This is a Sources Sought Notice ONLY. Requests for copies of a solicitation will not receive a response.

This Notice is for planning purposes only and is not a Request for Proposal, Request for Quotation, or an obligation on the part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to conduct a follow-on acquisition.

This Notice assists the Government in determining whether there are any domestically manufactured end product sources for the project title.

NIST does not intend to award a contract based on this Notice or otherwise pay for the information requested. No entitlement or payment of direct or indirect costs or charges by NIST will arise as a result of the submission of responses to this Notice and NISTs use of such information. Any proprietary, classified, or sensitive information should be presented as an addendum to the non-restricted/non-proprietary information. In the absence of such identification, NIST will assume to have unlimited rights to all technical data in the information paper.

NO SOLICITATION DOCUMENTS EXIST AT THIS TIME.

NIST requires a furnace that can be controlled using a Labview software interface so that we can measure and control the internal oxygen partial pressure and temperature using a PID driven feedback loop. The furnace must be able to meet the following requirements:

1. The furnace must be a single-zone tube furnace with horizontal orientation.
2. The furnace must be cable of operation up to at least 1600 oC.
3. The furnace must be sized for and supplied with an 80 mm or 3-inch outer diameter aluminum oxide tube.
4. The aluminum oxide tube supplied with the furnace must have a minimum Al2O3 purity of 99.7%.
5. The furnace must have a digital control touch screen installed on the furnace controller.
6. The furnace controller must be able to store at least 24 individual temperature programs with a minimum of 24 segments per program.
7. The furnace must operate using SiC heating elements.
8. It must be possible to connect the furnace to a PC in order to control the operation of the furnace using LabView software, and all relevant software relevant to controlling the furnace via PC must be supplied.
9. The furnace must operate on 3-phase 220 V.
10. The furnace must be supplied with gas tight end caps attached to the furnace tube via quick connect flanges.
11. The end caps must be designed to facilitate water cooling.
12. Both end caps must be able to connect to gas flow and have an additional KF25 flange mounted to each endcap (the KF25 flange is required by the users in order to mount additional oxygen sensors and process sensors or thermocouples to either side of the tube).

NIST anticipates issuing a Request for Quotation in the fourth quarter of FY24 and is seeking responses from all responsible sources, including large and small businesses.

The associated North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 333994 - Industrial Process Furnace and Oven Manufacturing with a small business size standard of 500 Employees. Please include your company’s size classification, socio-economic status, and the country of origin of the manufactured end product in any response to this notice.

After the market research results are obtained and analyzed, NIST may conduct a competitive procurement and subsequently award a contract. Companies that can provide such items are requested to email a written response describing their abilities to rudolph.spencer@nist.gov no later than the response date for this Sources Sought Notice.

The following information is requested to be provided as part of the response to this Sources Sought Notice:

1. Name, Address, UEID, CAGE code, and point of contact information of your company.
2. Any information on the company’s small business certifications, if applicable.
3. Describe your company’s capabilities as they relate to the equipment described in this notice.
4. Describe your company’s previous experience providing the equipment described in this notice.
5. Indication of whether the equipment described in this notice is currently offered via your company’s GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contract, Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC), or other existing Governmentwide contract vehicle; and, if so, the contract number(s) for those vehicles.
6. Any other relevant information not listed above that the Government should consider in finalizing its market research.
7. Place of Manufacture: Is more than 55% of item manufactured domestically, and if not where is it manufactured?

Responses are limited to a total of twelve (12) pages. The responses must be in MS Word format. Pages shall be 8½-inch x 11-inch, using Times New Roman 11 Point Font. Each page shall have adequate margins on each side (at least one inch) of the page. Header/footer information (which does not include any information to be analyzed) may be included in the 1" margin space.

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