SECTION_M_revised_040913.pdf

IDIQ Tree Thinning Services Arapaho/Roosevelt National Forest

Medicine Bow/Routt National Forest White River National Forest

Solicitation No.: AG-82AT-S-13-0009

SECTION M - Evaluation Factors for Award

REVISED APRIL 9, 2013

M. 1 AWARD DETERMINATION

Proposers shall submit a signed original of their responses. Responses shall include the following minimum documents:

Signed Standard Form (SF) 33

Section B – Schedule of Items

Section K – Completed

Section M – As identified in M.2

M. 2 OFFER COMPLIANCE

The Government will award the contract to the Offeror(s) of the proposal that represents the best overall value to the

Government. The Government will evaluate the proposals of each Offeror: first, objectively on the compliance of its proposal and then, qualitatively on the following evaluation factors:

Experience

Technical Approach

Past Performance

Price

Award may be made without further discussions. Initial offers should be submitted with the most favorable terms, from a price and technical standpoint. The Government may, after evaluation of proposals, conduct oral or written discussions as appropriate, with the Offerors whose proposals are within a competitive range.

M. 3 EVALUATION CRITERIA AND INFORMATION

The Government will award the contract to the offeror(s) of the proposal that represents the best overall value to the Government. The Government will evaluate the proposals of each offeror: first, objectively on the compliance of its proposal and then, qualitatively on the following evaluation factors:

Experience

Technical Approach

Past Performance

Price

The Government will evaluate those factors as follows:

M.3.1 Experience

This factor will evaluate the offeror for its experience in successful completion of projects with similar scope, magnitude, and complexity that have been accomplished within the past five years as well as how well the offeror has performed on those projects. Past performance is an indicator of the likelihood of completion of the project in terms of time, cost, and quality of work. The Government will evaluate each

Offeror's past performance to determine how satisfied its customers were. The Government will review past performance, contact some of each Offeror's references to determine whether the offer conforms to the terms and conditions of its contracts; obeys the law; is honest, reasonable, and cooperative; maintains good

Medicine Bow/Routt National Forest White River National Forest labor relations; manages its subcontractors effectively; and is committed to customer satisfaction. The

Government may contact sources outside those listed in the proposal.

Offerors shall list all contracts requiring work similar to this project that have been awarded to their firm in the past five years. The Technical Evaluation Board will assess such attributes as your quality of work, customer satisfaction, timeliness of performance, business relations, and history of cost control. The proposal should demonstrate experience in tree thinning or other similar types of work. All Offerors should refer to Section L for instructions on preparation of offers. Please limit experience to five (5) pages.

M.3.1.1 For each completed project include the following:

Name, brief description and location of the project.

Award and completion dates.

Total dollar value of the project at time of award and at the time of completion.

Project Manager(s)/Key Personnel.

Name, address, phone number and of the Owner. Provide the name, telephone number and e-mail of a representative of the owner. The Government may contact this representative to obtain detailed information about the project and the offeror’s performance on the project.

Describe the contract performance period set forth in the contract, time growth during contract performance, if any and the number of days from start of project to acceptance by the owner/government agency.

In the case of a federal, state, or local government project, provide the name address and telephone number of the Contracting Officer.

Identify and describe any warranty issues raised by the owner and how those issues were resolved. If no warranty issues were raised, offerors should state that there were no warranty issues on the project.

If problems were encountered, describe the problems encountered and any corrective actions taken to prevent a recurrence.

The Government may consider any and all sources of information about the projects, including, but not limited to, contacting the owner or Contracting Officer for the project and reviewing information posted in the Contractor Performance and Rating System (CPARS)(www.cpars.gov). Firms who have a less than satisfactory performance evaluation should explain what happened and the lessons learned from the experience.

M.3.2 Technical Approach

Proposals will be evaluated to determine the Offeror’s ability to perform and satisfy all the contract requirements. Therefore, the technical proposal must present a detailed description of the techniques and procedures proposed for achieving the objectives of the specifications/statement of work. It must also provide sufficient information to reflect a thorough understanding of the contract requirements. Proposals that merely paraphrase the requirements of the Government's specifications/statement of work, or use such phrases such as "will comply" or "standard techniques will be employed" may be considered below average.

i.) Proposals shall also include Offeror’s resources available for work on the project. List key project personnel including but not limited to; Project Manager and/or Project Foreman. At a minimum, the

Project Manager should be able to demonstrate the following:

http://www.cpars.gov/

Medicine Bow/Routt National Forest White River National Forest

a) Ability to create and execute project work plans and revises as appropriate,

b) Ability to identify resources needed and assign individual responsibilities,

c) Demonstrate ability to manage day-to-day operational aspects of project,

d) Review quality assurance procedures, and

e) Minimize and mitigate risk to personnel and equipment while working on the project.

The Project Foreman should be able to demonstrate the following minimum skills:

a) Determine the manpower required for the job,

b) Oversee the employees working on the job,

c) Maintain the work schedule,

d) Understand how to perform the required quality control inspections,

e) Hold safety meetings with onsite personnel, and

f) Coordinate with all parties necessary in performance of work.

Both positions are required to the ability to speak and understand English. Offerors shall also include their years of experience and skills and abilities to perform the required work.

M.3.2.1 Quality Control

As identified in Section E the Contractor shall provide a general Quality Control Plan (QCP) with the technical proposal. The Contractor shall supplement the QCP within 20 days before start of work with a final QCP based on items awarded to the Contractor and Government comments.

