GSA BIC MAC Overview for RFI.pdf

General Services Administration

BIC MAC IDIQ

Acquisition Strategy Concepts Overview March 2, 2021

Thank you for your interest in responding to GSA Federal Acquisition Service’s (FAS) BIC MAC (Best-in-Class Multiple Award Contract) Indefinite-Delivery-Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) Request for Information (RFI). This overview presents background information on the BIC MAC acquisition strategy concepts for the RFI from March 2, 2021. GSA is presenting this information to provide a full perspective on the concepts and asks that industry partners read it in its entirety prior to answering the RFI. RFI questions are cited with sections from this overview for easy reference.

Background Federal agency requirements have become increasingly more complex with many services procurements having elements of several categories of spend. Mission requirements are frequently evolving due to changing threats, policies, and the public’s emerging needs for federal agency support. As a result, agencies need and expect GSA to provide easy access to flexible contracts that can change over time and, most importantly, have well qualified contractors that understand their missions.

Industry is now managing far too many contracts, to include those awarded by GSA, driving up acquisition costs that are passed on to federal agency programs. One example of this duplication -- for 80% of spend in the professional services category -- less than 1,000 contractors are managing nearly 11,000 contracts. Given the historical constraints of federal procurement law, current GWACs and MACs have left many highly qualified contractors - both traditional and new to the federal market - with limited access to most best in class contracts driving many agencies to create duplicative contracts to access their core industrial base.

In addition, new procurement authorities given to GSA provides us with a unique opportunity to create a next generation services MAC that is broader and better addresses federal agencies’ services needs today. GSA FAS Office of Professional Services and Human Capital Categories began the work in 2020, to develop a services contract that achieves four goals:

● It delivers a simpler buying experience through a contract program that allows for both commercial and noncommercial services, supporting commodities, all contract pricing types, and primarily uses GSA’s new authority to leverage competition at the task order level to establish price.

● It reduces friction in the procurement process through vetted open enrollment based on agencies needs, thoughtful selection and fair opportunity standards, enhanced systems, and innovative practices.

● It meets best-in-class contract requirements, and improves government oversight and management of spend, contract and subcontract performance, and small business participation.

● It positions the federal government to reduce contract duplication and to achieve significant burden reduction for both government and industry.

In terms of how BIC MAC will align with other GSA contract offerings, specifically Multiple Award Schedules (MAS), MAS has a number of streamlined and effective practices that will be incorporated into the acquisition strategy; however, PSHC does not intend to duplicate the Multiple Award Schedule with the BIC MAC. The contract will be complementary to GSA’s other contract offerings, providing needed flexibility and ability for agencies to transition unmanaged spend to a Best In Class, centrally managed contract. Specifically, a large segment of Federal spending is not able to be accommodated via MAS due to the requirement involving:

● Non-commercial services

● Cost Reimbursable contract types

● Integrated services

As such, the above needs represent top priority objectives for the Government’s requirements. PSHC does not intend to limit BIC MAC to these parameters, though; the goal is to provide a flexible, dynamic contract vehicle that can meet the full scope of potential services needed, which may also include commercial and fixed price requirements. How this will relate to other Multiple Award Contracts and Government-Wide Vehicles is still being determined within GSA.

Lastly, GSA would like to clarify any confusion about the name for this contract vehicle. Please note that BIC MAC, B.I.G. MAC, Next Generation Services IDIQ, and all renditions of OASIS 2 (expanded, next gen, etc) are the same contract as the BIC MAC. The final name for this contract has not been decided, and will be referred to as BIC MAC until a name is decided.

Acquisition Strategy Concepts Overview

Please note that all concepts shared in this overview are preliminary and in constant flux. The intent of the examples and walk through is to help aid comprehension and they do not represent any final concepts. These ideas are being actively discussed with industry, customer agencies, and GSA’s acquisition policy office to determine viability and interest.

This overview will go over conceptual plans for GSA’s BIC MAC IDIQ Contract Organization, Small Business Strategies, Ordering Process, Source Selection, and Pricing Data. It is important to understand the entire process before diving into the RFI.

