Signed-_Name_Brand.pdf

Brand Name Justification under Simplified Acquisition for GSA-PBS-R8 Utah Job Order Construction Contract

6.302-1(c)- Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

General Services Administration (GSA)- Public Building Services (PBS)- Region 8 is looking to procure a 1 year base and 4 - 1 year option period Job Order Construction Contract (JOCC). A JOCC ‘s pricing is based on a Unit Price Book (UPB). A UPB provides a list of detailed line item construction tasks and costs typically expected to account for at least 90% of the renovation, repair, maintenance, and/or construction costs associated with a Job Order Construction Contract. This justification covers only RS Means Facilities Maintenance & Repair Costs Book by RS Means Company, LLC located at 1099 Hingham Street, Suite 201, Rockland, MA 02370.

RS Means will be the required UPB for the winning contractor to use for the base year and all awarded option periods.

The estimated value of this name brand item is $5,000 for the base year and any subsequent options. The estimated price was based on purchasing the RS Means Facilities Maintenance & Repair Costs Book.

The Brand Name Justification will be posted with the solicitation per 6.302-1(c)(C) -- Application for Brand Name Justifications

A description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs.

General Services Administration, Federal Acquisition Service describes the ubiquitous use of RS Means in the industry and throughout the Government, which is consistent with the market research for the brand name justification for the current project requirement. In draft solicitation 7FCI-F8-030056-B for Schedule 561, the unique characteristics of RS Means described to justify the use of the brand name is recognized due to the prominent use in the industry.

RS Means is a 75 year old proprietary pricing tool that provides cost information to the construction industry so contractors in the industry can provide accurate estimates and projections for their project costs. For decades, RS Means has been recognized in both industry and government as an authoritative source of reliable construction costs.

1 Draft Solicitation 7FCI-F8-030056-B for Schedule 56 and Refresh 31, GSA Interact, Multipole Award Schedules, Submitted by hnaegele on Thursday, August 2017 – 9:18 AM, Website:

https://interact.gsa.gov/document/draft-solicitation-7fci-f8-030056-b-schedule-56-and-refresh-31 https://interact.gsa.gov/document/draft-solicitation-7fci-f8-030056-b-schedule-56-and-refresh-31

Contractors use RS Means to quote and invoice full service construction jobs – all the way from the building to the services to install…incidentals needed to price a requirement. RS Means comes in three forms to be utilized by the contractor– Reference books, CD Software, and an online cost estimator. RS Means updates are pushed out quarterly in all three forms.

At its core, RS Means has created and maintains a database of product, services, and equipment pricing that is based on a mathematical average of material costs that comes from manufacturers, dealers, distributors, contractors, and other sources across the U.S.

and Canada. There are 20+ engineers whose sole job is to collect RS Means unit price data. A minimum of three quotes for product are obtained and any abnormalities are researched and potentially excluded. Labor costs are based on an average of trade-specific wages in a minimum of 30 major U.S. cities. The labor cost can also be run with a specific city to localize the pricing to ensure Davis Bacon Rate standard are being met.

Labor costs reflect productivity based on actual working conditions including taking into account time for tasks such as material receiving and handling, mobilization at site, site movement, breaks, and clean up. Equipment costs include not only rental, but also operating costs for equipment under normal use.

Contractors at a commercial level use this database to price a complete job. The direct costs of a quote are really what you will find at the core of RS Means. These include material, labor (No labor burdens/Markup built into the unit costs), and the equipment rental.

A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited.

Because of the nature of this vehicle, GSA-PBS-R8 needs to only use one pricing book to allow for proper review of proposals submitted. If a pricing book is not called out, evaluation of the price will be overly complicated and extremely difficult to evaluate accurately or fairly. When considering which pricing book to use, R8 looked at multiple avenues including local pricing books.

RS means was chosen for the following reasons:

1. RS Means has been the national standard for the last 55 years.

RS Means is a 75 year old proprietary pricing tool that provides cost information to the construction industry so contractors in the industry can provide accurate estimates and projections for their project costs. For the last 55 years, it has become a standard in large construction and for government. For decades, RS Means has been recognized in both industry and government as an authoritative source of reliable construction costs. Contractors use RS Means to quote and invoice full service construction jobs – all the way from the building to the services to install to incidentals needed to price a requirement.

2. It is a common language for most of the Government:

This contract could potentially cover multiple regions and multiple agencies will be allowed delegated authority to procure task orders. Because of the diverse use of customers using this vehicle, using the most common language is vital for its success.

RS Means is the data source PBS Cost Estimators and Project Managers have received training in the RS Means database. In 2018, Cost Estimators from every PBS region attended a week-long training in the InEight system, again RS Means as the source. Additionally, Region 8 Project Managers and Cost Estimators were provided online RS Means training at the end of

FY18.

3. GSA has procured software at a national level to support agency and mission requirements.

PBS has maintained national contracts for cost estimating software that has used the RS Means library as its source for the past several years. This had previously been through the web-based platform RS Means Online, followed by the CostWorks enterprise system, and most recently the InEight detailed cost estimating system.

Any licenses to competing databases would result in additional costs to the region for the licenses and additional training. For these reasons, allowing vendors to use any cost estimating database aside from RS Means would lead to confusion by Region 8 staff and lack of comparability between costs and estimates, thereby negating the purpose of the JOCC. In that case, in order to alleviate that lack of comparability, Region 8 would need to purchase additional licenses in those differing completing databases, as well as training.

There is intent at the national level to increase competition for cost databases in the future.

However, this is not expected to occur in the immediate future and as of now is uncertain. The only database known to be continually used by PBS for the next several years is RS Means.

