36C10G18R0093-00004001.xlsx
XLSX spreadsheet 16 KB Posted
- Attached to
- Positive Airway Pressure Devices and Accessories
- Solicitation number
- 36C10G18R0093
About this file
This document contains questions and answers related to a solicitation for positive airway pressure devices and accessories. The solicitation will be issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs Strategic Acquisition Center and seeks to establish multiple-award Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity contracts to provide continuous supply of brand name or equal continuous positive airway pressure, bi-level positive airway pressure, and variable positive airway pressure devices and accessories for veteran patients. The anticipated period of performance is a one-year base period with a one-year option period. The VA intends to award up to eight contracts from the resulting solicitation. Questions cover various aspects of the solicitation including evaluation criteria, set-asides for veteran-owned small businesses, and requirements for the devices and accessories.
36C10G18R0093 00004 Amendment 00004 Government Response To Industry Questions v.3.xlsx
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Sheet1
| QUESTIONS # | RFP SECTION/PARAGRAPH NO. | QUESTIONS | GOVERNMENT RESPONSE |
| 1 | Many of these products are on FSS contracts. Please confirm that only VA orders that cite the awarded IDIQ contract are required to pay the SLA and comply with these IDIQ contract requirements. | Yes, any order issued under the resulted awarded contracts is required to pay the SLA fee. | |
| 2 | Page 37 requires the Quarterly Sales Reports to include all sales to all contract or authorized agreement users—including Prime Vendor contractors. Will the Prime Vendors be directed to acquire these IDIQ sleep products under this IDIQ contract? | This is not an MSPV requirement. | |
| 3 | The estimated value of these contracts is $281M. Please confirm that this estimate includes sales to the PVs. | This is not an MSPV requirement. | |
| 4 | Please advise on whether IDIQ sales to the PVs requires the IDIQ contractor to pay the SLA. | This is not an MSPV requirement. | |
| 5 | If you decide to make multiple awards for an OEM, how would a PV determine which offeror to select for a specific PV order? | This is not an MSPV requirement. | |
| 6 | Would PV orders be exempt from the fair opportunity clause or would the PV obtain bids from all offerors? | This is not an MSPV requirement. | |
| 7 | While the RFP was delayed, there have been some minor changes in the products offered by the OEMs. Request the following deletions and changes be made to your requirements to reflect those changes. Otherwise, offerors will be forced to artificially bid items that are no longer available from the OEMs to comply with the requirement to bid all items from an OEM. These changes are provided as comments on an attached excel file- Attachment A. | See revised Attachment B Excel Price Schedule 00004 PAP for details. | |
| 8 | Please post the NMR waiver that applies to this solicitation so bidders can be assured they comply with 13 CFR 125.6 requirements. | While an individual class waiver was approved. More recently SBA issued a class waiver for this product category. | |
| 9 | 5.9 PERFORMANCE METRICS | ||
| The QASP for SOURCE OF SUPPLY says a contractor cannot have more than 3 instances of supply unavailability per PoP. Since the current PoP is a year, that means a contractor must be able to ship all items for 3 day delivery—except 3 times a year. Given the 500-1500 orders per day over a year, this criteria is unreasonably restrictive. It allows only 3 problems and requires 99.999% performance. Recommend this be changed to: No more than 1% instances of supply unavailability per quarter. (Does not include items discontinued or unavailable from the manufacturer). | See revised section 5.9 Performance Metrics for details. | ||
| 10 | 5.9 PERFORMANCE METRICS | ||
| The QASP for REQUIREMENTS says the item must meet specifications, but allows items that do not meet requirements. This is potentially an unsafe practice and opens VA to receipt of unauthorized substitutes, creating warranty issues Recommend this QASP requirement be changed to: 100% of all items must meet minimum salient characteristics each quarter. Any unauthorized product substitution may be considered a breach of contract that warrants termination for cause. | The requirement will remain the same. | ||
| 11 | 5.9 PERFORMANCE METRICS | ||
| The QASP for DELIVERY says for alternate (DTP) deliveries, no more than 5 missed deliveries (more than 3 days) within a quarter. Given 500-1500 orders per day and 90 days per quarter, this could amount to 135,000 orders. 5 missed deliveries would require 99.996% performance. Given the potential problems with weather/ carrier performance, etc., this is an overly restrictive requirement. Recommend this be changed to: No more than 1% missed deliveries (more than 3 days) per quarter. | See revised section 5.9 Performance Metrics for details. | ||
| 12 | Since your original solicitation, Medical Place has become a VA certified SDVOSB. In addition the RFP has changed and no longer requires bidders to propose on all items and has divided the contract/proposal/pricing by OEM. Since there are now two certified SDVOSBs in VETBIZ fully capable of providing Resmed products at fair and reasonable prices why isn’t the RESMED potion of this IDIQ set-aside for SDVOSBs? | It was never a requirement for contractors to propose on all award groups. Now that we have identified multiple SDVOBS that are capable of providing brand name or equal products the requirement across will be set-aside by award groups. See revised section E.11 Basis of Award for details. | |
| 13 | EXCEL PRICE SCHEDULE | If the IDIQ contract for RESMED items is not set-aside for SDVOSBs, will orders for RESMED products be required to be set-aside to comply with the VA Rule of Two? Please explain. | See Government response to question no. 12. |
| 14 | The RFP requires accepting as many as 1500 of Direct to Patient (DTP) orders each day with FOB shipment within 3 days. Unlike stock shipments to facilities, shipping and handling costs for DTP small package residential shipments could easily represent 15% or more of the cost of a small order. Since the RFP allows only one price for each item – instead of having to increase the price of each item to cover DTP shipment will you either: | The RFP does NOT require accepting as many as 1500 of Direct to Patient order each day with FOB shipment within 3 days. Section E.16 requires Offerors to demonstrate corporate capability to handle a volume of orders between 500 - 1500 per day regardless of the method of delivery/location. It is the Offerors business decision to determine any applicable shipping cost. See 52.212-1 (e) and FAR 52.204-22 for for alternatives. | |
