4-RFP V4 Evaluation and Selection Procedures.pdf

Agency for Community Transit RFP Volume 4 of 6

Evaluation and Selection Procedures Page 1 of 2

EVALUATION AND SELECTION PROCEDURES

1.1 Selection Procedures

The Owner intends to use the best value selection process for this procurement. A combination of technical, proposer experience and price factors will be used to determine the offer deemed most advantageous and of the greatest value. Proposals will be evaluated, negotiated, selected and any award made in accordance with the criteria and procedures described herein. The approach and procedures are those that are applicable to a competitive negotiated procurement whereby proposals are evaluated to determine which proposals are within a competitive range. Discussions and negotiations may then be carried out with proposers within the competitive range, after which Best and Final Offers (BAFOs) may be requested. However, the Owner may select a proposal for award without any discussions or negotiations or request for any BAFOs. Subject to the Owner’s right to reject any or all proposals, the proposer whose proposal is found to be most advantageous to the Owner shall be selected, based upon consideration of the evaluation criteria below.

Best value is a competitive, negotiated procurement process in which the Owner reserves the right to select the most advantageous offer by evaluating and comparing factors in addition to cost or price such that the Owner may acquire technical superiority even if it must pay a premium price. A “premium” is the difference between the price of the lowest priced proposal and the one that the Owner believes offers the best value. The term “best value” also means the expected outcome of an acquisition that, in the Owner’s estimation, provides the greatest overall benefit in response to the material requirements.

Proposals will not be publicly opened. All proposals and evaluations shall be kept strictly confidential throughout the evaluation, negotiation and selection process, except as otherwise required by applicable law. Only the members of the Evaluation Committee and other Owner officials, employees and agents having a legitimate interest shall be provided with access to the proposals and evaluation results during this period.

Step 1: Determination of Proposer’s Responsiveness / Initial Proposal Review

A responsive proposer complies with all material aspects of the solicitation, both as to the method and timeliness of submission, and as to the substance of any resulting contract. No points are assigned during this stage of the evaluation. Submittals that do not comply with the material terms and conditions of the solicitation may be rejected as non-responsive. The Owner reserves the right to waive minor errors, omissions, or technicalities as determined to be in the best interest of the Owner and that does not impede the Owner’s ability to evaluate the responding firm’s quality of work, experience, and/or its ability to perform the requested work.

Step 2: Evaluation of Submitted Proposals

All proposals determined to be responsive will be evaluated and scored by an Evaluation Committee, which may include employees and/or agents of the Owner. This Committee will carry out the detailed evaluations, including establishing the competitive range.

Step 3: Interviews, Discussion, and Negotiations

The Evaluation Committee will determine whether acceptance of the most favorable initial proposal without discussion is appropriate, or whether interviews and/or discussions should be conducted with all proposers within the competitive range.

If the Committee determines it is in the best interest of the Owner to enter into negotiations with proposers in the competitive range, the Committee will submit, only to the proposers in the competitive range, questions regarding their proposals which it feels are appropriate for discussion or which need additional clarification.

Proposers shall be prepared to respond, in writing, to all questions within the time frame provided by the Committee. If deemed necessary by the Committee, oral interviews, discussions, and or on-site demonstrations with proposer(s) may be required.

Each proposer remaining within the competitive range at the close of negotiations may be allowed to submit a final supplement call a “best and final offer”.

Agency for Community Transit RFP Volume 4 of 6

Evaluation and Selection Procedures Page 2 of 2

Step 4: Contract Award

A recommendation to award a contract, if any, to the responsive and responsible Proposer found to be the most advantageous and of greatest value, will be made to the Owner’s board. Accordingly, the Owner may not necessarily make an award to the Proposer with the highest technical ranking nor award to the Proposer with the lowest price if doing so would not be in the overall best interest of the Owner. The Owner may award some, all, or none of the Proposer additional features / services that are offered.

1.2 Evaluation Criteria

The following criteria are listed by their relative order of importance by which proposals will be evaluated and ranked for the purposes of determining any competitive range and making any selection of a proposal for a potential award. As proposals are considered by the Owner to be more equal in their technical merit, the evaluated proposer experience and price become more important so that when technical proposals are evaluated as essentially equal, price may be the deciding factor.

1. Technical solution

2. Proposer’s experience, past performance, and qualifications of personnel assigned to the project

3. Price. Points will be assigned based on the Proposer’s price relationship to the lowest proposal price.

The Proposer’s proposal price will be the 5-year base contract term price (fixed-price components and the time-and-material components not-to-exceed ceiling price).

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