1. Contract organization and Domains

1.1. GSA’s intent is for the BIC MAC contract to be one contract organized by domains. A domain represents a grouping of related functional areas that encompass multiple NAICS codes. Domains are designed to align order requirements to qualified industry partners. A company would qualify for the domain as a whole and therefore qualify for all of the NAICS codes aligned to that domain.

Domains do not have a primary NAICS code, instead, the ordering contracting officer would select any NAICS code within the domain based on the principle purpose of their requirement.

1.1.1. The above example is presented to show how NAICS may be grouped under a domain to help with the following statements. These examples are not inclusive of all planned domains or NAICS.

1.1.2. To issue their solicitation, the CO would select the domain best aligning to their requirements, as well as the NAICS under the domain associated with the principal purpose of the task order work. It is not anticipated that competing a requirement across multiple domains would be permitted (i.e., the OCO chooses a single domain to solicit from). The chosen order-level NAICS code will set the applicable size standard on a procurement by procurement basis. This means that a company may be both large and small within a given domain, depending on the NAICS codes. The ordering NAICS would determine the applicability of a company’s ability to compete if a small business set aside is used, not the Domain.

1.1.3. Another important consideration is that a NAICS code can appear in multiple domains, as shown in the example. This structure will allow a company to clearly and appropriately match their capabilities to a domain or multiple domains. Additionally, it will allow agency buyers to identify the appropriate domains and industry partners that perform the type of work they’re looking for no matter which NAICS defines the principle purpose of work. For example, 541611 for R&D is much different than 541611 for Human Resources Management. A similar concept exists on schedules: 541611W - Workforce Analytics and Employee Records is for NAICS 541611 work, but aligned to the Human Capital schedule;

541611O is same NAICS but aligned to office management, 541611 (general) is aligned to the professional services schedule, while 541611LIT is aligned to litigation support services under office management/document services.

2. Domains and Scope

2.1. At this time, GSA is anticipating 9 to 15 domains in the initial release of the contract. The domains will follow a category management structure with some specialized domains based on agency needs and where category management has gaps. Which domains will be in the rollout of the contract are to be determined. Current assumed domains are as follows:

2.1.1. General domains: Technical and Engineering, Research and Development, Management and Advisory Services, Business Administration, Financial Services, Environmental Services, Marketing and PR, Logistics, Facilities, Human Services (HR, Legal, and Social Services)

2.1.2. Specialized domains Identified to date: Base Operation Support Services, Counterintelligence, C4ISR, Major Professional Services Acquisitions (large dollar value comprehensive professional services), OCONUS

2.2. GSA is looking to create the ability to create more domains as the contract progresses in case there are areas of scope that would merit additional breakouts. This would be determined based on overall need from customer agencies, the representation of industry, and other factors.

2.3. The next RFI will ask for feedback on domain requirements, the NAICS codes that should be included, and considerations for additional scope areas.

3. Domains and Small Business Strategies

3.1. One of the priority goals for BIC MAC IDIQ is to reduce contract duplication, which benefits both

Government and industry, particularly small business concerns. To that end, GSA is exploring the use of Small Business Reserves, rather than having separate contracts for small and large businesses.

3.1.1. Given the potential variance in size for one company within a domain, one contract prevents undue administrative burden by having to develop entire proposals to support awards on separate contracts for the same area of work. Also, combining small and large businesses in the same contract allows agency contracting officers to solicit to both business sizes simultaneously if market research does not clearly demonstrate the ability to set aside the requirement for small businesses. It also makes market research easier as a whole.

3.2. Recent changes to Federal Regulations (13 CFR § 121.404(a)(1)) require small businesses to re-represent their size and socioeconomic status per task order if the task order socioeconomic set aside differs from the IDIQ’s (e.g., a WOSB set aside task order under a SB set aside IDIQ). The rule does not require order-level representation, however, if the agency issues the order under a pool or a reserve that already was set aside (or Reserved) for the same category as the order at the IDIQ level.

3.2.1. The utilization of reserves as an acquisition strategy, could potentially avoid the need for distinct, duplicate contracts for every type of socioeconomic category, and allow small businesses to compete for any procurement issued under a domain, whether the procurement is set aside or not.

