52.212-2 EVALUATION CRITERIA.docx

52.212-2 EVALUATION—COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS AND COMMERCIAL SERVICES (NOV 2021)

52.212.2 Evaluation of Offers

1. The Government intends to award a firm fixed price IDIQ contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible Offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation is most advantageous to the Government. This acquisition will utilize the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) source selection process to make an award decision. The following factors shall be used to evaluate offers:

FACTOR I – TECHNICAL CAPABILITY

FACTOR II – PAST PERFORMANCE

FACTOR III - PRICE

2. A written notice of award or acceptance of an offer, mailed or otherwise 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.

3. Offerors are cautioned to submit sufficient information and, in the format, specified in the Instructions to Offerors. Offerors may be asked to clarify certain aspects of their proposal. Communication conducted to resolve minor or clerical errors will not constitute discussions and the Contracting Officer reserves the right to award a contract without the opportunity for proposal revision.

4. The Government intends to award a contract without discussions with respective Offerors. Therefore, the Offeror’s initial offer should contain that Offeror’s best terms from a price and technical standpoint. The Government, however, reserves the right to conduct discussions if deemed in its best interest. Prior to discussions, a competitive range may be established and the Offerors within the competitive range will be part of the discussions. The Contracting Officer may limit the number of proposals in the competitive range to the greatest number that will permit an efficient competition.

5. This is a competitive best value source selection in which competing Offerors' proposals will be evaluated using the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) process. By submission of its offer, the Offeror accedes to all solicitation requirements, including terms and conditions, representations and certifications, and technical requirements. Failure to meet a requirement may result in an offer being determined unacceptable. The Government intends to award one IDIQ. All such offers shall be treated equally except for their technical capability, prices and performance records. The evaluation process shall proceed as follows:

A. Evaluation Process:

i. Initially offers shall be ranked according to price.

ii. A technical and past performance assessment will be conducted on the lowest priced offer.

iii. The offer will be evaluated and shall receive a technical and past performance acceptability or unacceptability rating.

iv. If the lowest priced offeror is evaluated to be technically acceptable and have acceptable past performance, the CO will determine price fair and reasonableness.

v. If the price is reasonable evaluations will stop.

vi. If the lowest priced offer is evaluated as unacceptable in technical or unacceptable past performance, or the price is found unreasonable the next lowest priced offeror will be evaluated and the process will continue (in order by price lowest to highest) until an offeror is evaluated to be technically acceptable and price is found reasonable or until all offerors are evaluated.

B. Prior to award, a responsibility determination will be made as described in FAR Part 9.

FACTOR 1 – TECHNICAL CAPABILITY

Technical Capability will be assigned a rating of either ACCEPTABLE / UNACCEPTABLE based on the combined evaluation results of Sub-Factor I and Sub-Factor II. For example, the contractor must score acceptable in both sub-factors to receive a total score of acceptable. However, if they score acceptable in only one Sub-Factor, they will not be considered Acceptable overall.

Sub-Factor I

ACCEPTABLE – The contractor provided evidence of at least one Department of Homeland Security (DHS) certified trusted tester (TT).

UNACCEPTABLE – The contractor did not provide evidence of at least one Department of Homeland Security (DHS) certified trusted tester.

Sub-Factor II

ACCEPTABLE – The contractor remediated and returned all three provided documents (Sample1_PPT, Sample2_PDF, Sample3_Interactive_PDF). The contractor completed columns B, C, D on each sheet in the provided excel spreadsheet demonstrating the minimum number of errors/defects found within each of the sample documents Remediated documents are in accordance with: Acrobat accessibility checker results (for PDFs), CommonLook reports, and manual testing of non-automated aspects, including but not limited to: sufficient color contrast (as defined by How to Meet WCAG (Quickref Reference) (w3.org) and WebAIM: PDF Accessibility - Reviewing and Repairing Accessibility in Acrobat, WebAIM: Word and PowerPoint Accessibility Evaluation Guide), and logical heading hierarchy, functioning links etc.

