Proposal Submittal and Evaluation Information - updated 9-3-2020.pdf

PROPOSAL PREPARATION AND EVALUATION INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION:

USDA Rural Development intends to establish a single award IDIQ to issue Task Orders for services as defined in the PWS Scope and identified by CLINS.

The IDIQ Award and subsequent Task Orders are subject to Availability of Funds.

Task orders may encompass one or more of the CLINS (FA areas).

The IDIQ maximum is $47,600,000. The IDIQ minimum is $10,000.

Task Order types allowed under this IDIQ will be Firm Fixed Price.

Tasks Orders will be issued when requirements are required by the ordering activity.

Only the Contracting Officer is authorized to issue a Task Order under this agreement.

This requirement shall be procured using the Tradeoff selection procedures in accordance with FAR Part 15.101-1: Tradeoff Process.

One solicitation will be issued for this acquisition. For the purposes of this solicitation, amendments may be posted as necessary. The evaluations are subjective based on the information provided in response to the information requested in the evaluation factors.

ELIGIBILITY: In order to be eligible for award, the business must have a valid and active System for Award Management (SAM) registration.

This is an 8A set aside solicitation. 8(a) Joint Ventures are permitted to propose. However, CTA teaming scenarios are not.

Therefore, for factors involving Experience and Past Performance, any Offerors that are partners of an 8(a) Joint Venture (JV) may submit their experience and past performance. In other words, all JV partners could submit experience and/or past performance, or only one JV partner, two partners, etc..

PROPOSAL SUBMITTAL AND AWARD INFORMATION:

A. Proposals - Offeror’s are to submit the electronic copies of the Technical Proposal and Price Proposal to the email address below. NO FAXED PROPOSALS WILL BE ACCEPTED.

Include in your email submission Subject line, the Solicitation number.

Submit your Proposal package to:

Christy.Glass@USDA.gov

Contracting Officer, Rural Development

Offeror’s shall prepare the Technical Proposal with the Selection Criteria and Evaluation Factors in mind, in terms of both content and organization, to facilitate evaluation.

The Technical Proposal & Past Performance” and “Price Proposal” sections must be submitted in separate files, or volumes.

A complete Proposal submittal shall consist of at least 3 electronic files in total.

mailto:Christy.Glass@USDA.gov

• One MS Word and/or Adobe Acrobat PDF file containing a Proposal Response for TECHNICAL PROPOSAL and PAST PERFOMANCE – Section One as detailed below.

• One completed MS Excel pricing spread sheet file, − with One or two MS Word and/or Adobe Acrobat PDF file containing pricing narrative and

Deliverables-Schedule Pricing for PRICE PROPOSAL – Section Two, as detailed below.

(Therefore, at least two files for Section Two.)

For the purposes of this solicitation, one page is defined as one electronic page which is no larger than 8.5” x 11” with 1” margins on all sides. Font shall be either Times New Roman or Arial and the font size shall be no smaller than 11. However, for tables and graphics, font size no smaller than 6 may be used. For headers and footers, please do not use font size smaller than 8.

Offerors may present an 8.5x11” page in landscape format if used solely for a wide table or graphic.

Electronic quotation files shall be free of any restrictions which prevent or limit the Government’s ability to copy, print, comment, etc. within the electronic documents.

Any proprietary information must be marked as such either in the page footer/header.

B. Questions regarding the Request for Proposals:

All questions shall be submitted to the above e-mail address no later than 3:00 PM EST on September 3, 2020. There is no guarantee that questions received after this time will be answered. The earlier the questions are submitted, the earlier a response should be able to be posted.

C. Evaluation factors and Criteria for Award

1. The Government will evaluate proposals submitted in response to this solicitation, which meet the requirements in accordance with the evaluation factors listed. Offerors are required to meet all solicitation requirements, including terms and conditions, representations and certifications. Failure to provide the minimal information needed for each factor will result in the Proposal being considered non-responsive.

2. The Government reserves the right to make cost/technical tradeoffs that are in the best interest and to the advantage of the Government. The Government reserves the right to accept other than the lowest priced offer. The right is also reserved to reject any and all offers.

3. Award may be made without discussions, except for minor clarifications.

4. This procurement will be a single award on a best value basis resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror, whose technical/cost relationship represents the best value to the Government.

The tradeoff process will be used to evaluate the proposals of all offerors responding to this solicitation.

5. Options. The Government will evaluate offers for award purposes by adding the total price for all options to the total price for the base requirement. The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable if the option prices are significantly unbalanced. Evaluation of options shall not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s).

