Amendment 004 Questions and Answers.pdf

Section of RFP: N/A Page of RFP Referenced: N/A Paragraph of Page: N/A Description of Question: 1. Provide a list of certified vendors interested in technology related procurements and Provide information of prime vendors in search of partnerships with sub-contractors related to this RFP.

NIST Response NIST does not maintain a list of certified vendors or list of interested bidders.

Section of RFP: 10 Page of RFP Referenced: 18 Paragraph of Page: 5 Description of Question: Can the government provide an estimated percentage of travel expected or allocated budget set aside for travel and/or not to exceed amount for the ID/IQ?

NIST Response Travel costs are included in the ceiling of the IDIQ. However, the anticipated travel costs or expected travel required will be detailed in the individual task order PWS'. The Government will not set/specify a percentage of the IDIQ ceiling to be attributed to travel costs.

The Government will either provide an expected level of travel or will provide a NTE cost within each of the task order PWS', if travel is required or expected.

Section of RFP: 10 Page of RFP Referenced: 18 Paragraph of Page: 5 Description of Question: What is the estimated percentage of work to be performed at the contractor’s site NIST Response This will vary per task order. The Government will indicate within each task order PWS whether work is required onsite.

Section of RFP: L.2 Page of RFP Referenced: 70 Paragraph of Page: 6 Description of Question:

Is there a minimum/maximum page count for resumes of Key Personnel presented in the Technical?

NIST Response Please reference the "Instructions to Offerors" section, page 69 of the RFP. Resumes shall be provided as an attachment to the corresponding volumes (I and II), and each resume shall be limited to three

(3) pages in length.

Section of RFP: N/A Page of RFP Referenced: N/A Paragraph of Page: N/A Description of Question: Has the government discerned the clearance level needed for this contract?

NIST Response NIST does not anticipate any work that requires confidential, secret, or top secret clearances.

Section of RFP: Schedule Page of RFP Referenced: 3

Question #: 2

Question #: 1

Question #: 3

Question #: 4

Inquiries - ITDASS IDIQ RFP Amendment 004

Question #: 5

Question #: 6

Paragraph of Page: N/A Description of Question: 1. Based on our reading is it correct to say govt has approved this RFP for NAICS code 541519 - size standard minimum 30 and maximum 45 Million?

2. Description of follow-up Question: Is there Incumbent? If yes, what’s name of the incumbent's business and incumbent’s contract number? Similarly, who are the current sub-contractors?

NIST Response 1. The size standards are for the most part expressed in either millions of dollars (those preceded by “$”) or number of employees (those without the “$”). A size standard is the largest that a concern can be and still qualify as a small business for Federal Government programs. For the most part, size standards are the average annual receipts or the average employment of a firm.

How to calculate average annual receipts and average employment of a firm can be found in 13 CFR §

121.104 and 13 CFR § 121.106, respectively. The NAICS code assigned to this acquisition (541519 - Other Computer Related Services) has a small business size standard of $30 million in average annual revenue receipts. The $45 million referenced in your question and in the RFP is the maximum ceiling (or maximum cumulative value of all orders placed under the IDIQ contracts) established for the respective IDIQ and is a completely separate and unrelated figure to the small business size standard.

2. Yes, the incumbent IDIQ contract numbers and holders are SB1341-15-CQ-0010 Prometheus Computing LLC, SB1341-15-CQ-0011 Electrosoft Services, Inc., and SB1341-15-CQ-0012 Chakra Consulting, Inc. Their contact information can be publicly located.

Section of RFP: K.7 52.212-3 OFFEROR REPRESENTATIONS AND CERTIFICATIONS--COMMERCIAL ITEMS (MAR 2020)

Page of RFP Referenced: 57 Paragraph of Page: Applicable to EDMWOB Description of Question: Considering this contract totally (100%) set aside for small business is there additional documentation to be submitted for joint response either before or along with the RFP response?

NIST Response It is unclear if the question is referring to the submission of a proposal by a Joint Venture (JV) or some other arrangement like a Prime/Subcontractor arrangement. Please refer to the "Instructions to Offerors" section of the RFP for all submission requirements.

Section of RFP: b. For task orders in excess of $5.5 million, a request for proposals will be distributed to all contract holders and will contain, at a minimum, d. evaluation factors award of task orders.

Page of RFP Referenced: 33 Paragraph of Page: d Description of Question: In reference to * Specialized Experience, Past Performance* Are these evaluation factors related only to Government's Contract on the same technology/platform?