4. Availability

RS Means comes in three forms to be utilized by the contractor– Reference books, CD Software, and an online cost estimator making use easy and readily available. RS Means updates are pushed out quarterly in all three forms. In addition, because it is the most commonly used estimating format in the nation, their website’s bandwidth allows for acceptable access for remote areas. This is especially important for Region 8 with states such as Montana and North Dakota.

A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

Language defining the justification to determine the use of RS Means and fair and reasonable is listed below. This language will be inserted into the PNM/PNO at contract award

RS Means has created and maintains a database of product, services, and equipment pricing that is based on a mathematical average of costs specific to region that comes from manufacturers, dealers, distributors, contractors, and other sources across the U.S. and Canada. RS Means has been recognized in both industry and government as an authoritative source of reliable construction costs. There are 20+ engineers whose sole job is to collect unit price data. A minimum of three quotes for product are obtained and any abnormalities are researched and potentially excluded. Labor costs are based on an average of trade-specific wages in a minimum of 30 major U.S. cities. Labor costs reflect productivity based on actual working conditions including taking into account time for tasks such as material receiving and handling, mobilization at site, site movement, breaks, and clean up. Equipment costs include not only rental, but also operating costs for equipment under normal use. (Insert contractor name) has requested to utilize RS Means to price services, incidentals, and equipment rental for purchase to support the scope of products on the approved price list.

RS Means will be approved and annual updates issued by RS Means will be utilized when released. Annual updates issued by RS Means will be utilized by the contractor when they are incorporated into option years. A contractor may never exceed the RS Means unit price for any product or service without a modification to the contract.

RS Means will reflect the current costs of materials, equipment, and labor. The total value of the estimate(s) is then multiplied by the contractor’s approved coefficient(s) to calculate the total cost of the project. A coefficient is a numerical factor that represents costs (generally indirect costs) not considered to be included in RS Means.

Coefficients proposed are multiplied times the established unit prices in the unit price book to price a job or project on individual task orders. The Coefficient proposed & accepted by the Government will be incorporated in the JOCC. The coefficient pricing is what will be evaluated for price competition.

A description of the market research conducted and the results Below are examples of competitors with RS Means. These have not been considered for this particular contract due to the current availability of RS Means for PBS staff nationally and training that has been provided. Pursuing any of these competitors as an alternative data source for the JOCC would lead to additional licensing and training costs.

State Specific Pricing Books-

Although this contract will primarily have work performed in Utah, a local pricing book is not appropriate. The contract at its base covers the states of Utah and Colorado which would require two pricing books to be incorporated. In addition, the government and contractor can bilaterally add on locations that border the state of Utah and Colorado, if necessary, to meet GSA Mission Objectives. Those states would include; Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and additional sites in Colorado. Therefore, it’s important that the pricing book chosen has access to multiple states.

Other cost books used by the Government

MII is the second generation of the Micro-Computer Aided Cost Estimating System (MCACES).

It is a detailed cost estimating software application that was developed in conjunction with Project Time & Cost LLC. (PT&C). MII is one of several modules of an integrated suite of cost engineering tools called Tri-Service Automated Cost Engineering Systems (TRACES). It interfaces with other PC based support modules and databases used by the Tri-Service Cost Engineering community.

MII provides an integrated cost estimating system (software and databases) that meets the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) requirements for preparing cost estimates for A-E contractors for military, civil works and hazardous, toxic and radioactive waste (HTRW) projects.

MII’s focus is different from the purpose of this JOCC, and therefore not the best fit.

A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required.

A name brand determination will be implemented for the JOCC pricing book only. Some of the RS Means alternatives, are an all-in one solution that could potentially impacted how businesses operate far more since they aren’t the industry standard. All-in-one solutions could require companies to change how they track the company’s financials; how they manage projects, how they track quality assurance and safety protocols, etc.

Parties that demonstrated interest in the name brand:

Four BT, LLC 1707 ½ Post Oak Blvd., Ste. 536 Houston, TX 77056

Parties that demonstrated interest in the JOCC contract:

Contractor Acierto LLC

Adapt Construction

Allcon

Americon, Inc.

Axis Development

Bexar Advanced Solutions

BMT Consulting

Buffalo MTE

Construction Journal Ltd

Construction Software Technologies

Farah Construction

Ford Construction Company

GCS

Global Construction

Green Water Energy

Heffler Contracting Group

Land Construction Group

Mo Mon Tai, Inc

Naylor, Wentworth, Lund

Northern Construction

NVE LLC

Povolny

Primetech Construction

Puyenpa Services, LLC

R.M.H. Groups

Repperio

RJS Construction, INC

Shofar Communications

SMA Services LLC

South Mountain Builder

Yukon Construction

Conclusion In order for the JOCC to serve the purpose as an efficient contracting vehicle for small construction projects, one source of estimating data should be the basis of pricing for the contract. RS Means is the most widely sourced database for construction cost information, and offers multiple alternatives for sourcing, such as websites, software, hard copies of books, etc.

Therefore, specifying RS Means as the single data source for the JOCC will allow for the most competition among construction firms.

PBS staff nationally has access to RS Means data, and therefore using it as the source for construction pricing on this JOCC will be at no additional cost to Region 8. Competing construction firms on the JOCC may source the RS Means cost data from any of the currently available alternatives, such as books, websites, software, etc. These firms will need to be competitive during pricing for each task order, which provides the incentive for pursuing the most cost effective data sourcing possible.

Based on the market research findings, RS Means is essential to the Government’s requirements, thereby precluding consideration of a product manufactured by another company.

Additionally, the Contracting officer certifies that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of the contracting officer’s knowledge and belief.

Ross May

Project Manager

Courtney Westlie

Contracting Officer

December 20,