The general Quality Control Plan must demonstrate how the Contractor will assure quality meets the requirements and specifications of the contract. The Plan shall describe how quality will be monitored to assure the performance standards are met, the supervision of crew and work, and personnel that will be performing the quality control. Quality control shall include monitoring quality while thinning is in progress.

M.3.3 Past Performance

Provide a minimum of three (3) and no more than ten (10) references for projects of similar size and scope.

Each reference should include, name, position, address, telephone number, and email address.

NOTE: IN THE CASE OF AN OFFEROR WITHOUT A RECORD OF RELEVANT PAST

PERFORMANCE OR FOR WHOM INFORMATION ON PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT

AVAILABLE THE OFFEROR MAY NOT BE EVALUATED FAVORABLY OR UNFAVORABLY

ON PAST PERFORMANCE. (SEE FAR 15.305(a)(2)(iv)). IN THIS INSTANCE PAST

PERFORMANCE WILL RECEIVE A NEUTRAL RATING.

M.3.4 Price

Price Proposal will not be point scored but will be subjectively evaluated to determine the reasonableness, affordability and value of the price data. The Government will perform a price analysis and evaluate price as described under the heading “The Determination of Best Overall Value.”

Medicine Bow/Routt National Forest White River National Forest

M.4 AWARD DETERMINATION

The contract resulting from this solicitation will be awarded to the responsible Offeror(s) whose offer – conforming to the solicitation – is determined to be most advantageous to the Government, cost and other factors considered. The Offerors proposal shall be in the format prescribed by, and shall contain a response to each of the areas identified which affects the evaluation factors for award. The Government will determine best overall value on the basis of the factors described below.

M.5 EVALUATION FACTORS

Proposals will be evaluated on the basis that the following technical factors. These factors are weighted as follows in importance:

Experience – 30%;

Technical Approach – 30%;

Past Performance – 20%;

Price – 20%.

M. 5. RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF EVALUATION FACTORS

Since an Offeror's proposal(s) must be compliant in order for it to be eligible for award, compliance of the offer is a mandatory solicitation requirement.

The Technical Evaluation Board (TEB) will evaluate each proposal strictly on its content and will not assume that performance will include anything not specified in the proposal. The evaluation will be conducted in accordance with the procedures established herein. The technical evaluation panel will then assign to each evaluation criterion a final adjective consensus rating of exceptional, good, acceptable, marginal, or unacceptable based on the following descriptions:

Exceptional

An exceptional proposal contains significant strengths and no weaknesses. The proposal exceeds the performance and technical capability requirements defined in the Statement Of

Work (SOW). The proposal offers value-added methodologies for improving service that benefits the Government. The evaluator has no doubt that the Offeror can successfully achieve the requirements in the SOW if the technical approach proposed is followed. The Offeror acknowledges risks and develops an approach that proactively identifies and mitigates risks, and looks to reduce or eliminate future risks.

Good

A good proposal contains significant strengths and only a few minor weaknesses. The

Offeror’s proposal meets the performance and technical capability requirements as defined in the SOW. The evaluator has a high degree of confidence that the Offeror can successfully achieve the requirements in the SOW if the technical approach proposed is followed. The

Offeror acknowledges technical or schedule risk and develops an approach capable of mitigating all apparent risks effectively.

Acceptable

An acceptable proposal contains strengths that outweigh any existing weaknesses. The

Offeror’s proposal meets the performance and technical capability requirements defined in the

SOW. The evaluator is confident that the Offeror can successfully achieve the requirements in the SOW if the technical approach proposed is followed.

Medicine Bow/Routt National Forest White River National Forest

Marginal

The proposal meets the bare minimum performance and technical capability requirements defined in the SOW, and also have significant weaknesses. The evaluator is not confident that the Offeror can successfully complete the required tasking without significant Government oversight or participation. The proposal either fails to address risks or the proposed risk mitigation approach is not deemed to be sufficient to manage the risk.

Unacceptable

An unacceptable proposal that contains one or more significant weaknesses and deficiencies.

Proposal fails to meet specified minimum performance and technical capability requirements defined in the SOW. The evaluator is confident that the Offeror will be unable to successfully complete the required tasking. The proposal does not adequately acknowledge or address risk, mitigate risk, or may actually introduce risk.

When the adjective ratings for each criterion of each proposal have been finally assigned, the evaluation panel members will jointly discuss each proposal separately and develop an evaluation panel consensus adjective rating for each technical proposal (a single adjective rating for each proposal will be determined). The criteria established on the rating sheet will be used in developing the consensus adjective rating for each proposal. If a consensus rating cannot be reached, the Chairperson of the Evaluation Board will decide which rating is most representative.

The final rating assigned to each proposal shall be based on an average of all individual ratings, i.e.

If there are three (3) raters and two (2) provide an exceptional rating with the third providing an acceptable rating the overall rating assessed will be an exceptional minus.

Standard Definitions

Strength

A strong attribute or quality of particular worth or utility; an inherent asset. Note: Simple adherence to the requirements or ability to meet a requirement is compliance but should not be listed as strength.

Weakness A flaw in the proposal that increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance

Deficiency

A material failure of a proposal to meet a Government requirement or a combination of significant weaknesses in a proposal that increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance to an unacceptable level.

REQUIREMENTS: OFFERORS MUST BE REGISTERED TO SAM IN ACCORDANCE TO FAR 52.204-7

AND FAR 52.204.8. OFFERORS MUST RESPOND TO ALL CRITERIA INCLUDED IN SECTION M

OFFERORS WHO FAIL TO MEET THESE REQUIREMENTS WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED FOR AWARD.