Or will similar commercial project’s experience will be treated as Govt? If yes, then what do you recommend (e.g. specific format) for offeror to use during submission of response to show non- Government experience?

Question #: 7

Question #: 8

NIST Response The section you reference is in the "IDIQ Contract Information" section of the RFP and is referring to potential evaluation factors for future task order competitions. Future task order RFQs will incorporate specific evaluation factors and instructions to offerors as they are issued throughout the period of performance of the IDIQ contract. It is possible that a given future task order RFQ may specify that the Government will only consider past performance on Federal Government contracts;

however, each individual task order RFQ will detail the specific past performance requirements for that acquisition.

The past performance evaluation factor for this IDIQ RFP can be found on page 78 of the RFP and does not require the past performance references to be for Federal Government contracts only.

However, the past performance evaluation does consider the relevance of the past performance to the current requirement, and it is possible that the relevancy of a given past performance effort to the current requirement may be affected by whether the past effort was for other than a Federal Government contract, depending on the nature of the work, size, complexity, etc. The instructions for submitting past performance information for this IDIQ RFP begins on page 70 of the RFP.

Section of RFP: Clause (16) 52.219-8, Utilization of Small Business Concerns (Oct 2018) (15 U.S.C. 637(d)(2) and (3)).

Page of RFP Referenced: 43 Paragraph of Page: (23) 52.219-29, Notice of Set-Aside for, or Sole Source Award to, Economically Disadvantaged

Description of Question: What are critical clauses and compliance factors specifically applicable to the joint bidding for an EDMOSB firm (economically disadvantaged minority woman owned small business)?

Can you please provide check list of all of these items for both the Partners (Joint Bidding)? Since it’s a different scenario than one company (single) submitting bid to this RFP.

NIST Response It is unclear what the term "Joint Bidding" is referring to in this question. This could refer to the submission of a proposal as a Joint Venture (JV), some form of teaming arrangement, a prime/sub contractor relationship, etc. Therefore, the Government cannot provide a specific checklist of all items that both partners would need to comply with. In general though, if the question is referring to the submission of a proposal by a JV, each member of the JV must meet the small business size standard requirements in order for the JV itself to be considered a small business under the applicable size standard, the JV must of course be actively registered in SAM, etc. The Government's response to this question cannot be all-encompassing given the uncertainty in the question, but in general all offerors must comply with all applicable terms and conditions in the RFP.

Section of RFP: VOLUME I: NON-PRICE VOLUME – BASE IDIQ, Section 3 & Attachment 2 PPQ Page of RFP Referenced: 71 Paragraph of Page: Paragraph 1

Question #: 10

Question #: 9

Description of Question: The Government states “The Offeror’s references shall not submit completed questionnaires directly to the government. The Offeror must submit the questionnaires completed by their references, as attachments to the quotation”.

However the Attachment 2 PPQ Instructions states “References are asked to complete all items set forth in this Questionnaire and should return the completed and signed form electronically to the Requester and not the Contractor being evaluated.”

The Attachment 2 PPQ Instructions conflict with that of Instructions to Offerors. The Government needs to change the instructions in Attachment 2 PPQ to reflect the intent and submit an updated

NIST Response The instructions given in the Instructions to Offerors section of the RFP prevail. The Offeror must submit the questionnaires completed by their references, as attachments to the proposal.

Attachment 2 PPQ was revised via Amendment 003 to align with the Instructions to Offerors.

Reference Attachment 2 PPQR1 from Amendment 003.

Section of RFP: Attachment 11 Pricing Worksheet Mock Task Order 3 and Mock Task Order 4 Page of RFP Referenced: N/A Paragraph of Page: N/A

Question #: 11

Description of Question: Can the offeror adjust the Task numbers within the Mock Task Order tabs in the Attachment 11 Pricing Worksheet excel file?

Within the Attachment 11 Pricing Worksheet – Mock Task Order # 3 tab is missing a column for Task # 3 and Mock Task Order # 4 tab has an extra column for Task 3.

NIST Response This error has been corrected. The revised Pricing Worksheet was posted as part of Amendment 003 to the RFP.

Section of RFP: J.1 List of Attachments (Attachments 3-10 and Task 1-8 mock) Page of RFP Referenced: 48 Paragraph of Page: Section 6 of each Mock Task 1-8 attachments states " The period of performance shall be 12 months from the effective start date of award".

Description of Question: The period of performance (POP) section 6 of each mock task order attachment states that POP will be 12 months from the effective start date of the award.

