2388 RFQ Combined Synopsis-Sol BV.docx

Optical Atomic Clock Systems NB688000-26-02388

(I) This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial products or commercial services prepared in accordance with Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO) part 12. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; quotes are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued.

(II) Solicitation number NB688000-26-02388 is issued as a Request for Quotation (RFQ). This acquisition is set aside for small business concerns.

(III) This solicitation incorporates provisions and clauses by reference. The full text of provisions and clauses may be accessed electronically at www.acquisition.gov, and as otherwise noted in the attached provisions and clauses.

(IV) The associated North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 334519 – Other Measuring and Controlling Device Manufacturing, with a small business size standard of 500 employees.

(V) All quoters shall provide a firm-fixed-price quotation for the following Line-Item(s). Quoters may propose an alternative structure that is consistent with their standard commercial practice, if applicable:

TOTAL:

(VI) The requirements for the Line-Items to be acquired above are in the attached Requirements and Specifications.

Attachment #1: Requirements and Specifications Attachment #2: Applicable Provisions and Clauses

(VII) Date(s) and place(s) of delivery and acceptance and FOB point are required in accordance with the attached Requirements and Specifications.

(VIII) Quoters/Contractors must possess an ACTIVE registration in the System for Award Management system, www.SAM.gov, when submitting a quotation and shall continue to be registered until time of award, during performance, and through final payment of any contract resulting from this solicitation. The Contracting Officer shall confirm that quoters have an “active” registration at the www.sam.gov website upon receipt of a quotation. If the SAM.gov registration is not active, the quotation will not be considered for award.

Notes: System updates may lag policy updates. The System for Award Management (SAM) may continue to require entities to complete representations based on provisions that are not included in this solicitation. Contracting officers will rely on representations from offers based on provisions in the solicitation. Entities are not required to, nor are they able to, update their entity registration to remove these representations in SAM.

This procurement is not being conducted under the GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) program or another Government-Wide Area Contract (GWAC). If an Offeror submits a quotation based upon an FSS or GWAC contract, the Government will accept the proposed price. However, the terms and conditions stated herein will be included in any resultant purchase order, not the terms and conditions of the Offeror's FSS or GWAC contract, and the statement required above shall be included in the quotation.

(IX) The provision at RFO 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors—Commercial Products and Commercial Services (DEVIATION Jan 2026), applies to this acquisition. See Addendum to RFO 52.212-1 below.

DUE DATE FOR QUOTATIONS

Quoters shall submit their quotations via email so that they are received at the following email addresses: Angela.Hitt@nist.gov by no later than 11:00 Mountain Time AM, August 21, 2026.

Please reference the RFQ number in the subject line of all email communications. Quotations shall not be deemed received by the Government until the quotation is received at the e-mail addresses set forth above.

INQUIRIES:

Quoters must submit all questions concerning this solicitation in writing to the Contracting Officer, Angela Hitt at Angela.Hitt@nist.gov. Questions should be received at those email addresses no later than August 14, 2026. Contracting Officer responses to timely submitted questions, will be made in writing, without identification of the questioner, and will be included in an amendment to the solicitation. Even if provided in other form, only the responses included in the amendment to the solicitation will be deemed as the Government’s formal response and govern performance of the contract.

QUOTATION PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS:

Addendum to RFO 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors – Commercial Products and Commercial Services (DEVIATION Jan 2026):

This addendum replaces paragraph (a) in provision 52.212-1.

(a) Submission of quotations. Submit signed and dated quotations to the office specified in this solicitation at or before the exact time specified in this solicitation. As a minimum, offers shall include—

(1) The solicitation number;

(2) The name, address, telephone number of the quoter;

(3) The quoter’s Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) and, if applicable, Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) indicator;

(4) Information necessary to evaluate the factors contained in the evaluation factors for award as described in the solicitation;

(5) Responses to provisions that require quoter completion of information, representations, and certifications (other than those collected via the System for Award Management (SAM)); and

(6) A statement specifying the extent of agreement with all terms, conditions, and provisions included in the solicitation and any solicitation amendments.

(7) The Country of Origin (COO) where the product(s) are manufactured, (if applicable).

All quotations shall conform to solicitation provisions/clauses and be prepared in accordance with this section. The quotation shall be clearly and concisely written as well as be neat and logically assembled. All pages of the quotation shall be appropriately numbered.

