not comply with these procedures will not be considered. Inquiries will only be accepted by e-mail to Lisa Williams at ldwilliams@usgs.gov (See attached announcement in PDF)