PROPOSAL FORMAT

TECHNICAL PROPOSAL and PAST PERFOMANCE – Section One Combine the following tabs into one document with page breaks for each tab.

(Note that Section One does not contain page limitations, however, the individual factors as discussed below do have page limitations.)

TAB A. General Information – no page limit.

• Cover Page to include: Solicitation Number, Project Title, Company’s DUNS Number, Cage Code, Tax ID number, Principle points of contact, EMAIL ADDRESS, mailing address, phone numbers, etc.

• Table of Contents

• Since this solicitation is not utilizing a SF1449 or SF33, as per FAR instructions, please just include a statement that (whoever the authorized signatory is) acknowledges the solicitation RFP 12SAD120R0016, and its attachments, and Amendment documents one through (xxx whatever number we end with) and is providing this proposal in response to the aforementioned RFP. Include a statement that your company’s proposal is valid for 120 days. Make sure the page is signed and dated by the by the owner or authorized representative who is named in the document, and that persons, title and contact information in included in the document.

• Executive Summary may be included; This is optional.

TAB B: Program’s Management Plan Objective - (5-page max) TAB C: Technical Approach - (20-page max) TAB D: Technical Qualifications and Experience - (10-page max) TAB E. Management Approach and Key personnel - (10-page max) TAB F: Quality Control Plan - (5-page max) TAB G. Past Performance - (10-page max)

PRICE PROPOSAL – Section Two (Note that Section two does not have any page limitations.)

TAB A: General Information

• Cover Page to include: Solicitation Number, Project Title, Company’s DUNS Number, Cage Code, Tax ID number, Principle points of contact, EMAIL ADDRESS, mailing address, phone numbers, etc.

• Table of Contents

• Representations & Certifications:

For Offerors that have completed SAM and its SAM is updated (which should be all Offerors) you may substitute the following in place of including the entire 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items and For 52.204-26, Covered Telecommunications Equipment or Services-Representation: “Required excerpt of 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items.”

(b) (1) Annual Representations and Certifications. Any changes provided by the Offeror in paragraph (b)(2) of this provision do not automatically change the representations and certifications in SAM

(2) The offeror has completed the annual representations and certifications electronically in SAM accessed through http://www.sam.gov. After reviewing SAM information, the Offeror verifies by submission of this offer that the representations and certifications currently posted electronically at FAR 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items, have been entered or updated in the last 12 months, are current, accurate, complete, and applicable to this solicitation (including the business size standard(s) applicable to the NAICS code(s) referenced for this solicitation), at the time this offer is submitted and are incorporated in this offer by reference (see FAR 4.1201), except for paragraphs ______________.

[Offeror to identify the applicable paragraphs at (c) through (v) of this provision that the offeror has completed for the purposes of this solicitation only, if any.

These amended representation(s) and/or certification(s) are also incorporated in this offer and are current, accurate, and complete as of the date of this offer.

Any changes provided by the offeror are applicable to this solicitation only, and do not result in an update to the representations and certifications posted electronically on

SAM.]

(v) Covered Telecommunications Equipment or Services-Representation. Section 889(a)(1)(A) of Public Law 115-232.

(1) The Offeror shall review the list of excluded parties in the System for Award Management (SAM) (https://www.sam.gov) for entities excluded from receiving federal awards for “covered telecommunications equipment or services”.

(2) The Offeror represents that it □ does, □ does not provide covered telecommunications equipment or services as a part of its offered products or services to the Government in the performance of any contract, subcontract, or other contractual instrument.

(End of Required excerpt of 52.212-3 Provision)

For 52.204-8 Annual Representations and Certifications. – please follow instructions and include in full in this section.

For 52.219-1 Small Business Program Representations – please follow instructions and include in full in this section.

TAB B:

• Pricing o Sub-section 1 o Sub-section 2 o Sub-section 3 o Sub-section 4

PROPOSAL EVALUATION/SELECTION CRITERIA

A. Tradeoff Selection and Evaluation Procedures:

1. Proposal Evaluation/Selection Criteria: This will be an evaluation utilizing the TRADE OFF PROCESS. A tradeoff process is appropriate when it may be in the best interest of the Government to consider award to other than the lowest priced Offeror or other than the highest technically rated Offeror. Reference FAR 15.101-1

2. ALL EVALUATION FACTORS, OTHER THAN COST OR PRICE, WHEN COMBINED, WILL

BE CONSIDERED OF EQUAL IMPORTANCE THAN COST OR PRICE. PAST

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION IS DESCRIBED BELOW IN THE CRITERIA SECTION.

