A01.J.4 Instructions to Offerors and Basis for Award.pdf

Supplies, Services, and Material Management Division Ford House Office Building, Room H2-263 Washington, DC 20515 202.226.2557 www.aoc.gov

Architect of the Capitol | Supplies, Services, and Material Management Division Ford House Office Building, Room H2-263 | Washington, DC 20515 | 202.226.2557 | www.aoc.gov

Instructions to Offerors and Basis for Award

AOCSSB24R0032

Release Date: 04/16/2024

Amendment 01: 05/13/2024, changes are highlighted, see L.2.2 and L.3.6

The Architect of the Capitol (AOC), Supplies, Services, and Material Management Division (SSMMD) is issuing Request for Proposals (RFP) # AOCSSB24R0032 for an agency-wide Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) for Fire Protection Systems and Equipment Testing, Inspection, Maintenance, and Development. It is anticipated that this RFP will result in a multiple award BPA with Firm Fixed Price, Labor Hour, Time and Materials, or Hybrid Call Orders, to a responsible Offeror actively registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) and whose proposal provides the overall best value to the AOC in accordance with the requirements set forth by this solicitation and the Statement of Work (SOW). This solicitation will use the procedures in AOC Contracting Manual § 9.1 Negotiated Acquisitions. The AOC Contracting Manual can be found here: https://www.aoc.gov/sites/default/files/2023-01/AOC-Order-34- 1_Contracting-Manual-2022.pdf

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes for this requirement is 922160

– Fire Protection. The Product Service Code is H112 - QUALITY CONTROL- FIRE CONTROL EQUIPMENT. The BPA period of performance will be 1 base year and 4 one-year options, for a total of five years from the date of award if all options are exercised. Also, FAR 52.217-8 will be applicable at the BPA level.

The List of Attachments is in Section J of Standard Form 33 (SF33).

The Base Ordering Period of Performance for the purposes of this RFP, is anticipated to start on 07/01/2024, dates will be adjusted based on the award of the BPAs.

The Government anticipates awarding three BPAs as a result of this RFP, however, reserves the right to award more or less than three.

The Government anticipates awarding Call Orders 1 and 2 simultaneously along with the BPA awards, therefore, the Government is asking Offerors to price Call Orders 1 and 2, see section L for details.

http://www.aoc.gov/ https://www.aoc.gov/sites/default/files/2023-01/AOC-Order-34-1_Contracting-Manual-2022.pdf https://www.aoc.gov/sites/default/files/2023-01/AOC-Order-34-1_Contracting-Manual-2022.pdf

L.1 RFP GENERAL CONDITIONS

The submission of a proposal to the Government shall constitute the offeror’s acknowledgement, agreement and compliance with the terms and conditions of the RFP. The Government will not be obligated to pay any cost incurred by a contractor in the preparation and submission of a proposal. Offerors are cautioned to ensure that their proposal submissions are complete and reflective of the evaluation criteria and requirements described herein.

Offerors are encouraged to provide their best terms with their initial proposal submission.

Offerors shall not assume that the Government will afford an opportunity to clarify, discuss, or revise a proposal. The Government reserves the right to conduct discussions if it determines that it is in the best interest of the Government.

Proposals shall be valid for 90 days from the date of final proposal submission.

Any exceptions or conditional assumptions taken with respect to the requirements outlined in the RFP or SOW shall be fully explained in the offeror’s Introductory Letter. The Government cautions offerors that taking exception to any term or condition may render their proposal non-responsive and the offeror may be ineligible for award, unless the RFP expressly authorizes such an exception with regards to a specific term or condition.

L.2 QUESTIONS AND PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS

All correspondence in conjunction with this solicitation, including questions and proposal submittals, shall be directed to the Contracting Officer, Roman Davydov, via e-mail at roman.davydov@aoc.gov. E-mail messages shall not exceed 20 MB. If necessary, offerors shall compress files with a .zip extension.

