Atch A - Instructions_Evalution Criteria_Basis for Award 240.docx

Attachment A – Instructions, Evaluation Criteria, and Basis for Award – RFQ: 1333ND24QNB680240

A. INSTRUCTIONS:

1. This is a competitive procurement in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 12.6 – Streamlined Procedures for Evaluation and Solicitation for Commercial Products and Commercial Services, conducted under the authority of FAR 13.5 – Simplified Acquisition Procedures for Certain Commercial Products and Commercial Services. The Government intends to award a firm-fixed price purchase order (PO) for the requirement.

2. Contractors shall submit their quotations in response to the Request for Quotation (RFQ) posting on SAM.gov by the date and time specified in the RFQ announcement. The quotation shall contain, at a minimum, the information detailed below. If the quotation is missing any of the elements listed below, the quotation may be deemed unacceptable and may not be evaluated further.

3. The Contractor is required to meet all solicitation requirements, including terms and conditions, and representations and certifications. The Contractor must clearly identify any exception to the solicitation terms and conditions and provide a complete rationale.

B. QUOTATION PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS, EVALUATION CRITERIA, AND BASIS FOR AWARD:

1. The PO award will be made to the Contractor whose submission represents the best value to the Government. The Government may award to other than the lowest priced Contractor or other than the highest technically rated Contractor.

2. The evaluation procedures of FAR 13.106-2 shall be utilized for this procurement. The solicitation shall not be subject to the formal source selection procedures described in FAR Part 15.

3. The Government intends to award without exchanges, including discussions; however, the Government reserves the right to conduct exchanges, including discussions, if determined by the Contracting Officer (CO) to be necessary or beneficial to the Government. Therefore, the initial quotation should contain the Contractor’s best offer. The Government shall not be liable for any costs incurred by the Contractor submitting a quotation in response to this solicitation.

4. The Government will evaluate quotations against the following factors:

a. Factor 1 - Technical Approach

b. Factor 2 - Experience

c. Factor 3 – Past Performance

d. Factor 4 - Price

5. Evaluation Factor Importance: For this requirement, all factors other than price (Technical Approach, Experience, and Past Performance), when combined, are more important than price.

6. A written notice of award or acceptance of a quotation e-mailed or otherwise furnished to the successful Quoter within the time for acceptance specified in the quotation, shall result in a binding agreement without further action by either party. Before the quotation’s specified expiration time, the Government may accept a quotation (or part of a quotation), unless a written notice of withdrawal is received before award.

FACTOR 1: TECHNICAL APPROACH

a. Description: Defined as the Contractor’s proposed solution(s) to successfully fulfill the contract requirements as identified in the Statement of Work (SOW) and/or Specifications document. This includes the authority to provide the required items (i.e., authorized dealer/seller/reseller), authority to provide maintenance and repair services, approach, and method to successfully meet all contract requirements, including delivery schedule, warranties, installation and training, and all other requirements.

b. Quotation Instructions: Contractors shall submit Technical Approach documentation which may include a narrative, charts, graphs, tables, and drawings. The Technical Approach documentation should clearly describe, in sufficient detail, the Contractor’s ability to provide quoted items, resources, and methods to successfully fulfill the requirements. This may include but not limited to specifications, testing and acceptance documentation, delivery and schedule, warranties, installation and training, and all service requirements specified in the RFQ and Statement of Work (SOW) and/or Specifications document.

1) Regarding specification 1.5: for purposes of ADEV specifications, measurements are derived from a sampled clock time-difference (or appropriately scaled phase-difference) with a noise-equivalent-bandwidth of at least 5 Hz, may rely on the two-sample Allan, Overlapping Allan, or Total Allan deviation estimators only, and must be derived from a continuous time domain measurement lasting at least 600,000 s (or one week) where no biases, frequency drifts, or phase steps are subtracted or compensated. Different techniques can be used to obtain each ADEV estimation, as long as justification is included. Direct submission of adequately documented time-domain measurement data can substitute for an ADEV analysis. Qualifying measurements can involve clocks of identical or similar construction, clocks produced by other vendors with well-established performance specifications, or comparisons with high-accuracy references, including signals derived from Global Positioning Satellite Systems (GNSS) or signals present at National Metrological Laboratories. ADEV results should be accompanied by a statement of the required stability of any relevant environmental variable: for example, temperature, humidity, magnetic field, vibration, acoustic isolation, ambient airflow, etc. ADEV results should reflect the expected variation of a single candidate clock; adjustments made to results to reflect this should be described explicitly.

