Draft Evaluation Factors .pdf

DRAFT

PROPOSED DCCO EVALUATION FACTORS

The Government intends to utilize a two-phased evaluation approach. Under Phase I proposals, the Government plans to evaluate Factor 1 - Corporate Technical Experience. Offeror’s that are rated most highly in Phase I will be invited to participate in Phase II. Offeror’s would then be required to submit Phase II proposals, Factor 2 - Past Performance, Factor 3 - Technical Approach, Factor 4 - Staffing and Management Approach, Factor 5 - Key Personnel, Factor 6

- Oral Presentations, and Factor 7 - Price.

Below is a breakdown of the proposed Evaluation Factors:

Evaluation Criteria and Factors

Phase I Factor 1 - Corporate Technical Experience

Phase II

Factor 2- Past Performance

Factor 3 - Staffing and Management Approach

Factor 4 - Key Personnel Experience and Qualifications Factor 5 - Technical Approach Factor 6 - Oral Presentation Factor 7 - Price

ADVISORY DOWN-SELECT PROCESS:

After the Government completes evaluation of Factor 1, Offeror’s will receive an advisory notification letter via e-mail from the Contracting Officer. The advisory notification will advise the Offeror of the Government’s advisory recommendation to proceed or not to proceed with Phase II submissions. Offeror’s who are rated most highly for Factor 1 will be advised to proceed to Phase II of the proposal submission process. Offeror’s who were not among the most highly rated will be advised that they are unlikely to be viable competitors, along with the general basis for the Government’s advisory recommendation. The Government anticipates that there will only be approximately three offerors that will advance to Phase II.

Offeror’s that do not receive a positive advisory notification from the Government, can opt out not to participate in Phase II and will not be evaluated further by the Government. Offeror’s are requested to provide notification to the Government of their decision to opt out of the Request for Proposal.

The intent of this notice is to minimize proposal development costs for those Offerors with little or no chance of receiving an award. However, the Government’s advice is a recommendation only, and those Offerors may elect to continue their participation in the acquisition. The Government does not intend to provide debriefings after the completion of Phase I.

Failure to participate in Phase I precludes further consideration of an Offeror. Proposal submissions will not be accepted from Offerors who have not submitted a Phase I, Step 1 – response by the due date and time stated in this solicitation. Offerors will be provided 14 calendar days from the issuance of the Advisory Notice to submit information required under Phase II.

DHS is anticipating that approximately five (5) Offerors will be advised to proceed to Phase

II.

The basis for award will be Best Value as defined by FAR 2.101. Evaluation will be conducted, and selection will be made in accordance with the guidelines provided in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), Homeland Security Acquisition Manual (HSAM), and the final Request for Proposal (RFP). Award will be made to the responsible Offeror submitting an overall proposal that is determined most advantageous to the Government, price and non-price factors considered.

Offeror’s are advised that if a trade-off analysis is conducted, award may be made to other than the lowest priced Offeror, if the Government determines that a price premium is warranted due to the technical merit. The Government may also award to other than the highest technically rated Offeror, if the Government determines that a price premium is not warranted.

As the technical evaluation of proposals approaches equality, greater importance will be placed on price in making the award determination. In the event that two or more proposals are determined not to have any substantial technical differences (i.e., are technically equivalent), award will be made to the lowest priced Offeror.

Draft Relative Order of Importance: Evaluation factors 1, 2 and 5 are of equal importance, factors 3,4 and 6 are of equal importance but less than factors 1, 2 and 5. When combined, the non-price factors are significantly more important than price.

To be eligible for award, a proposal must comply in all material aspects to the requirements of law, regulation and the terms and conditions set forth in this solicitation, and the Offeror must be determined responsible according to the standards set forth in FAR Subpart 9.1.

1. PHASE I EVALUATION

At the conclusion of Phase I evaluations, all Offeror’s will be notified in writing by the CO of their results and advisory notice regarding Phase II.

1.1 FACTOR 1 - CORPORATE TECHNICAL EXPERIENCE

The Government plans to evaluate the Corporate Technical Experience of the Offeror by asking (7) Yes/No questions outlined below and requiring the Offeror to provide a written description of their answer. Each answer shall not be less than (1) page or more than (3) pages in length. The answers will be used to determine the extent and nature of experience of the Offeror has in implementing, managing and migrating Hybrid Computing Environments. The Government plans to evaluate the provided Corporate Technical Experience to determine whether it is recent (3 years), and whether the Offeror operated in the capacity as the prime contractor.

Questions:

1. Does the Offeror have recent experience in providing services related to the operation and modernization of a Government Agency or Corporate Data Center environment of a similar size and complexity, scope, and responsibilities of the DHS Data Center environment?

2. Does the Offeror have recent corporate experience and current relationships with multiple Cloud Service Providers and FedRAMP Environments providing cloud services to Government Agencies?

3. Does the Offeror have an established record of experience with the transition of operations with data centers of this size, complexity and mission space?

4. Does the Offeror have an established record of experience with large enterprise and Cybersecurity governance, and the management of cloud services and environments?

5. Does the Offeror have an established record of experience with large enterprise full system lifecycle, integration, and migration and support services, to and from, and in cloud service provider environments, on-premises locations, and enterprise co-location environments?

6. Does the Offeror have recent corporate experience and relationships with multiple Colocation Providers and environments providing co-location services to Government Agencies or Corporate Data Center Environments?

7. Does the Offeror have recent corporate experience with application rationalization and migration services, and experience providing such service to Government Agencies or Corporate Data Center Environments?