The Quoter’s quotation shall be clearly divided into the following distinct volumes:

Volume I – Technical Quotation Volume II – Price Quotation Volume III- Terms and Conditions

VOLUME I - TECHNICAL QUOTATION:

The Quoter shall submit one (1) copy of their technical quotation, electronically, via E-mail to the Contracting Officer identified above. The technical quotation shall address the following:

Technical Capability:

The quoter shall submit technical approach and capability documentation which may include a narrative, charts, graphs, tables, drawings, product / service literature, and as applicable, demonstrated authority to provide the necessary items and perform the required services identified in the Requirements and Specifications (Attachment 1). The documentation shall clearly describe, in sufficient detail, the vendor's authority, proposed items, resources and methods to successfully fulfill the requirements including specifications, performance capability requirements, delivery schedules, warranties, and all service requirements. The submission shall clearly identify each line item above. The submission must demonstrate that the proposed system meets or exceeds each minimum requirement described within the attached requirements and specifications document (Attachment 1) by providing a citation between the statement of requirements paragraph and the relevant section of the technical description or product literature. The quoter must not simply state they will meet or exceed the requirement; evidence must be provided. If applicable, evidence that the quoter is authorized by the manufacturer to provide the item(s) in the quotation shall be included.

5 Year Warranty:

Submittal Requirements: Vendor shall provide a description of the proposed warranty and specifically address:

(a) Length of warranty

(b) Warrant inclusions regarding maintenance, repairs, use of temporary equipment during maintenance / repair actions, etc.

(c) Response time to Government for service inquiry (phone & email)

(d) Response time for maintenance and repair services (when required)

Past Performance:

The quoter shall submit up to three examples of relevant past performance performed within the last three years. Examples should be of work similar in scope, size and complexity to this requirement. The description of each reference described in this section shall not exceed one single-sided page. For each of the contracts, the quoter shall provide the following information:

(a) Contract number

(b) Client’s name and address

(c) Total contract value

(d) Period of performance

(e) Identification of role played by quoter (i.e., Prime Contractor, Subcontractor, etc.)

(f) Narrative describing the requirement and its relevance to the current requirement

(g) Name of contracting officer or point of contact, telephone number and e-mail address

The quoter is encouraged to focus on prior projects encompassing the same RFQ requirements and describe how these requirements were specifically supported by the quoter. The quoter may use prior experiences in which they served as a prime contractor or subcontractor; however, past performance as a prime contractor may instill higher confidence. Past Performance Questionnaire (Attachment 3) is provided.

Volume II - Price Quotation:

The quoter shall submit one (1) copy of their entire quotation, electronically, via E-mail to the Contract Specialist and Contracting Officer identified above. The price quotation shall address, at minimum, the following information.

(a) The solicitation (RFQ) number

(b) The name, phone number, and email address of the quoter's/contractor’s point of contact.

(c) Unique Entity Identifier # for quoter's/contractor’s active SAM.Gov registration.

(d) A firm fixed price for each required line item, including a unit price and total amount where applicable, and the aggregate quoted firm fixed price for the requirement. Where the Government has identified a line item as requiring a Not to Exceed price, quoters shall comply with this.

(e) Shipping and Delivery costs must be included in the quotation either as a separate line item or contained in the total price of the quote. The quotation shall include a total firm fixed price for the requirement that includes all shipping/delivery costs

(f) Any applicable discount terms.

(g) Country of Origin where the product is manufactured.

Quoters that are proposing products manufactured outside of the United States must identify any other or unknown charges that may be applicable to the sale of these products (here indicated as CLIN 0003) on price quotes/proposals. This price element may be listed as part of the cost of the product or as a sub-total element but must be clearly identified. This price element must only apply to the total value of the goods identified for customs processing. Only include the country of origin and the tariff percentage currently in place or the expected amount at time of delivery for that country. Price quotes shall clearly identify the relevant tariffs in terms of percentage and total cost. If there are multiple countries of origins and associated tariffs, identify each separately.

Volume III – Terms and Conditions:

The quoter shall review the provision and clauses attachment and complete any required information as record via a separate volume response to this solicitation.

Note: System updates may lag policy updates. The System for Award Management (SAM) may continue to require entities to complete representations based on provisions that are not included in this solicitation. Contracting officers will rely on representations from offers based on provisions in the solicitation. Entities are not required to, nor are they able to, update their entity registration to remove these representations in SAM.