The following errors/defects for each document were all identified and remediated. The Government team has the answer key for what the errors/defects are and the correct remedy. To be technically acceptable, the offeror’s identification and remediation shall match the answer key (not provided).

Number of minimum errors/defects per document that match the answer key:

· Sample1_PPT: PowerPoint document with 16 errors/defects

· Sample2_PDF: PDF with 13 errors/defects

· Sample3_Interactive_PDF: interactive PDF with 7 errors/defects

REFERENCES MET:

Section 508 contains clear accessibility standards developed by the U.S. Access Board. WCAG 2 Overview is incorporated into Section 508 Standards. The current standards explicitly require agencies to meet WCAG’s guidelines. Remediation shall be in compliance with WCAG https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref/, and the U.S. Access Board (ICT). PDF remediation methods reference WebAIM: PDF Accessibility - Reviewing and Repairing Accessibility in Acrobat MS Office Suite remediation methods reference WebAIM: Word and PowerPoint Accessibility Evaluation Guide.

UNACCEPTABLE – The contractor did not:

Remediate and return all three provided documents (Sample1_PPT, Sample2_PDF, Sample3_Interactive_PDF). The contractor did not complete columns B, C, D on each sheet in the provided spreadsheet demonstrating all errors/defects found within each of the sample documents.

The contractor did not remediate documents in accordance with: Acrobat accessibility checker results (for PDFs), CommonLook reports, and manual testing of non-automated aspects, including but not limited to: sufficient color contrast (as defined by How to Meet WCAG (Quickref Reference) (w3.org) and WebAIM: PDF Accessibility - Reviewing and Repairing Accessibility in Acrobat, WebAIM: Word and PowerPoint Accessibility Evaluation Guide), and logical heading hierarchy, functioning links etc.

The following errors/defects for each document were not all identified and/or not remediated. The Government team has the answer key for what the errors/defects are and the correct remedy. The offeror’s identification and remediation does not match the answer key (not provided).

Number of errors/defects per document:

· Sample1_PPT: PowerPoint document with 16 errors/defects

· Sample2_PDF: PDF with 13 errors/defects

· Sample3_Interactive_PDF: interactive PDF with 7 errors/defects

REFERENCES WERE NOT MET:

Section 508 contains clear accessibility standards developed by the U.S. Access Board. WCAG 2 Overview is incorporated into Section 508 Standards. The current standards explicitly require agencies to meet WCAG’s guidelines. Remediation shall be in compliance with WCAG https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref/, and the U.S. Access Board (ICT). PDF remediation methods reference WebAIM: PDF Accessibility - Reviewing and Repairing Accessibility in Acrobat MS Office Suite remediation methods reference WebAIM: Word and PowerPoint Accessibility Evaluation Guide.

FACTOR 2 – PAST PERFORMANCE

a. The rating assigned at this factor is an “overall” rating of all Past Performance record evaluated. The Past Performance evaluation results in an assessment of the offeror’s probability of meeting the solicitation requirements. Offerors must receive a past performance rating of “ACCEPTABLE” to be eligible for award.

i. Ratings. The Past Performance factor will receive one of the ratings described below.

1. ACCEPTABLE – Based on the offeror’s official performance record(s), the Government has a reasonable expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort, or the offeror’s performance record is unknown.

2. UNACCEPTABLE – Based on the offeror’s official performance record(s), the Government has no reasonable expectation that the offeror will be able to successfully perform the required effort.

ii. Note: In the case of an offeror without a record of relevant past performance or for whom information on past performance is not available or so sparse that no meaningful past performance rating can be reasonably assigned, the offeror may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance (see FAR 15.305(a)(2)(iv)). Therefore, the offeror shall be determined to have unknown past performance. In the context of acceptability/unacceptability, “unknown” shall be considered “acceptable.”

iii. Evaluation Process. The past performance evaluation considers each offeror’s demonstrated recent and relevant record of performance in supplying services that meet the solicitation requirements. In conducting the Past Performance evaluation, the Government reserves the right to use both the information provided in the offeror’s Past Performance proposal volume and information obtained from other sources available to the Government, to include, but not limited to: the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS), or other databases; and interviews/questionnaires with Program Managers, Contracting Officers, and commercial sources.

