19AQMM22R0150_Draft Evaluation Criteria.docx

19AQMM22R0150 – DRAFT EVALUATION CRITERIA

1.0 BASIS FOR CONTRACT AWARD

The Government will use the best value–tradeoff source selection process, as defined in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.101-1 (Tradeoff Process). Award will be made to the Offeror:

a) who is deemed responsible;

b) whose proposal conforms to the solicitation’s requirements; and

c) whose proposal is determined to provide the best value to the Government.

The proposal offering the best value is the one that is most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. Such offer may not necessarily be the one offering the lowest price or receiving the highest non-price rating.

For this solicitation, all evaluation factors other than price, when combined, are significantly more important than price. Award will not be automatically determined by numerical calculation or formula relationship between the non-price factors and price. As technical factors, when combined, become more equal, the evaluated price rises in importance and may become the determining factor.

The Contracting Officer and Source Selection Authority will determine what trade-off between the non-price factors and price promises the best value to the Government, price and other factors considered.

2.0 NUMBER OF CONTRACTS TO BE AWARDED

The Government intends to award one (1) indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract.

3.0 COMPLIANCE WITH SOLICITATION REQUIREMENTS, TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Offerors are required to meet all solicitation requirements, such as terms and conditions, representations and certifications, non-price and price instructions in Section 3, and technical requirements, in addition to those identified as evaluation factors or subfactors. Failure to comply with the terms and conditions of the solicitation may result in the offeror being ineligible for award.

The Government will review proposals submitted to determine compliance with the proposal preparation instructions. If it is determined that the proposal is substantially not in compliance with the instructions in Section 3 of this solicitation, the Government may deem that proposal to be unacceptable, and it will not be evaluated further.

A proposal will be determined to be noncompliant, and will be ineligible for award, if it: (a) takes exception to any of the terms and conditions of the RFP; (b) imposes additional conditions; (c) omits material information required by the RFP; or (d) is submitted in a format other than the one requested in this solicitation.

4.0 USE OF SUPPORTING INFORMATION

In conducting its evaluation of offers, the Government reserves the right to utilize all information available at the time of evaluation. The Government may rely on information obtained from other sources available to the Government, to include, but not limited to: information contained in Government records, commercial sources, and information publicly available.

5.0 USE OF THIRD-PARTY CONTRACTORS FOR EVALUATION SUPPORT

The Government reserves the right to use contractor support services to assist the Government in performing non-price and/or price evaluations of proposals submitted in response to this RFP. Support contractors, if used, will be authorized access only to those portions of the proposal data and discussions that are necessary to enable them to provide advice on specialized matters or on particular problems. Support contractors may participate as technical advisors to a source selection board. However, in no event shall support contractors participate as voting members of any source selection board.

6.0 PRE-AWARD SURVEYS AND PRODUCT DEMONSTRATIONS

The Government may conduct a pre-award survey (PAS) and /or Product Demonstrations as part of this source selection. Results of the PAS (if conducted) will be evaluated to determine each offeror's capability to meet the requirements of the solicitation.

7.0 SOLICITATION AMENDMENTS

The Government reserves the right to amend the terms and conditions of the solicitation at any time before or after receipt of proposals. If the Government amends the solicitation, the Government will so advise all parties receiving the solicitation (if the amendment is issued before the established time and date for receipt of proposals) or all Offerors that have not been eliminated from the competition (if the amendment is issued after the established time and date for receipt of proposals).

8.0 DISCUSSIONS

The Government intends to evaluate proposals and award a contract without conducting discussions. Therefore, the offeror’s initial proposal should contain the offeror’s best terms from a price and non-price standpoint. The Government reserves the right to conduct discussions if the Contracting Officer later determines them to be in the Government’s best interest.

If the Government elects to conduct discussions, it may, before requesting a final proposal revision:

1. Limit the number of proposals in the competitive range to the greatest number that will permit an efficient competition among the most highly rated proposals;

2. Make more than one competitive range determination;

3. Conduct more than one round of discussions; and

4. Conduct more than one round of proposal revisions.

If award is made with discussions, offeror responses to Evaluation Notices (ENs) and the Final Proposal Revision (FPR) will be considered in making the source selection decision. If the offeror’s proposal has been evaluated as acceptable at the time discussions are closed, any changes or exceptions in the Final Proposal Revision are subject to evaluation, and may introduce risk sufficient to determine the offeror’s proposal unacceptable and ineligible for award.

9.0 DEBRIEFINGS

Pre-award and post-award debriefings, if these are requested, will be conducted in accordance with FAR 15.505 and 15.506 respectively. Offerors may request a debriefing by providing a written request in accordance with the foregoing FAR citations. Debriefing request must be submitted to FernandezJM@state.gov.

10.0 DETERMINATION OF RESPONSIBILITY

In order to be eligible for award, an Offeror must be determined to be responsible according to the standards set forth in FAR 9.104-1.

11.0 EVALUATION FACTORS

(a) The Government will utilize the following evaluation factors, in addition to price, to evaluate proposals.

Factor 1: Past Performance

Factor 2: Technical Specifications

Subfactor A: Proposed UAS System and Components

Subfactor B: Spare Parts Kit

Subfactor C: Vulnerabilities and Countermeasures

Factor 3: Approach to Local Sustainment and Training

(b) Relative Importance of Evaluation Factors.

Factors 1 – 3 are of equal importance. All evaluation factors other than price, when combined, are significantly more important than price.

(c) An “unacceptable” rating on any evaluation factor will render an offer ineligible for award.