| a. Modify the RFP to allow offerors to add a $10.95 shipping cost to any order below $250 ? (This will allow offerors to cover a portion of added shipping costs for small orders, without raising costs for all orders), or | |||
| b. Allow all offerors access to VA contractor shipping rates awarded a the Next Generation Delivery Service (NGDS) contract for small package delivery? | |||
| 15 | Will offers that provide the VA with additional socio-economic credit be provided any additional evaluation credit over VOSB offerors? Public Law seems to require that SDVOSBs be provided both preference and priority over VOSBs in all evaluations. In addition, any best value approach—including LPTA—should consider the added best value from obtaining additional socio-economic credit towards VA goals—especially where the VA has major shortfalls in achieving these other goals. | No, there will be no additional socio-economic credit provided. | |
| 16 | In the Federal Register on January 11, 2018, the VA has formally announced their plans to comply with VetsFirst law and specifically add 38 USC 8127-8128 to VAAR 812. (Revise and Streamline VA Acquisition Regulation To Adhere to Federal Acquisition Regulation Principles (VAAR Case 2014-V005-Parts 812, 813)). The new VAAR states: 812.102-70 Applicability of veterans preferences. |
Based on the authority under 38 U.S.C. 8127 and 8128, the Veterans First Contracting Program in subpart 819.70 applies to VA contracts under this part, and the provisions and clauses prescribed reflect agency unique statutes applicable to the acquisition of commercial items.
812.301 Solicitation provisions and contract clauses for the acquisition of commercial items.
(f)(1) Contracting officers shall insert the provision 852.212-70, Provisions Applicable to VA Acquisition of Commercial Items, in all solicitations for commercial acquisitions and check only those provisions that apply to the individual solicitation.
This VAAR change was approved by the VA Deputy Chief of Staff and recognizes that the SDVOSB preference over VOSBs must be applied to all VAAR 812 Commercial Item acquisitions, including this IDIQ. In this IDIQ RFP, this simply requires that the first evaluation factor, Socioeconomic Factor, be revised to comply with 38 USC 8127-8128. Standard VA approved evaluation clause wording is already available in 852.215-70. Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned and Veteran-Owned Small Business Evaluation Factors.
Will you be adding 852.215-70 to both the contract and the evaluation factors? If not, please explain.
| The acquisition is constructed to comply with the Vets First program (see revised solicitation for details). | |||
| 17 | Based on the above requirements of VetsFirst, request you also revise the DOPR evaluation criteria to also provide SDVOSBs an evaluated preference over VOSBs on each DOPR by requiring ordering COs to use the 852.215-70 in their evaluations. If there will be no revisions, please explain rationale. | See Government response to question no. 15. | |
| 18 | Per the FAR, Brand name or equal purchase descriptions must include, in addition to the brand name, a general description of those salient physical, functional, or performance characteristics of the brand name item that an “equal” item must meet to be acceptable for award. In most cases there are no salient characteristics, the RFP simply reuses the short description or name of the product as the long description. This can encourage gray market products and pricing. How will you determine that an item is “equal”? | See solicitation E.13 proposal submission instructions and E.14 Evaluation Factors for details. It is the responsbility of the Offeror to demonstrate to the Government how the or equal brand name products meets the needs of the Government. | |
| 19 | Will you be providing the salient characteristics to support your BNOE evaluation? | See Attachment B Excel Price Cost Schedule for details. | |
| 20 | With the new amendment permitting proposals for items from a single OEM, how will total price be evaluated? The evaluation of price on page 72 has not been revised to reflect this major change. If one offeror only proposes the items for one OEM, their total price for all options will be significantly lower than an offeror that proposes the items for more than one OEM. A simple ranking of total price unfairly rewards offerors that meet the fewest of the VA requirements for products. | See revised E.14 Evaluation Factor for details. | |
| 21 | Have you considered dividing this RFP into four RFPs, one for each OEM? This will allow you to continue to evaluate by total price? This approach also allows the Resmed IDIQ to be set-aside for SDVOSBs per the Rule of Two as requested above. The VA could then select two or more offerors for each of the four OEMs. | See Government response to question no. 12. | |
| 22 | Please explain how you will determine whether to make a single or up to 8 awards using Lowest Price Technically Acceptable as your evaluation methodology. Since there is only one “lowest” price, how does this methodology support your plan to award multiple awards? | There maybe instances in which its in the best of interest of the Government to award more than one award in each brand name or equal award group. This doesn't negate use of LPTA as a evaluation methodology. If multiple offers are received in a specific award group, the lowest of those offers which are technically acceptable shall be selected as warranted . | |
| 23 | D.2 Excel Price/Cost Schedule | The Short Descriptions and Long Descriptions for the ResMed CLINS 0086 through 0134 do not match the Manufacturing Numbers. | See revised Attachment B Excel Price Schedule 00004 PAP for details. |
| 24 | D.2 Excel Price/Cost Schedule | CLINS 0001 through 0012 for Fisher and Paykel are the same CLINS 0001 through 0012 for Devilbiss | See revised Attachment B Excel Price Schedule 00004 PAP for details. |
| 15 | D.2 Excel Price/Cost Schedule | The original CLINS 0001 through 0012 for Fisher and Paykel have not been included. | See revised Attachment B Excel Price Schedule 00004 PAP for details. |
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