2) The technical portion of the quotation package shall not exceed 6 single-sided pages (3 double-sided pages in total) using no smaller than 11-point font. This page restriction does not apply to any data sheets or other attachments required to be submitted in response to this RFQ.

3) Contractors shall list the country of origin and/or place of manufacture for all quoted items.

4) Provide Extended Warranty for 5 years for diagnostics, parts, and labor should the clock’s performance significantly degrade after acceptance.

c. Basis of Evaluation: The Government will evaluate this factor to determine the Contractor’s understanding of the solicitation requirements (clauses, provisions, and specifications) and demonstrated ability to meet contractual requirements based on the Contractor’s technical approach.

Regarding specification 1.2: lower rating will be given if 5 MHz is not among the nominal output frequencies to account for equipment NIST must furnish.

Regarding specification 1.3: lower rating will be given to signal amplitudes less than +13 dBm or greater than +15 dBm to account for additional equipment NIST must furnish. Higher rating will apply if multiple independently-driven and isolated outputs are provided, up to three per nominal frequency.

Regarding specification 1.5, NIST assigns value to exceed the minimum specifications. A lower rating will be given to the square of both ADEV statistics (i.e., evaluated at 1 s and 100,000 s averaging intervals) to account for the fact that N^2 identical clocks operated in an averaged ensemble can, in principle, achieve a factor of N improvement in frequency stability.

A maximum delivery schedule of 6 months after receipt of the order (ARO) and 14 business days after delivery for acceptance will be deemed satisfactory for delivery of all minimum specification requirements as part of their quotation.

An Extended Warranty of 5 years is required for Diagnostics, parts, and labor should the clock’s performance significantly degrade after acceptance.

This factor will be evaluated utilizing adjectival ratings (Excellent, Good, Satisfactory, Marginal, Unacceptable) to determine the Contractor’s understanding and capabilities of this procurement. A technical quotation that is primarily a copy-and-paste version of the SOW and/or Specifications document for the solicitation requirements will be deemed unacceptable without further review of the quotation for award.

FACTOR 2: EXPERIENCE

a. Description: This factor involves an assessment of the Contractor’s experience in terms of relevancy (similar scope, size, and complexity), and recency, as a means of evaluating the approach of the Contractor to successfully meet contract requirements.

b. Quotation Instructions: Contractors shall submit a minimum of one (1) and a maximum of three (3) separate Attachment B – Experience Submittals for a minimum of one (1) and a maximum of three (3) contracts that are of similar size, scope, and complexity to this requirement. Submitted experience shall be recent. If the Contractor does not have three examples of experience to submit, the Contractor shall include that information in the quote. Attachment B-Experience Submittal Form is MANDATORY and SHALL be used to submit experience information. Individual blocks on this form may be expanded; however, the total length of each project data sheet shall not exceed eight (8) single-sided pages (or four (4) double-sided pages).

c. Basis of Evaluation: Evaluation of this factor is a subjective evaluation of the Contractor’s experience as a means of evaluating the approach of the Contractor to successfully meet the requirements of this procurement. This factor shall be evaluated subjectively to assess the Contractor’s experience in performing recent contracts of similar size, scope, and complexity. Experience will be evaluated on a Relevancy basis using the following ratings: exceptional relevance, very relevant, relevant, somewhat relevant, and not relevant to determine the Contractor’s experience in having delivered, installed, and provided training for this type of requirement.