2. PHASE II EVALUATION

The Government plans to evaluate all Offeror’s Phase II Proposals. Note that Offeror’s who receive an advisory notification that they are not among the most highly rated for Phase I are unlikely to be viable competitors in Phase II. The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s Past Performance, Staffing and Management Approach, Key Personnel, Technical Approach, and Oral Presentation to determine the extent to which the Offeror’s proposal provides confidence that the Offeror can satisfy the requirements identified in the PWS. The Government will also evaluate the Offeror’s proposed Price.

2.1 FACTOR 2 - PAST PERFORMANCE

The Government plans to evaluate the Past Performance (up to four (4) projects) provided by the Offeror to determine the quality and successful performance of the Offeror in providing services related to the operation of a Government Agency or Corporate Hybrid Computing Environment (HCE) of a similar size and complexity, scope, and responsibilities of the DHS HCE. The Government plans to evaluate whether the Offeror has demonstrated that it has performed services similar to those in the three relevant functional areas; data center, colocation, and cloud. The Government plans to evaluate the provided Past Performance to determine whether it is recent (3 years), and whether the Offeror operated as the prime contractor.

2.2 FACTOR 3 – STAFFING AND MANAGEMENT APPROACH

Under Phase II, Factor 3, Staffing and Management Approach, the Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s approach to managing staffing, Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), Colocation Providers and equipment resellers, metrics reporting for the HCE as follows:

1. Staffing Approach - The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s staffing approach and capabilities to ensure successful contract and task order performance. The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s proposed approach to providing certified and experienced employees both in data center operations, colocation services, cloud computing operations. The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s personnel recruitment and retention policy. The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s proposed method for ensuring staffing for PWS task requirements operations and surge requirements, including the corporate reach-back and teaming arrangements. The Government plans to evaluate the adequacy of labor categories proposed for the IDIQ and the proposed level of effort for each category.

2. Management Systems - The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s management systems, including processes and technologies, personnel to sustain and constantly improve those systems to enable successful delivery to meet task requirements and to maintain accurate records of the systems within the HCE.

3. Teaming/Subcontractors – The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s record of working with and managing its proposed teaming partners, subcontractors, consultants and business partners, equipment providers, Cloud Service Providers, Colocation Providers. The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s teaming/subcontractor management approach, if such arrangements are being proposed for use.

2.3 FACTOR 4 - KEY PERSONNEL EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS

DHS plans to evaluate the resumes of the (3) proposed Key Personnel described in the PWS and summary matrix depicting the experience and qualifications of each Key Personnel relative to the PWS functional task areas. The Government plans to establish its confidence in the Offeror’s ability to perform by evaluating the experience, qualifications and availability of Key Personnel proposed by the Offeror for this effort.

2.4 FACTOR 5 – TECHNICAL APPROACH

The Government plans to evaluate the technical approach proposed by the Offeror to operate a Hybrid Computing Environment (HCE) as described in the DCCO PWS. The Government plans to evaluate the technical feasibility of the Offeror’s proposed technical approach to transition and operations of the environment across the data center, colocations and cloud. The Government plans to assess the Offeror’s methods for maintaining technical control and monitoring of those environments while providing the required visibility to the government.

1. HCE Operations - The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s approach operating an environment that spans data center, cloud environments and colocations. The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s proposed technical approach to how it will sustain the confidentiality, integrity and availability across the environments. The Government plans to evaluate the technical approach of integrating a centrally-managed dashboard for the management, monitoring, and reporting of on-premises locations, colocation facilities, and cloud computing environments.

2. HCE Reporting/monitoring - The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s approach to reporting and providing feeds to DHS management and security systems in real-time to ensure DHS has a visibility into the operational and security of all system hosted within the HCE (such as the use of a dashboard).

The Government plans to evaluate the processes and technologies proposed to deliver usage, performance, security, financial, etc. data on the HCE for trend analysis.

3. Problem/Incident Resolution – The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s proposed administrative and technical approach to resolving problems and incidents that arise in the HCE and how they will escalate the incidents and bring them to resolution.

4. Transition - The Government plans to evaluate the Offeror’s proposed approach to transition from the current vendor to full operations under the new vendor and to maintain those operations.

2.5 FACTOR 6– ORAL PRESENTATIONS

The Government is considering the use of Oral Presentations as Factor 6. All Offeror’s included in Phase II would provide an Oral Presentation to the Government (may be a conducted virtually). Offeror’s will be notified in writing of the date and time of this scheduled presentation.

The oral presentations will consist of the Offeror’s response to three scenarios likely to be encountered during HCE operations. The scenarios will be provided at the time of the Oral Presentation. The Offeror may bring up to five (5) Personnel to participate in the Oral Presentations. At least two (2) of the (5) Personnel must be Prime Contractor employees. The scenarios are designed to demonstrate the Offeror’s expertise, innovative solutions, key personnel capabilities, and ability to articulate complex technical concepts when responding to the types of situations that may be encountered in performance of the tasks resulting from this solicitation.

Accordingly, the Offeror’s will not be given an opportunity to correct or revise their response.

The Offeror will have 60 minutes to develop their responses and 60 minutes to present their Oral Presentation addressing the scenarios. No additional topics would be presented during the Offeror’s presentation. No outside influence or assistance would be allowed. The Government may ask clarifying questions after the presentation.

5. FACTOR 7 - PRICE

The Government plans to evaluate Factor 7 - Price to ensure it is reasonable and consistent with the vendor’s technical response.

The Offeror’s price proposal will be evaluated for reasonableness and total evaluated price.

Adequate price competition is expected to support the determination of price reasonableness.

Price analysis techniques may be utilized to further validate price reasonableness. A total evaluated price will be calculated for evaluation purposes and used to assist in determining the best value to the Government.

The Government may reject an offer as being unacceptable if it is materially unbalanced as to prices for each year of the contract period and/or various CLINS.