EACH EVALUATION FACTOR, OTHER THAN COST OR PRICE WILL BE WEIGHTED

APPROXIMATELY EQUAL.

3. Evaluations are based on the information provided in response to the information requested in the below evaluation factors.

4. The Contracting Officer, with the assistance of qualified Technical Evaluators, will evaluate

Sections of each Proposal to determine the offer’s ability to accomplish the work as set forth in this solicitation. Evaluation will be based solely on the evaluation factors and criteria detailed below in Criteria Sections.

5. It is intended that a Best Value award will be made; therefore, all offerors are advised that their best terms and conditions should be presented in their initial Proposal. Offerors should not assume that they will have an opportunity to participate in discussions or be asked to submit a revised offer.

Award of a conforming Proposal may be made without discussions, if deemed to be within the best interests of the Government; however, offerors are advised that exchanges (discussions /negotiations) may occur if deemed necessary.

i. The Government will award a firm fixed-price contract to that responsible Offeror whose Proposal, conforming to the solicitation, is fair and reasonable, and has been determined to be most advantageous to the Government, considering quality, price and other factors. The Government reserves the right to accept other than the lowest priced offer. The right is also reserved to reject any and all offers.

ii. Each Offeror’s Proposal shall address the following evaluation factors.

B. Evaluation Criteria NOTE: The purpose of technical factors is to assess whether the Offeror’s Proposal response will satisfy the Government’s requirements. Please note that any Proposal narrative should tell the story (the how) the offeror intends to accomplish all the requirements of the PWS. Offeror’s Proposal response should demonstrate a full understanding of the work contained in the PWS and the associated risks. Do not simply copy and paste the PWS into your Proposal response.

1. Criteria

Factor 1: Ability to follow Solicitation instructions and Proposal Organization, appearance, & completeness. Please try to be concise and only include relevant substantive information in the below factors. Do not interpret the maximum page limit to mean that Offeror must submit that maximum page count.

Factor 2: Program’s Management Plan Objective (5-page max) A Management Plan outlining the Offeror’s overall plan of how they intend to accomplish, administer and manage requirements which the Government may request under this contract as detailed in the PWS. The management plan shall explain access to and capabilities of resources available to the contractor for performance of the PWS requirements. Additionally, the plan shall document the offeror’s capability to direct the proper level of management toward the services required. Agile Project Methodology from Project Kick-off to close-out to lessons learned should be included in this plan.

Factor 3: Technical Approach (20-page max)

(i) Provide a narrative that details the technical approach that leads to successful performance of the PWS tasks. The narrative shall demonstrate proven methods and techniques, and the extent to which the offeror’s methods and approach to the performing the PWS tasks are expected to result in successful completion of the proposed tasks and technical requirements within. This should include all aspects of the scope of work.

(ii) Proposed technical solutions - Describe any technical difficulties that may be encountered in any of the PWS tasks. Provide a narrative of preventative measures or solutions to overcome these issues.

Factor 4: Technical Qualifications and Experience (10-page max) Offeror shall provide description of Offeror’s capabilities, background and relevant information regarding stability and strengths and shall provide evidence of ability to perform the services of this PWS. Experience under this sub-factor is what work your company has performed in the past, regardless as to whether your company’s experience was as a Prime or Sub.

Note, if your company does not have Experience ranging over the entire PWS requirements, please submit what your experience your company does possess regarding specific PWS tasks.

This section should include relevant and recent Experience of the offeror’s team. Relevant experience means projects/acquisitions of similar scope and in similar or greater magnitude as described in the PWS. Where the Offeror served as the Prime Contractor is preferable.

Recent is defined as experience within the last five years through the solicitation release date.

Submit no more than 5 references. Offeror may submit less than five references.

Each experience example shall include the following:

(i) Brief description of project and dollar value

(ii) Identify Prime contractor and all major subcontractors

(iii) If your company was a subcontractor, include the work performed and the quantity of work per the overall acquisition or/and each area of the acquisition.

Factor 5: Management Approach and Key personnel (10-page max)

(1) Management Team: Describe the management team organization. Describe the Management Team’s plan for managing the PWS tasks (administration). Offeror may want to include an organizational chart. The focus of this sub-factor is on the Management Team.

(2) Quality Control Team: Describe the quality control team organization. Provide the specific description of the tasks and functions of the quality control personnel. Clearly identify each member's employer. Describe the team relating to Offeror’s Quality Assurance program.

Describe the precautions taken by the management team to ensure that risk control is kept satisfactorily throughout the project. Describe the different risk control aspects to this work and why they are so important. Offeror may want to include an organizational chart.