3.2.2. Use of reserves could allow the small businesses to maintain their size/socioeconomic status for the five-year contract term in any eligible socioeconomic reserve groups, except as required to re-represent by FAR 52.219-28 or if the ordering agency contracting officer explicitly requests re-representation at the order level (which would not affect the size/socioeconomic in the IDIQ).

4. Customer Ordering Process

4.1. This contract will follow a systematic design and approach. What that means is, GSA will make available to customer agencies any vendor capabilities and project experience related to proposal data verified at the IDIQ level that could facilitate order-level market research and task order source selection.

4.1.1. There would be an exception for secret (and above) experience.

4.2. This customer market

research model is shown to help industry understand the justification for the data requested related to project experience during source selection.

This example represents a concept for market research capabilities using the system that GSA may provide.

4.2.1. All numbers used

in the example are fictitious and do not represent any concepts for caps or ratios of the Research and Development Domain, nor do the numbers under a given section represent any known figures on industry capabilities.

4.2.2. In this example

for Research and Development, the agency buyer has identified the NAICS code that they want to research or solicit under. There are 120 vendors available in the given domain. For the NAICS in question, 541715, 60 of them are large businesses and 60 are small.

In order to identify vendors with the specific capabilities needed for their requirement, the buyer has selected two key functional categories under https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/10/16/2020-19428/consolidation-of-mentor-protg-programs-and-other-government-contracting-amendments#p-39 https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/10/16/2020-19428/consolidation-of-mentor-protg-programs-and-other-government-contracting-amendments#p-146

Research and Development - Medical R&D and R&D with Systems IT

4.2.2.1. These functional categories would be defined by GSA through a partnership with industry and customer agencies. They would be fixed within the system, and would be used to ‘tag’ project experience that a vendor provides in the company profile.

The functional categories would be flexible, in that GSA could add or remove functional categories at any time based on customer and industry input. The intent of the categories (tags) is to assist with market research and vendor identification, not limit fair opportunity.

5. Company Experience

5.1. As vendors submit project specific experience in their proposals to add domains to their contracts, or add or update content to their company’s project experience profile at a later date, vendors would provide the same type of information that is being searched against by ordering agencies as they are conducting market research.

5.1.1. In the example shown

here for project experience, the company has submitted their experience working on a Research and Development project that has both Medical R&D as well as R&D with Systems IT. The vendor tagged their experience based on the scope of work for the project. The company would be shown as a match during the ordering agency’s market research, along with the other vendors that also indicated that they had project experience that matched the ordering agency’s criteria.

This project has been tagged for multiple domains. The intent would be that a project is tied to the vendor’s profile and could be used across domains when providing evidence of experience and capabilities. It would only need to be submitted once by the vendor, and verified once by the Government.

5.1.2. The idea here is to

minimize the incidence of vendors entering the same qualifications and project experience information many times, in many different formats to comply with slightly different parameters. Once GSA has verified the fundamental qualification, the vendor and ordering agency contracting officer can rely on that qualification, or add to it with order-level supplemental information as needed.

5.2. Currently, GSA is considering how to educate customers on the use of the systematic tool to also set minimum Order Level Qualifications. Order level qualifications would be criteria established by the ordering contracting officer to do an initial vetting of industry capabilities. GSA intends to clearly identify the capabilities and certifications that have already been verified and vetted at the master contract level. Via this method, if an OCO requirement calls for proof of an Adequate Cost Accounting System as a minimum order level qualification, for example, they will identify the minimum need in their evaluation criteria for award consideration. It would limit who would meet minimum qualifications for award at the task order level, and this and other information would be available to the OCO via GSA for each and every contract awarded under the program. How this would work in a subcontracting situation is to be determined, and it would still be the OCO’s discretion to determine how they would use the Order Level Qualification information that GSA has verified and vetted. It is important to mention that order level qualifications can be updated/added to a contract at any time during the life of the contract. So, if for instance a contractor is awarded a contract under the program and their Cost Accounting System hasn’t been determined adequate at the time of award, once it has the designation, the contractor can request to have the designation added.