An actual start date for each task order will clarify in determining the deliverable dates for each mock task order.

NIST Response At this time NIST cannot specify an official start date for each Mock Task Order as it would be dependent on the specific award date of the base IDIQ contract(s), and on whether the Government chose to convert a given Mock Task Order into an actual task order (per the Government's rights reserved in the RFP). However, for the purposes of proposal preparation, Offerors may use a projected start date of April 1, 2021 for the Mock Task Orders. Offerors are not required to use this as the projected start date, but at minimum Offerors should assume an estimated start date for the Mock Task Order that occurs in Quarter 2 or 3 of FY2021 during the Base Period of the IDIQ contract itself, for proposal preparation purposes.

Section of RFP: Volume II: Non-rice Volume Mock Task Orders Page of RFP Referenced: 71 Paragraph of Page: 1 Description of Question: The Government has specified the 15 page limit for each of the three (3) or more task orders. Would the Government specify a page limit for this volume to cover introduction to this volume?

Can you specify the start and end date for each mock task order instead of 12 months from the effective start date of award?

NIST Response See response under question 12 above.

Section of RFP: Section L Page of RFP Referenced: 72 Paragraph of Page: 1 Description of Question: The paragraph states: “Additionally, the Offeror shall break down its proposed pricing for each proposed Mock Task Order by each task delineated in the Mock Task Order PWS. Offerors must provide their proposed Mock Order Pricing in the form of a MS Excel spreadsheet, to be submitted as an attachment to the Offeror’s Volume III of the Proposal. Offerors shall use the format provided in Attachment 11 to the RFP”. For Mock Task Orders #3 and #4, the number of tasks specified in the respective PWS does not match the number of task columns Attachment 11 Pricing Worksheet. Is an offeror allowed to add or delete rows and columns in the Mock Task Order tabs of the Excel workbook to match the PWS specified tasks?

NIST Response This error has been corrected. The revised Pricing Worksheet was posted as part of Amendment 003 to the RFP.

Section of RFP: 5 Page of RFP Referenced: 14-17 Paragraph of Page: Scope of Work

Question #: 13

Question #: 12

Question #: 15

Question #: 14

Description of Question: The IDIQ scope is not clear enough for us to give a pointed response, could you please provide details as the tools, standards, and detailed system specifications for each of the task areas?

NIST Response The IDIQ scope is intentionally broad to allow for mutliple operating units within NIST to utilize the IDIQ once it is executed. However, specific details, background, and required tasks are typically established within each task order PWS's.

Section of RFP: 6 Page of RFP Referenced: 20-23 Paragraph of Page: Requried IDIQ Labor Categories Description of Question: Do you have an expected list of labor categories in mind for the IDIQ requirements? If so, can you please provide the list?

NIST Response Please refer to Section C, beginning of page 21 of the RFP.

Section of RFP: L.1 Page of RFP Referenced: 66 Paragraph of Page: Inquiries Description of Question: Can the Government consider a due date extension as the study and analysis required to respond to the RFP is quite time consuming to provide a quality response?

NIST Response Per the text in Amendment 004, the due date for proposals is hereby extended to 01/22/2021 at

12:00 PM Eastern.

Section of RFP: L.1 Page of RFP Referenced: 66 Paragraph of Page: Inquiriies Description of Question: Can the Government consider an extension to submit questions?

NIST Response No further questions will be accepted by the Government.

Section of RFP: RFP, Instructions to Offerors, Volume II: Non Price Volume Mock Task Orders Page of RFP Referenced: 70 Paragraph of Page: Technical Approach Description of Question: The instructions call for “proposed level of effort by labor category for each task within the Mock Task

Order PWS”. Should this be given for a period of one year? Also is the level of effort expected in dollars or hours?

NIST Response The proposed level of effort included in the Non-Price Volume should be given in hours, not dollars.

There should be no pricing information included in the Non-Price Volume. Additionally, the proposed level of effort for each task within each Mock Task Order PWS should be the total proposed level of effort the Offeror is proposing it will take to complete said task; this is not always based on a specific period of time, but rather should be the level of effort needed to successfully complete the task.

Section of RFP: RFP, Instructions to Offerors, Volume II: Non Price Volume Mock Task Orders Page of RFP Referenced: 70 Paragraph of Page: Key Personnel Description of Question: Please clarify the information required for each proposed Key Personnel. As the requirement limits resume to 3 pages, are full resumes, or resume summaries required for key personnel?