L.2.1 Questions Due Date

Questions about the technical or contractual details of this procurement must be submitted in writing via e-mail by April 29, 2024 at noon ET. When submitting questions, please include the RFP #, Company Name and the word “Questions” in the subject line of the email. For example, “AOCSSB24R0032 _ ABC Inc. Questions”. Questions submitted after this cut off will be responded to at the discretion of the Contracting Officer. Offerors shall use Attachment J.7 to submit questions.

Answers to questions will be provided as an amendment to the RFP.

L.2.2 Proposal Due Date

Proposals must be received no later than May 28, 2024 at noon ET. When submitting your final proposal, please include the RFP #, Company Name and the word “Proposal” in the subject line of the email. For example, “AOCSSB24R0032 _ ABC Inc. Proposal”. Proposals received after this date and time shall be considered late and shall not be accepted by the Government unless it is determined to be in the best interest of the Government.

L.3 VOLUMES AND ORGANIZATION

Proposals shall be clearly and concisely written, as well as being neat, indexed and logically assembled as described herein. Offerors are advised to supply all information in the sequence and format specified in the table below. The submitted proposal must provide a sufficient basis for a thorough evaluation and contain the information necessary for evaluation. The Government will not assume the offeror possesses any capability, understanding, or commitment not specified in the proposal. The proposal must not merely repeat the solicitation and Statement of Work requirements, but rather must provide convincing documentary evidence in support of conclusive statements of how contract requirements will be met.

Proposals shall be prepared in separate volumes: Volume I – Technical and Volume II – Price.

The offeror shall provide the requested information within the designated volume evaluation factor. Any requested information placed outside of the designated location shall not be considered or evaluated under that evaluation factor regardless of whether it is located somewhere else in the proposal. In order for the technical proposal to be strictly evaluated on the merit of the material submitted, Volume I and Volume II shall be submitted as separate documents. Pricing is prohibited in, and shall be omitted from, Volume I. Each volume shall be indexed by evaluation factor.

Volumes shall be organized in the following manner:

Volume Factor Title Page Limit (Not to Exceed)

I

NA Introductory Letter NA – however, please keep to a 1 page limit if possible

1 Technical Approach 10 Pages 2 Corporate Experience 3 Pages per contract

3 Past Performance NA – to be provided by past customers

II 4 Price NA (in Excel) NA Standard Form 18 (Provision Fill-Ins) NA

All pages in Volume I, except the introductory letter, shall include page numbering.

Content which is outside the Page Limits in the above chart will not be considered by the Government during evaluations.

L.3.1 Paper Size and Formatting

Written materials shall be submitted 1 sided single spaced pages using standard 8 ½” x 11” size paper with a minimum of 1” margins. Font size shall be Times New Roman or Calibri with a minimum of 12-point size for text and 10-point size for tables and graphics.

L.3.2 Introductory Letter

The following introductory information is required before the first index of Volume I:

• RFP Number & Title;

• Name and address of offeror;

• Unique Entity Identifier (UIE) & cage code;

• NAICS / PSC;

• Name, telephone number & e-mail address of offeror’s main point-of-contact;

• Date of submission;

• Name, title and signature of authorized representative; and

• All technical factor assumptions to the RFP and SOW shall be identified in this section.

Pricing assumptions shall be identified in Volume II. Exceptions identified in other areas of the proposal will not be considered.

L.3.3 Standard Form 33

The offeror shall complete Page 1 of the SF33 and all the provision fill-ins under Section K - Representations, Certifications, and other Statements of Offerors or Respondents. The entire form shall be returned in PDF format in Volume II. Any SF-30 associated with any amendments to this RFP shall be signed by the offeror and included in Volume II as well.