1. Recency Assessment. An assessment of the past performance information will be made to determine if it is recent. To be recent, the effort must be ongoing or must have been performed during the past three (3) years from date of the solicitation. Past performance information that fails this condition will not be evaluated.

2. Relevancy Assessment. The Government will conduct an evaluation of all recent performance information obtained to determine whether the services performed under those contracts relate to similar work and magnitude as those required by this solicitation. Consideration will be given to:

· Relevant past performance is defined as contracts that required the offeror to conduct 508 Remediation Services similar in scope and magnitude (at least $25K per year) as provided in the Performance Work Statement (PWS) contained in this solicitation. Offerors with no past performance in 508 Remediation Services shall state so.

3. In determining the relevancy of effort performed under individual past performance contracts, the Government will only consider the specific effort or portion consistent with that proposed. Projects/contracts performed by contractors other than the offeror, such as teaming partners or subcontractors, will be evaluated. If in a teaming agreement or joint venture with no combined past performance, contracts from either/both team members will be evaluated not to exceed three (3) total contracts:

Performance Confidence Assessment – The Government will consider the performance quality of recent, relevant efforts (how well the contractor performed on the contracts). For each recent, relevant past performance citation reviewed, the performance quality of the work performed will be assessed for the Technical subfactors and Price Factor (however, all aspects of performance that relate to this acquisition may be considered). The quality assessment may result in positive or adverse findings. Adverse is defined as past performance information that supports an unsatisfactory 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. Process changes will only be considered when objectively measurable improvements in performance have been demonstrated.

FACTOR 3 – PRICE

i. For award purposes, the Government will evaluate offers by the “total evaluated amount”. NOTE: Failure to include a completed Price Schedule as requested in the Instruction to Offerors deems the proposal unacceptable and the proposal will not be considered for award. The “Item Net Cost” for years 1-5 will be added together for a total evaluated amount and will be used for the ranking of Offerors. Unit prices shall prevail in the event the Item Net Cost is calculated incorrectly. Each Offeror’s price proposal will be evaluated for completeness and reasonableness. Proposed unit prices of all priced items for each year’s price schedule will be evaluated for unbalanced pricing. Unbalanced pricing exists when, despite an acceptable total evaluated price, the price of one or more contract line items or sub-line item(s) appear to be significantly overstated or understated as indicated by the application of cost or price analysis techniques.

ii. Proposed prices will become fixed prices on the contract.

iii. Price ranking will be conducted as follows:

4. “Total Evaluated Amount”:

a. To identify the “Total Evaluated Amount”, Each “Item Net Cost” from the submitted Price Schedule will be added together. Example: Total Evaluated Amount = Item Net Cost (Year 1) + Item Net Cost (Year 2) + Item Net Cost (Year 3) + Item Net Cost (Year 4) + Item Net Cost (Year 5)

iv. The Contracting Officer has determined there is a high probability of adequate price competition in this acquisition. Upon examination of the initial offers, the Contracting Officer will review this determination and if, in the Contracting Officer's opinion, adequate price competition exists no additional cost information will be requested and certification under FAR 15.406-2 will not be required. However, if at any time during this competition the Contracting Officer determines that adequate price competition no longer exists, offerors may be required to submit information to the extent necessary for the Contracting Officer to determine the reasonableness and of the price.

a. An Offeror’s proposal may be rejected if the Contracting Officer determines the lack of balanced, or reasonable price information contained in any portion of an Offerors price proposal.