Question #: 20

Question #: 19

Question #: 18

Question #: 17

Question #: 16

NIST Response Resumes are limited to 3 pages each. Offerors may submit resumes in any format that is reasonably legible, that conforms to RFP requirements, and includes sufficient information to demonstrate the qualifications of the given candidate as they relate to the IDIQ RFP and its applicable section.

Section of RFP: RFP, Instructions to Offerors, Volume II: Non Price Volume Mock Task Orders Page of RFP Referenced: 70 Paragraph of Page: Key Personnel Description of Question:

Does the government have a preference for the number of key personnel proposed for each task order?

NIST Response The number of key personnel needed to perform the work will be determined on a per task order basis. NIST anticipates that the number of key personnel required for each mock task order is one.

Section of RFP: Attachment 3 Task 1 Mock SATE Page of RFP Referenced: 3-Feb Paragraph of Page: Specific Requirements Description of Question: Can the government provide historical data that will aid contractors in determining LOE required for each task? For example:

NIST Response While specific details requested above are not available, NIST anticipates the work detailed in this task order can sufficiently be performed by one FTE contractor employee.

Section of RFP: Attachment 4 Task 2 Mock Blockchain Page of RFP Referenced: 2 and 3 Paragraph of Page: Specific Requirements Description of Question: Can the government provide historical data that will aid contractors in determining LOE required for each task? For example:

NIST Response While specific details requested above are not available, NIST anticipates the work detailed in this task order can sufficiently be performed by one FTE contractor employee.

Section of RFP: Attachment 5 Task 3 Mock Conformance Lab Page of RFP Referenced: 3 and 4 Paragraph of Page: Specific Requirements Description of Question: Can the government provide historical data that will aid contractors in determining LOE required for each task? For example:

NIST Response While specific details requested above are not available, NIST anticipates the work detailed in this task order can sufficiently be performed by one FTE contractor employee.

Section of RFP: Attachment 6 Task 4 Mock Test Framework Page of RFP Referenced: 3 through 5

Question #: 21

Question #: 22

Question #: 23

Question #: 24

Question #: 25

Paragraph of Page: Specific Requirements Description of Question: Can the government provide historical data that will aid contractors in determining LOE required for each task? For example:

NIST Response While specific details requested above are not available, NIST anticipates the work detailed in this task order can sufficiently be performed by one FTE contractor employee.

Section of RFP: Attachment 7 Task 5 Mock Election Guidelines Page of RFP Referenced: 2 and 3 Paragraph of Page: Specific Requirements Description of Question: Can the government provide historical data that will aid contractors in determining LOE required for each task? For example:

NIST Response While specific details requested above are not available, NIST anticipates the work detailed in this task order can sufficiently be performed by one FTE contractor employee.

Section of RFP: Attachment 8 Task 6 Mock Image Analytics Page of RFP Referenced: 2 through 4 Paragraph of Page: Specific Requirements Description of Question: Can the government provide historical data that will aid contractors in determining LOE required for each task? For example:

NIST Response While specific details requested above are not available, NIST anticipates the work detailed in this task order can sufficiently be performed by one FTE contractor employee.

Section of RFP: Attachment 9 Task 7 Mock SCDCS Page of RFP Referenced: 2 through 4 Paragraph of Page: Specific Requirements Description of Question: Can the government provide historical data that will aid contractors in determining LOE required for each task? For example:

Task 1: Number of bug fixes and updates per year for the MCDS and the MRR systems Task 2: How many performance related updates of the various types are expected Task 3: How many user stories would be expected to be developed and implemented for MDCS and MRR Version 2.X releases?

NIST Response While specific details requested above are not available, NIST anticipates the work detailed in this task order can sufficiently be performed by one FTE contractor employee.

Section of RFP: Attachment 10 Task 8 Semantic Capabilities Page of RFP Referenced: 2 Paragraph of Page: Specific Requirements

Question #: 26

Question #: 27

Question #: 28

Question #: 29

Description of Question: Can the government provide historical data that will aid contractors in determining LOE required for each task? For example:

implementation of the new use cases. Is this correct?

NIST Response While specific details requested above are not available, NIST anticipates the work detailed in this task order can sufficiently be performed by one FTE contractor employee.

Regarding the portion of the question centered on Deliverables, NIST does not anticipate that this task order will include development and implementation of new use cases.

Section of RFP: Attachment 4 Task 2 Mock Blockchain Section 11 Page of RFP Referenced: 3 and 4 Paragraph of Page: Contractor Key Personnel Requirements Description of Question: Can the government waive or reduce the following Minimum requirements to 3 years?