L.3.4 Factor 1 – Technical Approach

The offeror shall provide a technical approach plan in a narrative format that describes the offeror’s approach to managing and executing the following:

a) Methods for Performing Annual and Semi-Annual testing as described in the BPA SOW;

b) Methods for Fire Extinguisher Maintenance, Recharging and Disposal as described in the

BPA SOW;

c) Methods for developing As-Build drawings as described in the BPA SOW; and

d) Methods for Fire Alarm Programming as described in the BPA SOW

L.3.5 Factor 2 – Corporate Experience

The offeror shall demonstrate past corporate experience and expertise on three past contracts, serving as the prime contractor. If any firm has multiple functions or divisions, limit the project examples to those performed by the division, unit or team member submitting the offeror.

These projects shall be both recent and relevant to the requirements in the BPA SOW. The term relevant means similar to project size and complexity as the scope identified in the BPA SOW. The term recent means contracts which were completed within the past five years, or those which have been performed for at least 24 months, if they are active contracts.

Offerors shall use Attachment J.6 Corporate Experience Template to submit their corporate experience descriptions.

L.3.6 Factor 3 – Past Performance

The Government is providing a Past Performance Questionnaire (PPQ) as an attachment to this solicitation (Attachment J.8) which the offeror shall provide to the past customer points of contact (POCs) for the three past contracts identified under the Corporate Experience factor (L.3.5) for completion. The Government requests that the offeror submit the questionnaire to the POCs via email. All completed questionnaire forms must be emailed by the past customer POC directly to the Contracting Officer, Roman Davydov, at roman.davydov@aoc.gov by the due date and time of proposals.

Offerors may submit CPARS instead of the PPQ, in which case the offeror shall provide a PDF copy of the CPARS document.

L.3.7 Factor 4 – Price

Offerors shall input the price per item in Attachment J.5 – BPA Price Sheet. Estimated Quantities of hours per year (for price evaluation purposes) are provided by the Government (in column C) and shall not be changed, input the hourly rate in the respective cells for the Base and all Option years (the cells with the yellow background), the totals will auto-calculate. The total evaluated price will auto-calculate in cell D23, this will includes the calculation of FAR 52.217-8 (which are the same rates as Option Year 4).

Offerors shall also price Call Orders 1 and 2 in their respective Tabs in Attachment J.5, see Attachments J.2 and J.3 for the Call Order SOWs. Offerors shall fill in the cells with the yellow background, this includes proposing the quantity of hours for any labor category that the offeror believes is necessary to accomplish the requirements in the Call Order’s SOW.

IMPORTANT:

The Government is not defining what “During Normal Hours” and “After Normal Hours” mean in this RFP.

The offeror shall define what “During Normal Hours” and “After Normal Hours” mean, the offeror shall state in a text box in the BPA Price List Tab of Attachment J.5 what “During Normal Hours” and “After Normal Hours” mean in regards to their price proposal.

mailto:roman.davydov@aoc.gov

For price evaluation purposes at the BPA level, the Government is indicating the distribution of “Normal” and “After Normal” Hours about evenly (500 Normal and 450 After Normal).

M.1 BASIS FOR AWARD

Evaluations will be conducted in accordance with the procedures defined below. The Government will first verify the on-time submission of all proposals. The Contracting Officer will then verify the proposals meet the Volume and Organization structure described in Section L.3. Volume I of the proposals that meet the requirements of Section L.3 will be submitted to the Source Selection Evaluation Panel (SSEP) for evaluation. Each non-price factor will be assigned an adjectival rating as established in Section M.2 herein. Once all Volume I proposals are evaluated, the SSEP will evaluate Volume II, Price in accordance with the evaluation criteria for this factor.

The Government will make an award to the offeror whose proposal represents the best value to the Government. Within the best value continuum, the Government will use the Tradeoff process of non-price and price factors in evaluating the proposals approved for evaluation. The Government will reserve the right to make an award without discussions if there is a fully acceptable proposal received in the initial submissions. If not, the Government may enter into discussions with offerors. The Government also reserves the right to make no award.

