Army SBIR 08 Topic Index

ARMY PROPOSAL SUBMITTAL The United States Army Research Office (ARO) manages the Army's Small
Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program. The following pages list
topics that have been approved for the fiscal year 2008 STTR program.
Proposals addressing these areas will be accepted for consideration if they
are received no later than the closing date and hour of this solicitation. The Army anticipates funding sufficient to award one or two STTR Phase I
contracts to small businesses with their partner research institutions in
each topic area. Awards will be made on the basis of technical evaluations
using the criteria contained in the solicitation, within the bounds of STTR
funds available to the Army. If no proposals within a given area merit
support relative to those in other areas, the Army will not award any
contracts for that topic. Phase I contracts are limited to a maximum of
$100,000 over a period not to exceed six months. Only Government personnel will evaluate proposals with the exception of
technical personnel from Science Applications International Corporation
(SAIC) and Azimuth, Inc. who will provide Advisory and Assistance Services
to the Army, providing technical analysis in the evaluation of proposals
submitted against Army topic numbers: A08-T035, A08-T038 and A08-T041.
Individuals from Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and
Azimuth, Inc. will be authorized access to only those portions of the
proposal data and discussions that are necessary to enable them to perform
their respective duties. These firms are expressly prohibited from
competing for STTR awards and from scoring or ranking of proposals or
recommending the selection of a source. In accomplishing their duties
related to the source selection process, the aforementioned firm may
require access to proprietary information contained in the offerors'
proposals. Therefore, pursuant to FAR 9.505-4, these firms must execute an
agreement that states that they will (1) protect the offerors' information
from unauthorized use or disclosure for as long as it remains proprietary
and (2) refrain from using the information for any purpose other than that
for which it was furnished. These agreements will remain on file with the
Army.
Please Note!
The Army requires that your entire proposal be submitted electronically
through the DoD-wide SBIR/STTR Proposal Submission Website
(http://www.dodsbir.net/submission). A hardcopy is NOT required. Hand or
electronic signature on the proposal is also NOT required. The DoD-wide SBIR/STTR Proposal Submission system (available at
http://www.dodsbir.net/submission) will lead you through the preparation
and submission of your proposal. Refer to section 3.0 at the front of this
solicitation for detailed instructions on Phase I proposal format. You
must include a Company Commercialization Report as part of each proposal
you submit; however, it does not count against the proposal page limit. If
you have not updated your commercialization information in the past year,
or need to review a copy of your report, visit the DoD SBIR/STTR Proposal
Submission site. Please note that improper handling of the
Commercialization Report may result in the proposal being substantially
delayed and that information provided may have a direct impact on the
review of the proposal. Refer to section 3.5d at the front of this
solicitation for detailed instructions on the Company Commercialization
Report. If you collaborate with a university, please highlight the research that
they are doing and verify that the work is FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH. Be reminded that if your proposal is selected for award, the technical
abstract and discussion of anticipated benefits will be publicly released
on the Internet. Therefore, do not include proprietary or classified
information in these sections. DoD will not accept classified proposals
for the STTR Program. Note also that the DoD web site contains data on all
DoD SBIR/STTR Phase I and II awards going back several years. This
information can be viewed on the DoD SBIR/STTR Awards Search website at
www.dodsbir.net/awards. Based upon progress achieved under a Phase I contract, utilizing the
criteria in Section 4.3, a firm may be invited to submit a Phase II
proposal (however, Fast Track Phase II proposals do not require invitation
- see Section 4.5 of this solicitation). Phase II proposals should be
structured as follows: the first 10-12 months (base effort) should be
approximately $375,000; the second 10-12 months of funding should also be
approximately $375,000. The entire Phase II effort should generally not
exceed $750,000. Contract structure for the Phase II contract is at the
discretion of the Army's Contracting Officer after negotiations with the
small business. The Army does not issue interim or option funding between STTR phase I and
II efforts, but will provide accelerated phase II proposal evaluation and
contracting for projects that qualify for fast-track status. Army STTR Contracts may be fully funded or funded using options or
incremental funding.
CONTRACTOR MANPOWER REPORTING (CMR) (Note: Applicable only to U.S. Army
issued STTR contracts) Accounting for Contract Services, otherwise known as Contractor Manpower
Reporting (CMR), is a Department of Defense Business Initiative Council
(BIC) sponsored program to obtain better visibility of the contractor
service workforce. This reporting requirement applies to all STTR
contracts issued by an Army Contracting Office. Offerors are instructed to include an estimate for the cost of complying
with CMR as part of the cost proposal for Phase I ($100,000 max) and Phase
II ($750,000 max), under "CMR Compliance" in Other Direct Costs. This is
an estimated total cost (if any) that would be incurred to comply with the
CMR requirement. Only proposals that receive an award will be required to
deliver CMR reporting, i.e. if the proposal is selected and an award is
made, the contract will include a deliverable for CMR. To date, there has been a wide range of estimated costs for CMR. While
most final negotiated costs have been minimal, there appears to be some
higher cost estimates that can often be attributed to misunderstanding the
requirement. The STTR program desires for the Government to pay a fair and
reasonable price. This technical analysis is intended to help determine
this fair and reasonable price for CMR as it applies to STTR contracts. . The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Manpower & Reserve
Affairs) operates and maintains the secure CMR System. The CMR website
is located here: https://contractormanpower.army.pentagon.mil/. . The CMR requirement consists of the following 13 items, which are
located within the contract document, the contractor's existing cost
accounting system (i.e. estimated direct labor hours, estimated direct
labor dollars), or obtained from the contracting officer
representative:
1) Contracting Office, Contracting Officer, Contracting Officer's
Technical Representative; 2) Contract number, including task and delivery order number; 3) Beginning and ending dates covered by reporting period; 4) Contractor name, address, phone number, e-mail address, identity
of contractor employee entering data; 5) Estimated direct labor hours (including sub-contractors); 6) Estimated direct labor dollars paid this reporting period
(including sub-contractors); 7) Total payments (including sub-contractors); 8) Predominant Federal Service Code (FSC) reflecting services
provided by contractor (and separate predominant FSC for each
sub-contractor if different); 9) Estimated data collection cost; 10) Organizational title associated with the Unit Identification
Code (UIC) for the Army Requiring Activity (The Army Requiring
Activity is responsible for providing the contractor with its
UIC for the purposes of reporting this information); 11) Locations where contractor and sub-contractors perform the work
(specified by zip code in the United States and nearest city,
country, when in an overseas location, using standardized
nomenclature provided on website); 12) Presence of deployment or contingency contract language; and 13) Number of contractor and sub-contractor employees deployed in
theater this reporting period (by country). . The reporting period will be the period of performance not to exceed
12 months ending September 30 of each government fiscal year and must
be reported by 31 October of each calendar year.
. According to the required CMR contract language, the contractor may
use a direct XML data transfer to the Contractor Manpower Reporting
System database server or fill in the fields on the Government website.
The CMR website also has a no-cost CMR XML Converter Tool. . The CMR FAQ explains that a fair and reasonable price for CMR should
not exceed 20 hours per contractor. Please note that this charge is
PER CONTRACTOR not PER CONTRACT, for an optional one time set up of the
XML schema to upload the data to the server from the contractor's
payroll systems automatically. This is not a required technical
approach for compliance with