(3) Identify key personnel to be assigned to the project, to include principal managers, and technical personnel, who will be directly responsible for the day-to-day activities. If reassignment of personnel is considered possible, provide the names and resumes (or a paragraph describing the person’s experience/credentials in place of a resume) of the alternative professionals in each assignment. Include a tentative organizational chart.

(4) Offeror may propose cross-functional teams consisting of dedicated team members per Focus Area consistent with the requirements in the PWS.

(5) Any resumes submitted will not be considered part of the page count. However, each resume should be no longer than two pages. However, Resumes are not required for key personnel as a paragraph describing their experience/credentials will suffice.

(6) Offeror is not required to provide all proposed labor categories (LCATs) by Focus Area (FA) with a description of each specific LCAT requirement.

Factor 6: Quality Control Plan (5-page max)

Develop a brief plan specific to PWS Tasks. The plan shall reflect monitoring of work to ensure a high level of service quality. The plan shall show how quality control will be handled with the different levels of work, different sections of the PWS and any Task Orders, and types of inspection needed to meet the requirements.

Examples of plan characteristics (these characteristics are suggestions and plan are not intended to be limited to this list):

(a) The specific policy establishing schedules for the performance of quality control tasks.

(b) System of records and documentation for all Quality Control inspections

(c) Inspection methods such as planned, 100% or random, and frequency of inspections to ensure quality work.

(d) Detail what actions will be taken and by whom, from the detection of a deficiency to the corrective action.

(e) A policy for reporting quality control findings to the Contracting Officer.

(f) A procedure whereby the Contracting Officer may resolve disputes that have not received satisfactory responses from the first levels of quality control personnel.

(g) The plan for review, evaluation, and Contractor quality control of submittals, prior to Government receipt.

Factor 7: Past Performance. (10-page max) Relevant and recent Past Performance of the offeror’s team; Relevant performance means projects of similar scope and in similar or greater magnitude as described in the PWS, preferably where the Offeror served as the Prime Contractor.

Note, if your company does not have past performance ranging over the entire PWS requirements, please submit what past performance your company does possess regarding specific PWS tasks.

Recent is defined as performance within the last five years through the solicitation release date.

Past performance under this factor is only the performance of your company, regardless as to whether your company’s performance was as a Prime or Sub. Do not use the past performance of a company that was your Sub-contractor as your past performance. Do not use the past performance of a Prime company for whom you were a Sub-contractor as your performance.

Make sure that the past performance discusses your company’s performance, not some other company’s performance.

The Past Performance may come from either federal contracts or commercial projects.

Vendors may use a single-award IDIQ as a past performance reference.

Submit no more than 5 references. Offeror may submit less than five references.

Please send the Client Past Performance Questionnaire to your references and, ask them to complete and email it to the Contracting Officer prior to the RFP due date. (Yes, you may turn the PDF into a word document and send that to your past clients.)

The Client Past Performance Questionnaires emailed directly to the Contracting Officer do not count as part of the page count maximum.

It is understandable that your Company’s Past Performance references may not want to complete the Client Past Performance Questionnaire; however, your Company will be viewed more favorably than a Company that cannot obtain Client Past Performance Questionnaires.

Each past performance reference shall include the following:

(1) Very brief description of project and dollar value

(2) Identify Prime contractor and all major subcontractors

(3) Project completion time

NOTE: CPAR reports not acceptable in lieu of the past performance questionnaire formats

NOTE: The offeror may include client or third-party documentation as part of their Proposal demonstrating how well they performed on relevant projects, such as awards, customer letters of commendation, or customer performance evaluations.

NOTE: The Offeror must submit past performance information or affirmatively state that it possesses no relevant past performance.

NOTE: If your company has customers who have completed CPAR reports, and who are not willing to complete additional performance documentation on the basis that they have provided government-documented performance marks via that system; You may provide that as your response, and that you have no clients that will participate in completing a Client Evaluation Form.

NOTE: The Government will evaluate the offerors past performance based upon the project information submitted. Offerors lacking relevant past performance history will not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably in past performance. However, the Proposal of an offeror with no relevant past performance history, while rated “No Rating” in past performance, may not represent the most advantageous Proposal to the Government.

An Offeror may include links to CPARS/PPIRS, if they choose. Including links to CPARS/PPIRS is not required.

NOTE: The Government may also utilize the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS), Dun and Bradstreet, Excluded Parties List System, Central Contractor Registration, Online Representations and Certifications Application, and other publicly accessible databases.