In the event that two or more proposals are determined not to have any substantial technical differences (i.e., are technically equivalent), price may become the determining factor and award may be made to the lower priced proposal. In the event that proposals are not technically equal, award may be made to other than the offeror with the lowest priced proposal, if the Government determines that a price premium is warranted due to technical merit. The Government may also award to other than the highest technically rated proposal, if the Government determines that a price premium is not warranted.

Evaluations will be based on a complete assessment of the proposal submission. Proposals will be evaluated on the following factors listed in descending order of importance. All non-price factors when combined are of equal significance to Factor 4, Price.

Non Price Factors:

Factor 1: Technical Approach Factor 2: Corporate Experience Factor 3: Past Performance

Price Factors:

Factor 4: Price

The evaluation criteria for each factor are as follows:

M.1.1 Factor 1 – Technical Approach

The Government will evaluate the offeror’s Technical Approach to determine the extent to which the offeror demonstrates the ability to successfully accomplish:

a) Performing Annual and Semi-Annual testing as described in the BPA SOW;

b) Fire Extinguisher Maintenance, Recharging and Disposal as described in the BPA SOW;

c) Developing As-Build drawings as described in the BPA SOW; and

d) Fire Alarm Programming as described in the BPA SOW.

M.1.2 Factor 2 – Corporate Experience

Corporate Experience will be evaluated to determine the extent to which the offeror’s Corporate Experience reflects services of similar size and scope to this requirement. An offeror that submits Corporate Experience which is not within five calendar years of the date of the offeror’s proposal date will be rated unacceptable for this factor, and therefore not eligible for award. A higher degree of relevancy of the corporate experience will result in a higher score for this evaluation factor. The more the Corporate Experience demonstrates elements in the BPA SOW, the more relevant the Corporate Experience will be found in determining the score for this evaluation factor.

M.1.3 Factor 3 – Past Performance

Past performance will be evaluated to determine the extent to which the offeror’s past performance demonstrates successful performance on the contracts identified under the corporate experience evaluation factor.

The Government will evaluate the Past Performance Questionnaires received from customer references to determine the extent to which the offeror has demonstrated at least a satisfactory record of customer satisfaction. The Government may contact these references or use other references/information to verify past performance, such as CPARS. See Attachment J.8 – Past Performance Questionnaire for the contents that the Government will evaluate from the offeror’s past customers when using the Past Performance Questionnaire to evaluate past performance. Offerors without a record of relevant past performance, or for whom information on past performance is not available, shall not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably, but shall instead receive an overall rating of “neutral.”

M.1.4 Factor 4 – Price

The Government will evaluate the price proposals of all offerors receiving an Acceptable rating or above for Factors 1 and 2, as offerors who rate below Acceptable for any non-price factor shall not be eligible for award. The price criterion will measure not only actual dollars but reasonableness of the offeror’s proposed price and its position in the range of all offeror prices.

The offeror’s price proposal shall be evaluated for price reasonableness to prevent the Government from paying too much for the services outlined in the SOW. Additionally, a price realism analysis may be performed to determine whether an offeror’s price is unrealistically low. An unrealistically low proposal may question whether an offeror fully understands the size, magnitude, complexity, and scope of service outlined in the SOW. An unrealistic price proposal may serve as a rejection for the proposal.

The offeror’s proposal will be evaluated for unbalanced pricing utilizing price analysis techniques. The Government may determine that a proposal is unacceptable if the prices proposed are materially unbalanced. A proposal may be rejected if the Contracting Officer determines that the lack of balance poses an unacceptable risk to the Government.

Price will not be rated adjectivally, but will be evaluated based on a comprehensive review.

Price proposals shall be evaluated with respect to accuracy and completeness based on information submitted in the offeror’s written submission. This process will involve verification that figures are correctly calculated, prices are presented in the requested format. Additionally, the Government may utilize one or more of the following methods to evaluate price:

• Comparison to other proposals received;

• Comparison and/or analysis based on Independent Government Estimate; or

• Comparison/analysis to historical prices.