(A) FACTOR 1: PAST PERFORMANCE

Past performance will be evaluated as a measure of the Government’s confidence in the offeror’s ability to successfully perform solicitation requirements based on previous and current contract efforts.

For the purpose of evaluating past performance, the Government will consider the collective past performance of the proposed contract team. For evaluation purposes, the proposed contract team includes the Prime Offeror, joint venture partner, and major subcontractor(s). For the purposes of this solicitation, a major subcontractor is defined as any subcontractor that will likely perform more than 25% of this contract.

(i) Evaluation Process. The past performance evaluation considers each Offeror’s demonstrated recent and relevant record of performance. Performance confidence is assessed at the overall Past Performance factor level after evaluating aspects of the offeror’s recent past performance, focusing on performance that is relevant to the requirements of this solicitation.

The Government may consider past performance in the aggregate in addition to on an individual contract basis.

In conducting the Past Performance evaluation, the Government reserves the right to use both the information provided in the Offeror’s proposal and information obtained from other sources available to the Government.

(a) Recency Assessment

An assessment of the past performance information will be made to determine if it is recent. To be recent, past performance must not be older than five (5) years from the date of issuance of this solicitation. Past performance information that fails this condition will not be evaluated.

(b) Relevancy Assessment

The Government will conduct an evaluation of recent performance information obtained to determine how closely the supplies delivered and services performed under those contracts relate to the requirements of this solicitation. In determining relevancy for past performance references, consideration will be given to the effort, or portion of the effort, to be performed under this contract by the offeror, joint venture partner, or major subcontractor whose performance is being reviewed and evaluated.

With respect to relevancy, the Government will consider more relevant Past Performance to be a stronger predictor of future success and have more influence on the Past Performance evaluation than Past Performance of lesser relevance.

For the purpose of the relevancy assessment, the Government will consider:

i. Number and type of systems provided. References for which more than five (5) systems like the ones required by this solicitation were delivered will be most favorably considered.

ii. The overall dollar value of the reference. References for which the overall value is more than $1,000,000 will be assessed more favorably in terms of relevance.

iii. The place(s) of performance. References for which systems and services were delivered to Latin American countries will be evaluated favorably. References for which the systems and services were delivered in Colombia will be most favorably considered.

(c) Performance Quality Assessment

The Government will consider the performance quality of recent, relevant efforts (how well the contractor performed on the contracts). For each recent past performance citation reviewed, the quality of the work performed will be assessed. For each reference being evaluated, the Government will consider the areas identified in Attachment 4 (PPQ). The quality assessment may result in positive or adverse findings. Adverse is defined as past performance information that supports a less than satisfactory rating on any evaluation element or any unfavorable comment received from sources without a formal rating system.

For adverse information identified, the evaluation will consider the number and severity of the problem(s), mitigating circumstances, and the effectiveness of corrective actions that have resulted in sustained improvements.

(ii) Assigning Ratings. As a result of the relevancy and quality assessments of the recent contract references evaluated, offerors will receive an integrated performance confidence assessment rating.

Offerors without a record of recent/relevant past performance or for whom information on past performance is so sparse that no meaningful confidence assessment rating can be reasonably assigned will not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance and, as a result, will receive an "Unknown Confidence" rating for the Past Performance factor.

More recent performance will have a greater impact on the Performance Confidence Assessment than a less recent effort. A strong record of relevant past performance may be considered more advantageous to the Government than an "Unknown Confidence" rating. Likewise, a more relevant past performance record may receive a higher confidence rating and be considered more favorably than a less relevant record of favorable performance.

The Government will consider recent and relevant past performance of the offeror to be more significant than similar past performance of major subcontractors.

(B) FACTOR 2: TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

(i) TAB A – UAS System and Components: The Government will evaluate the extent to which proposed system meets or exceeds required technical specifications. The Government will favorably consider systems that are already fielded and require no modifications.

(ii) TAB B – Spare Parts Kits: The Government will evaluate the clarity, completeness, and thoroughness of the explanation provided and methodology used to develop the proposed spare parts kit.

(iii) TAB C – Vulnerabilities and Countermeasures: The Government will evaluate the clarity, completeness, and thoroughness of the Contractor’s proposal and the degree to which the proposed countermeasures are likely to prevent known vulnerabilities.

(C) FACTOR 3: APPROACH TO LOCAL SUSTAINMENT AND TRAINING

The Government will evaluate the proposed approach to determine the likelihood that sustainment and training services provided will be high-quality and timely. The Government will most favorably consider approaches that minimize the use of translators and minimize the use of importation / exportation processes.

12.0 PRICE EVALUATION

The principal basis for evaluating price as a factor for award under this solicitation will be an evaluation of the reasonableness of the offerors’ respective overall proposed prices submitted in Attachment 6 (Pricing Table). The Government will conduct an evaluation to determine ultimately that the final agreed-to overall price from Attachment 6 is fair and reasonable. The Government will use one or more of the proposal analysis techniques stipulated in FAR 15.404 to conduct the evaluation.

The Government will use the RFP-specified estimated quantities in Attachment 6 for price evaluation purposes only. The Government does not commit to order or payment of these quantities and dollar amounts, respectively.

However, the unit prices proposed in Attachment 6 will be used as the awarded pricing information if award is made without discussions or will be used as the basis of negotiation if award is made with discussions.

The Government will evaluate offers for contract award purposes by adding, from Attachment 6, the total proposed price for all contract periods to the total proposed price for the six-month option to extend period. Evaluation of the six-month option to extend period will not obligate the Government to exercise the option.