5.3. As mentioned, GSA plans to make project experience available to support a customer’s market research. In order to have a complete profile, vendors can submit project experience at any time and will be incentivized to keep their project experience information up-to-date. PSHC will verify updated information on an ongoing basis, and will work to streamline and automate much of this process to support a quick turnaround.

6. Source Selection - IDIQ

6.1. The current plan is not to cap the number of awards made under each domain. So long as a vendor meets the solicitation’s minimum technical qualifications identified for each individual domain they are proposing to, they would receive an award and that domain would be included in their contract.

6.2. In addition, GSA intends to have continuous entry of new awardees.While it is not decided whether this would mean the solicitation is always open, or is open during multiple windows throughout the year, it does mean we do not plan to limit entry opportunities.

6.3. Also, GSA anticipates using the authority provided to the agency to enhance competition at the task order level by eliminating price as an evaluation factor for the master IDIQ contract award.

6.4. To be eligible for award of a domain, vendors will need to provide project experience and capabilities specific to that domain based on a minimum set of qualifications and criteria. To the maximum extent possible, GSA will standardize submission requirements across domains to limit the amount of “new” information vendors will provide when applying for additional domains.

6.5. The evaluation criteria for each domain will vary, and there is no set evaluation criteria or qualification threshold that carries across all domains. In fact, the system will be verifying whether vendors have met the minimum overall criteria to qualify to join a domain or domains, rather than “scoring” your entries. Let’s talk about what this means.

6.5.1. In this example, we

have created a mock set of criteria for the Research and Development Domain.

6.5.1.1. This example

is simplified for illustrative purposes and does not represent the end state. Additional details on source selection criteria for each domain will be provided in the second RFI, where respondents will have the opportunity to provide feedback. GSA is working in partnership with customer agencies to define the draft criteria in the meantime.

6.5.2. As can be seen, the

requirements to qualify for the specific Domain award would be very clear. The considerations for small business specific qualifiers are not yet defined and will be developed as a result of market research and stakeholder engagements.

6.5.3. A vendor would be able to join additional domains at a later date. If they qualify for one domain today, but need additional experience to qualify for another domain, they can submit that experience later for evaluation to be considered. As was mentioned earlier, project experience could be used across domains as well, and if a project was already submitted, it would not need to be resubmitted to be considered, just linked to that domain for the evaluation.

6.5.4. Through continuous open enrollment, clearly defined criteria, and varied requirements by business size, GSA is hoping to address several issues that arise from a ‘race to qualify’ by the closing date mentality.

6.5.5. If the contract is always open, GSA is developing considerations for off-ramping and evaluating vendor performance and participation. Many of the suggestions and concepts for this came directly from industry. There are no specific strategies outlined at this stage, but there will be questions about the types of methods and measures that GSA might implement in a later RFI.

7. Additional Considerations for Small Business Strategies

7.1. For contractor teaming arrangements, including Joint Ventures and Prime/Subcontractor teams

(see FAR 9.601), GSA is exploring multiple options for how that experience and relationship should be considered. While there has been early feedback that continuous onboarding may reduce the need for vendors to rely on teaming arrangements to qualify for award, we are still considering various risk mitigation strategies to ensure awardees are sufficiently qualified, and there will be more to come on that subject.

7.2. GSA is also considering how to evaluate experience as a subcontractor, and how that consideration may help with concerns about barriers to entry. This is an ongoing topic that will require input from both large and small businesses to refine.

8. Pricing Data

8.1. Lastly, given GSA’s intent to eliminate price as an evaluation factor for the master IDIQ contract award, additional considerations for the collection of pricing data will be made. Several questions in this RFI will discuss strategies for managing customer expectations and needs. Customers have expressed concern regarding their ability to determine prices are fair and reasonable without a master contract price list, so GSA will need to find a way to provide tools that enable price evaluation. This would require capturing various forms of transactional task order data from industry at the very least.

Thank you for your interest in responding to GSA’s BIC MAC IDIQ RFI. Questions will reference sections of this RFI where examples and clarification may be needed. Please use it as a reference throughout the survey.

https://www.acquisition.gov/far/9.601