As part of the price evaluation, the Government will evaluate the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) clause 52.217-9, Option to Extend the Term of the Contract and FAR 52.217-8, Option to Extend Services. The offeror's total evaluated price shall include the base period and all option periods. FAR 52.217-8 will be evaluated by dividing the price of option period 4 by two and including that amount in the evaluated price.

The total evaluated price is in cell D23 of Attachment J.5 for the BPA level. The Government will also evaluate the prices of Call Orders 1 and 2 not only for the purposes of deciding which offeror to award the Call Orders to, but also taking the Call Order prices into consideration when deciding which offerors will be awarded a BPA.

M.2 RATING AND DEFINITIONS

The Government will evaluate non-price factors 1, 2 of Volume I using the following adjectival ratings and definitions scale:

Rating Description

Outstanding The proposal provides a very clear, comprehensive and detailed response which exceeds all requirements and includes significant strengths and strengths with no weaknesses, significant weaknesses, or deficiencies. The risk of unsuccessful performance is very low as the proposal demonstrates a clear understanding of the requirements and can be expected to result in outstanding performance.

Good The proposal provides a sound response which meets all requirements and includes significant strengths and strengths with few weaknesses, no significant weaknesses, and no deficiencies. The risk of unsuccessful performance is low as the proposal demonstrates an understanding of the requirements and can be expected to result in satisfactory performance.

Acceptable The proposal provides a response which is capable of meeting all requirements and may include both strengths (may include some significant strengths) and weaknesses with no significant weaknesses or deficiencies where the strengths outweigh the weaknesses or weaknesses do not outweigh the capability to meet the requirement. The risk of unsuccessful performance is moderate as the proposal demonstrates a general understanding of the requirements and can be expected to result in satisfactory performance.

Marginal The proposal provides a response which does not meet all requirements and includes strengths, weaknesses, significant weaknesses and/or deficiencies where the strengths are outweighed by the weaknesses and/or deficiencies. The risk of unsuccessful performance is high as the proposal does not demonstrate an understanding of requirements and can be expected to result in unsatisfactory performance.

Unacceptable The proposal provides a response that does not meet all requirements and includes significant weaknesses and/or deficiencies which far outweigh any strengths noted. The risk of unsuccessful performance is very high as the proposal does not demonstrate an understanding of the requirements and will result in unsatisfactory performance.

During the course of the evaluation, the Source Selection Evaluation Panel will record proposal Significant Strengths, Strengths, Weaknesses, Significant Weaknesses, and Deficiencies. The definitions of these terms are as follows:

Significant Strengths: A strength that appreciably enhances the merit of a proposal or appreciably increases the probability of successful contract performance.

Strengths: Any aspect of a proposal which exceeds a requirement and increases the probability of successful performance of the contract.

Weaknesses: A flaw in the proposal that increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance.

Significant Weaknesses: A weakness that appreciably increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance.

Deficiencies: 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.

Offerors who rate below Acceptable under Factors 1 or 2 will not be eligible for award and their price (Factor 4) will not be evaluated.

The Government will rate factor 3, Past Performance, using the following adjectival ratings and definitions scale, NLT means “No Later than”:

Rating Description Substantial Confidence

Based on the Offeror’s recent (NLT 5 Years) and relevant performance record, the Government has a high expectation that the Offeror will successfully perform.

Satisfactory Confidence

Based on the Offeror’s recent (NLT 5 Years) and relevant performance record, the Government has a reasonable expectation that the Offeror will successfully perform.

Limited Confidence

Based on the Offeror’s recent (NLT 5 Years) and relevant performance record, the Government has a limited expectation that the Offeror will successfully perform.

No Confidence Based on the Offeror’s recent (NLT 5 Years) and relevant performance record, the Government has a no expectation that the Offeror will successfully perform.