FACTOR 3: PAST PERFORMANCE

a. Description: This factor involves an assessment of the Contractor’s past performance in terms of relevancy (similar scope, size, and complexity), and recency, as a means of evaluating the approach of the Contractor to successfully meet contract requirements.

b. Quotation Instructions: Contractors shall submit a minimum of three (3) separate past performances for a minimum of three (3) contracts that are of similar size, scope, and complexity to this requirement. Submitted past performance shall be recent. If the Contractor does not have three examples of past performance to submit, the Contractor shall include that information in the quote. The contractor may use Attachment C- Past Performance Questionnaire; however, shall submit the minimum following information with each submission:

i. Company/Organization/Client Name

ii. Address

iii. Brief Description of Item(s)/services provided.

iv. Point of Contact

v. Email and phone number contact information.

c. Basis of Evaluation: Evaluation of this factor is a subjective evaluation of the Contractor’s past performance as a means of evaluating the how well the contractor performed on prior recent and relevant contracts regarding RFQ requirement. This factor shall be evaluated subjectively to assess the Contractor’s past performance in performing recent contracts of similar size, scope, and complexity. Past Performance will be evaluated on recently and relevancy using the following ratings: exceptional relevance, very relevant, relevant, somewhat relevant, not relevant, and neutral. Vendors with no past performance history will be rated as “neutral”.

In addition to the above, the Government may review any other sources of information for evaluating past performance. Other sources may include, but are not limited to, past performance information retrieved through the Contract Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) and Federal Awardee Performance Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) using all CAGE/UEI number of the vendor. The Government reserves the right to contact any other sources of information that may have knowledge or information on a vendor’s relevant past performance history.

FACTOR 4: PRICE

a. Quotation Instructions: The Contractor shall complete and submit one price quotation. Price quotations shall include the information requirements identified as follows:

(a) A pricing sheet to explain the cost breakout in terms of major categories of the quotation (i.e., Total price for end item(s) to include shipping, delivery, warranty, installation, etc. in accordance with the schedule) deemed necessary for determining price fair and reasonable.

(b) The price quotation shall identify any requested payment schedule terms.

b. Basis of Evaluation: A price evaluation will be conducted adding the total of all CLINs, which will be considered as the total price to be evaluated. One or more of the following techniques will be used to ensure a fair and reasonable price:

(a) Comparison of quoted prices/costs received in response to the solicitation.

(b) Comparison of quoted prices/costs with the Independent Government Cost Estimate.

(c) Comparison of quoted prices/costs with available historical information.

(d) A price realism analysis will not be conducted; Price will be evaluated for reasonableness.

(e) Pricing will be evaluated separately from technical factors and used as a trade-off between the technical factors as related to the scope of work.

C. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR QUOTATION SUBMITTAL:

1. Offer shall provide a Small Business Subcontracting Plan in accordance with FAR 52.219-9 entitled, “Small Business Subcontracting Plan”. A subcontracting plan must be submitted for this acquisition. Businesses not certified as a small business must submit a Small Business Subcontracting Plan.

2. The Government reserves the right to eliminate from consideration for award any, or all, Contractor quotes at any time prior to the award of the PO.

3. The Government intends to evaluate quotations and award a PO without discussions with Contractors. The Government reserves the right to conduct discussions with one or more Contractors if the CO later determines them to be necessary.

4. Quotations, where one or more non-price factors are determined to be “Unsatisfactory” or “Unacceptable”, will be deemed as unawardable. No further evaluation of the quote will be completed for any factor, including price.

5. Inquiries/questions regarding the RFQ shall be submitted electronically via e-mail to the Contracting Officer, Angela Hitt, at angela.hitt@nist.gov no later than 10 days after posting the RFQ.

6. Quotations, to include associated attachments, in response to the RFQ shall be submitted electronically to the Contracting Officer, Angela Hitt, at angela.hitt@nist.gov no later than the date specified within the RFQ posting.

7. The Government shall not be liable for any costs incurred by the Contractor submitting a quotation in response to this RFQ.

(End of Provision)