1. Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN)
An ACAN is a public notice indicating to the supplier community that a department or agency intends to award a contract for goods, services, or construction to a pre-identified supplier, thereby allowing other suppliers to signal their interest in bidding, by submitting a statement of capabilities. If no supplier submits a statement of capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, on or before the closing date stated in the ACAN, the contracting officer may then proceed with the award to the pre-identified supplier.
2. Definition of the requirement:
Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) is responsible under the Federal Nuclear Emergency Plan to provide mobile radiation survey in the event of a dispersion of radioactivity whether accidental or deliberate. Additionally, NRCan provides radiation survey support to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in security operations for major events. NRCan’s Nuclear Emergency Response (NER) team executes these responsibilities making use of wide-area search equipment provided by Radiation Solutions Inc. (Mississauga, Ontario).
At this time, the NER team requires studies to be performed of a gamma imager which can assist them in their function. The gamma imager to be designed and tested must be compatible with existing equipment.
The Department of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has a requirement to design, assemble and test a Friendly-for-user (FUGI) gamma imager in the Silicon photomultiplier-based Compton Telescope for Safety and Security (SCoTSS) design. One fully functional and fieldable Compton gamma imager with 4pi uniformity, both Compton imaging and self-shielding modes, easy-to-operate, reliable, one-button operation, and capable of an image precision of 2º within 10 s for a 1 mCi source of Cs-137 at 10 m should exist. The work will involve the following: delivering reports on the demonstration unit performance, as well as the high-level instrument design of the demonstration unit.
3. Criteria for assessment of the Statement of Capabilities (Minimum Essential Requirements). Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a statement of capabilities that it meets the following requirements:
(a) MUST have at least 10 years of experience in the design and manufacture of high-sensitivity mobile radiation survey instruments and in provision of these instruments to federal, national, state or provincial agencies responsible for nuclear emergency response.
(b) MUST have existing radiation survey instruments with the following features:
- Software interface displaying in real time mobile survey radiation data including 1024-channel one-second energy spectra, rainbow-coloured waterfall display of 1024-channel spectra versus time, integrated energy spectra selectable from the waterfall chart, charts showing air kerma rate, total count rate, anomaly detection and man-made gross count rate, updated once per second
- integration with Global Navigation Satellite System position measurements and a window in the real-time display showing the breadcrumb trail mapping total count rate, or air kerma, or any other user-supplied function of the incoming spectra, as a function of detector’s geographic position, updated once per second
- an interface for the user to upload geo-referenced shape files or imagery for base layer for the real-time display of the breadcrumb trail
- a mapping interface for use in real time during data acquisition for gridding data and for overlaying survey data onto web map services such as Google maps and Bing maps
- automatic detection of radioisotopes, automatic alarming, automated spectrum analysis and automatic isotope identification, in real time during data acquisition
- advanced decomposition of spectra into component spectra for mapping of isotope-specific contours
- automatic gain stabilization, user-adjustable gain settings, automatic testing of crystal and system health, user-setting of thresholds for alarming, and user-override of automatic gain stabilization
- a software interface that exports data to multiple data formats for offline processing, both ascii (including .csv) and binary (including ESRI shapefile, also full second-by-second spectral information)
- a software interface that reloads stored data and replays it, displaying all the information that was displayed during data acquisition
- an interface that enables the user to easily select an arbitrarily shaped geographic region of the breadcrumb map product to save the data for subsequent offline analysis, or to replay it in the visual user interface.
(c) MUST have experience in multi-channel pulse shaping and digitization with nano-second-scale coincidence timing in an instrument with ~300 detector inputs where each detector consists of CsI(Tl) scintillator with silicon photo-multiplier readout.
(d) MUST have experience in implementing of items (b) and (c) above in a Compton gamma imager. This includes having provided a window in the real-time data acquisition display software for display of Compton images. This includes having provided the user the capability to select a region of time and of energy from the waterfall plot from which to make the Compton image. This includes having provided the user the capability to select an energy region of the waterfall plot and request that the Compton image is automatically updated for a user-configurable integration period.
4. Applicability of the trade agreement(s) to the procurement
This procurement is subject to the following trade agreement(s):
o Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA)
o World Trade Organization - Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP)
o Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)
o Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)
o Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA)
o Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement
o Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement
o Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement
o Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreement
o Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement (CPFTA)
5. Justification for the Pre-Identified Supplier
The supplier mentioned in section 11 below is the only known supplier that meets the mandatory criteria set out in section 3 above.
Should Canada receive a statement of capabilities from a supplier that contains sufficient information to indicate that it meets the requirements set forth in this ACAN, a competitive process will be triggered with a technical and financial evaluation methodology of the bids proposed by the potential bidders.
6. Government Contracts Regulations Exception(s)
The following exception(s) to the Government Contracts Regulations is (are) invoked for this procurement under subsection 6 (d) – only one person is capable of performing the work.
The identified supplier, Radiation Solutions Inc., is the only one able to meet all of the criteria identified in paragraph 3 above.
7. Exclusions and/or Limited Tendering Reasons
The following exclusion(s) and/or limited tendering reasons are invoked under the:
o Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) – Article: 513.1(b) (iii);
o World Trade Organization - Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP) – Under the Revised GPA - Article XIII, 1 (b) (iii).
o Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) – Article(s) Article 19.12 (b) (iii)
o Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) – Article(s): 15.10, 2 (b) (iii) (s)
o Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA) – Article(s) Kbis-09 (b), Article Kbis-09 (c)
o Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement – Article(s): 1409 (b) (iii).
o Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement – Article(s): 17.11 2 (b) (iii)
o Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement – Article 14.3, Under the Revised GPA - Article XIII, 1 (b) (iii).
o Canada-Panama Free Trade Agreement – Article(s) 16.10 (b) (iii)
o Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement (CPFTA) – Article (s1409 (b) (iii)
8. Ownership of Intellectual Property
Ownership of any Foreground Intellectual Property arising out of the proposed contract will vest in the Contractor.
9. Period of the proposed contract or delivery date
The proposed contract is for a period of three months from contract award to March 31, 2024.
10. Cost estimate of the proposed contract
The estimated value of the contract, including option(s), is $ 500,000.00 (GST/HST extra).
11. Name and address of the pre-identified supplier
Radiation Solutions Inc.
5875 Whittle Road
Mississauga, Ontario Canada
L4Z 2H4
12. Suppliers' right to submit a statement of capabilities
Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the goods, services or construction services described in the ACAN may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this notice on or before the closing date of this notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements.
13. Closing date for a submission of a statement of capabilities
The closing date and time for accepting statements of capabilities is December 18, 2023.