• At least 5 years of experience conducting research in blockchain/distributed ledger technologies or a related field

NIST Response The referenced minimum experience requirements will remain unchanged.

Section of RFP: Attachment 5 Task 3 Conformance Lab Section E Page of RFP Referenced: 5 Paragraph of Page: Key Personnel Requirements Description of Question: Since the resources with years of experience with HL7 are really hard to find, can the government waive or reduce the following Minimum requirements to 5 years?

NIST Response The referenced minimum experience requirements will remain unchanged.

Section of RFP: Attachment 6 Task 4 Test Framework Section E Page of RFP Referenced: 7 Paragraph of Page: Key Personnel Requirements Description of Question: Can the government waive or reduce the following Minimum requirements to 3 years?

and V3 schemas

Question #: 32

Question #: 30

Question #: 31

NIST Response The referenced minimum experience requirements will remain unchanged.

Section of RFP: Attachment 7 Task 5 Election Guidelines Section E Page of RFP Referenced: 7 Paragraph of Page: Key Personnel Requirements Description of Question: Since resources with voting systems experience are very difficult to find can the government waive or reduce the following Minimum requirements to 3 years?

• At least 10 years of experience in the following areas:

-Voting systems and a working knowledge of elections

NIST Response The referenced minimum experience requirements will remain unchanged.

Section of RFP: Attachment 9 Task 7 SCDCS Section E Page of RFP Referenced: 8 Paragraph of Page: Key Personnel Requirements Description of Question: Since MDCS is relatively new finding resources in this discipline is quite difficult, can the government waive or reduce the following Minimum requirements to 2 years?

• At least 4 years of experience in the following area -Materials Data Curation System (MDCS) and Materials Resource Registry (MRR) systems, plugins, APIs, and tools

NIST Response The referenced minimum experience requirements will remain unchanged.

Section of RFP: RFP Section J.1 Page of RFP Referenced: 8 Paragraph of Page: List of Attachments Description of Question: In the RFP section where Task Orders are listed, attachment 5 Mock TO # 3 is listed as Test

Framework and attachment 6 Mock TO # 4 listed as Conformance Lab. However, the actual file name for Mock Task Order 3 is Conformance Lab and Mock task Order 4 is Test Framework. Can you please advise which is correct?

NIST Response This error has been corrected via Amendment 003 to the RFP.

Section of RFP: RFP Section L.2 Page of RFP Referenced: 69 and 70 Paragraph of Page: Past Performance Description of Question: As instructed in the RFP, the offerors are to submit the completed PPQ along with the quotation, usually federal agencies ask that the completed PPQ to be directly sent to them. Some of our clients may not be comfortable with sharing the completed questionnaire with us instead of the Government. Please recommend a solution.

NIST Response The instructions given in the RFP remain unchanged-- Offerors are to submit the completed PPQs along with the proposal submission. However, Offerors are free to still provide pertinent information, including contact information, regarding a given past performance effort in the event that the previous agency does not provide a completed PPQ to the Offeror. The Government is not limited to just the PPQs that a given Offeror submits and can use other data sources for past performance information (e.g. CPARS assessments, etc.) as needed.

Question #: 33

Question #: 34

Question #: 35

Question #: 36

Section of RFP: RFP Section L.2 Page of RFP Referenced: 69 and 70 Paragraph of Page: Past Performance Description of Question: This question is regarding CPARS, typically we don’t have access to this, the government does. Are you looking for us to provide Program information/details that will be included in the proposal as a separate section? How do you want that to be covered?

NIST Response Offerors shall submit past performance information in the form of completed Past Performance Questionnaires or official CPARS assessments. However, in the event that an Offeror is unable to actually produce a copy of an existing official CPARS assessment, the Offeror should still provide information on the particular CPARS assessment(s) pertinent to the proposal submission (e.g.

Contract Number, Order Number, Period of Performance, etc.) as part of the Past Performance section of Volume I of its proposal, to identify for the Government the particular assessment(s) of relevance.

If the question is asking where in the proposal such information should be provided, although past performance information will be submitted in the form of the Past Performance Questionnaires and/or CPARS assessments, Offerors may still also provide content in the Past Performance section of Volume I. Information provided in this section, not as an attachment, will of course be subject to the page limits of Volume I of the proposal, but will still be considered by the Government in addition to the attachments.

Question #: 37

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