Acceptance of Terms and Conditions:

If the contractor objects to any of the terms and conditions contained in this solicitation, the contractor shall state "The terms and conditions in the solicitation are acceptable to be included in the award document with the exception, deletion, or addition of the following:" [Contractor shall list exception(s) and rationale for the exception(s)]. It is the sole responsibility of the contractor to identify in their quotation any exceptions to the terms and conditions of the solicitation. If the contractor does not include such a statement, the submission of a quotation in response to this solicitation will be regarded as the Contractor's acceptance of the Government's terms and conditions for inclusion into the resultant purchase order (PO).

Note: This procurement is not being conducted under the GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) program or another Government-Wide Area Contract (GWAC). If a quoter submits a quotation based upon an FSS or GWAC contract, the Government will accept the proposed price. However, the terms and conditions stated herein will be included in any resultant purchase order, not the terms and conditions of the Quoter’s FSS or GWAC contract, and the statement required above shall be included in the quotation.

EVALUATION FACTORS FOR AWARD:

FAR 52.212-2 EVALUATION- COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS AND COMMERCIAL SERVICES (DEVIATION JAN 2026)

(a) Evaluation factors. The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the Offeror responsible whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. The following factors will be used to evaluate offers:

The Government intends to award a single firm fixed purchase order (PO) from this solicitation utilizing simplified acquisitions procedures in accordance with FAR part 12 of the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul. The Government reserves the right not to award a PO and to make an award without discussions based solely upon initial quotes.

Basis for Award:

The Government will make an award, based on best value, to the quoter with the proposed solution that is most advantageous to the Government, price and non-price factors considered. The evaluation factors shown below in descending order of importance will be used to evaluate quotations.

A quoter's failure to address any factor may be considered indicative of the quoter's lack of understanding of the Government's requirements and may result in the quotation being determined unacceptable.

Evaluation Factors:

Technical Capability: No prototypes, demonstration models, used or refurbished instruments will be considered. Evaluation of technical capability shall be based on the information provided in the quotation. NIST will evaluate the extent to which the quoter has demonstrated that its proposed equipment meets or exceeds all minimum requirements. Quotations that do not demonstrate the proposed equipment meets all requirements will not be considered further for award. If a quoter’s technical description and/or product literature does not indicate whether its proposed equipment meets a certain minimum requirement, NIST will determine that it does not meet the requirements.

5 Year Warranty: Evaluation of this factor is a subjective evaluation of the vendor submittals to determine the comprehensiveness of the warranty in terms of length, inclusions, response time for service inquiries and response time for maintenance and repair services.

Past Performance: The Government will evaluate the quoter’s record of past performance to assess the confidence level it has in the quoter’s ability to successfully perform the requirements in the solicitation. Performance on projects within the last 3 years of similar size, scope, and complexity to the requirements will be considered.

The government reserves the right to consider past performance data obtained from sources other than those provided by quoter, in the quotation. If a quoter does not have a record of recent and relevant past performance, they will not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably but will receive a 'Neutral' rating.

Price: The proposed price will be evaluated. The evaluation will determine whether the proposed prices are reasonable in relation to the solicitation requirements. Prices must be entirely compatible with the technical portion of the quotation. The offeror shall propose a firm-fixed-price quotation for each CLIN to include all shipping costs (FOB Destination) and tariffs, if applicable. Price quotations shall remain valid for a period of 120 days from the date quotations are due.

Offerors that are proposing products manufactured outside of the United States must identify any other or unknown charges that may be applicable to the sale of these products (here indicated as CLIN 0003- Other related transportation expenses) as a separate line item on price quotes/proposals. This price element may be listed as part of the cost of the product or as a sub-total element but must be clearly identified. This price element must only apply to the total value of the goods identified for customs processing. Only include the country of origin and the tariff percentage currently in place or the expected amount at time of delivery for that country. Price quotes shall clearly identify the relevant tariffs in terms of percentage and total cost. If there are multiple countries of origins and associated tariffs, identify each separately.

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

(c) Notice of award. A written notice of award or acceptance of an offer furnished to the successful Offeror within the time for acceptance specified in the offer, shall result in a binding contract without further action by either party. Before the offer’s specified expiration time, the Government may accept an offer (or part of an offer), whether or not there are negotiations after its receipt, unless a written notice of withdrawal is received before award..

The Government intends to award a single firm-fixed-price purchase order (PO) from this solicitation utilizing simplified procedures in accordance with RFO Part 12.

Attachments:

Attachment 1 - Requirements and Specifications Attachment 2 - Provisions and Clauses Attachment 3 - Past Performance Questionnaire