Factor 8: Price – Proposal:

Basis of Evaluation:

The Government will evaluate pricing proposals for award purposes by adding the Vendor’s total contract line item number (CLIN) prices for the base year requirement with the total CLIN prices for all option periods. The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable if the option prices and/or price breakdown schedule prices are significantly unbalanced.

Price analysis will be performed by one or more of the following techniques to ensure a fair and reasonable price:

(i) Comparison of a proposed Vendor’s total and CLIN pricing, taking into consideration the breakdown per each CLIN with other Vendor proposed total and CLIN pricing. For IDIQ pricing guidance on CLIN structure, please read the PWS.

(ii) Comparison of proposed vendor prices with the IGCE.

(iii) Comparison of proposed vendor prices with available historical information.

(iv) Comparison of proposed vendor prices with market survey results.

Option periods will be considered to have been evaluated at the time the proposal pricing is evaluated.

Pricing Section must include four sub-sections:

There are no page limits for this section, nor a specified format, nor any specific pricing list that a Vendor must use.

Proposed labor categories (LCATS), Hours for each LCAT, and Rates by LCAT for each FA are not required for submission. This will not be a labor-hour contract.

Cost per FA and a deliverable schedule is sufficient.

Team information should be described within the Vendor’s response for Proposal Factor 5.

1. Sub-section one:

The offeror shall provide a total price, (in MS Excel) which includes the base year and all option years along with the following price breakdown:

i. per each CLIN & SubCLIN.

ii. per base and each option period.

The Contract Line Item Number (CLIN) Structure table in the PWS is the format that should be followed for the Pricing Spreadsheet.

2. Sub-section two:

The following supporting information will be utilized for analysis purposes; however, it will not be used to evaluate pricing among Vendors.

i. Vendor is to submit a Deliverables-Schedule Pricing chart for each CLIN & SubCLIN deliverable in correlation to Vendor’s milestone schedule, to reflect anticipated accepted deliverables for each anticipated invoiced time-period.

a. A brief Deliverables-Schedule Pricing Example is provided as an attachment.

ii. A separate Deliverables-Schedule Pricing chart for each CLIN would be more understandable, but one consolidated chart is also acceptable.

A Deliverable breakdown is required to assist in determining that a Vendor has priced all individual PWS areas and that each item is priced reasonably, etc and will be utilized for the Awardee Vendor’s future invoicing submissions. Future invoice payments will be dependent on the Vendor’s Deliverables-Schedule Pricing. However, there is not a precise deliverable breakdown format required.

After award of the IDIQ, an updated Deliverables-Schedule Pricing Breakdown may be required by the CO before Task Order issuance.

3. Sub-section three:

Explanation narrative. Please feel free to include any information relevant.

Vendor is not required to include information on i, ii, iii, or iv below. See following comments to clarify as to what these elements are referencing or why Vendor may want to include a statement.

i. Basis of price. This is to assist the Vendor & USDA by documenting any relevant sources that Vendor may be relying on for pricing.

ii. Clarifications and Assumptions.

iii. Exclusions. Vendor may state that pricing does not include A,B,C … anything that

Vendor does not want USDA to infer that is in Vendor pricing that customarily may be included in such services.

iv. Rationale for rates used, etc.… Example: Suppose a vendor has an incredibly low price on a particular service area, here is where Vendor could explain the extremely lower-than-market pricing, allowing USDA to be aware of Vendor’s intention.

4. Sub-section four:

For CLIN 0004, FFP – FA4: Legacy System Enhancement or Modernization Planning - The Contractor shall provide dependent legacy agile development services for the Government in accordance with the PWS FA4, Sprint Iteration estimated length of 3 weeks, with estimated story points of 150. Therefore, please provide a narrative demonstrating two project examples that would fit within those parameters.

RATING SYSTEM:

The Government will assess its level of confidence that the offering contractor will successfully perform all requirements in regard to the criteria factors above.

Rating System Chart for evaluation factors:

High Confidence The Government has high confidence that the Offeror understands the requirement, proposes a sound approach, and will be successful in performing the contract with little or no Government intervention.

Satisfactory Confidence The Government has satisfactory confidence that the Offeror understands the requirement, proposes a sound approach, and will be successful in performing the contract with some Government intervention.

Low Confidence The Government has low confidence that the Offeror understands the requirement, proposes a sound approach, or will be successful in performing the contract even with Government intervention.

Unknown Confidence Relates only to Past Performance factor. No recent/relevant performance record is available, or the offeror’s performance record is so sparse that no meaningful confidence assessment rating can be reasonable assigned.