Attachment 09 Addendum to FAR 52.212-2 - Evaluation.pdf

Evaluation Factors for Award

ADDENDUM TO 52.212-2 -- EVALUATION--COMMERCIAL ITEMS

1. BASIS FOR CONTRACT AWARD:

1.1 This is a competitive, total small business set-aside conducted in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) parts 12 and 15 and as supplemented by the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation (DFARS), the Department of The Air Force Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DAFFARS), to make a best value award determination. By submission of its offer, the offeror accedes to all solicitation requirements, including terms and conditions, representations, and certifications. The Government intends to award one contract as a result of this solicitation to an offeror who is deemed to be responsible in accordance with FAR subpart 9.1 and as supplemented:

(i) The proposal conforms to all requirements identified in the Request for Proposal (RFP) and is classified as a Small Business at the initial date specified for receipt of offers contained in the solicitation;

(ii) The proposed technical subfactors receive a rating of “Acceptable”;

(iii) The proposal receives a Performance Confidence Assessment rating of “Substantial Confidence”, “Satisfactory Confidence”, or “Neutral Confidence”;

(iv) The proposed price is determined to be fair and reasonable and balanced by the Contracting Officer; and

a. The Government intends to make an award without discussions. Offerors may be given the opportunity to clarify certain aspects of their written proposal (e.g. defining the relevance of the offeror’s technical information and adverse past performance information of which the offeror has not previously had an opportunity to respond) or to resolve minor clerical errors. Any such exchange between the offeror and the Government will be for clarification only and will not constitute discussions as defined by FAR 15.306(a). The offeror’s initial proposal should contain the offeror’s best terms from a price, technical, and past performance standpoint.

b. If at any time during the evaluation process it is determined to be in the best interest of the Government to open and hold discussions, offeror responses to Evaluation Notices (ENs) and Final Proposal Revisions (FPRs) will be considered in making the selection decision.

Any revision or non-concurrence with contract terms and conditions contained within the FPR may not be subject to further discussion or negotiation and may render the offeror’s proposal as unacceptable.

2. EVALUATION FACTORS AND SUBFACTORS:

a. The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible contractor whose proposal is conforming to the solicitation that will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. The following three factors shall be used to evaluate proposal:

i. Price

ii. Technical

b. Technical Subfactor 1: Staffing Plan

c. Technical Subfactor 2: Security Clearances

d. Technical Subfactor 3: Quality Control Plan

iii. Past Performance

2.1 This is a subjective trade-off source selection and, for those Offerors who are determined to be technically acceptable, trade-offs may be made between past performance, and price in which competing offerors past performance information will be evaluated at approximately equal to price.

3. PRICING EVALUATION: The Government may use any of the following price analysis techniques IAW FAR 15.404 to determine price reasonableness: comparison of the proposed price with prices found reasonable on previous purchases, a comparison with similar items in a related industry, comparison to an independent Government estimate, or any other reasonable basis to include other than certified cost and price data. The Government will analyze the proposal to determine whether they are unbalanced with respect to prices proposed on different CLINs for the same or similar services in the same or similar quantities with respect to option pricing. A proposal may be rejected if the Contracting Officer determines that the prices are significantly unbalanced or if the unbalanced pricing poses an unacceptable risk to the Government.

i. The vendor's Price Volume will be evaluated based on the total evaluated price (TEP), which will be calculated as the sum of the following Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) extended prices:

a. CLINs 0001-0003, 1001-1003, 2001-2003, 3001-3003,will be evaluated in the Total Evaluated Price (TEP). The Not to Exceed CLINs, X004 – X0010 and the Not Separately Priced (NSP) CLINs X0011 will not be evaluated in the TEP as these CLINs will include a Not To Exceed (NTE) value established by the Government and deliverables will be not separately priced.

b. The contract will include FAR Clause 52.217-8, Option to Extend Services, with the potential to extend the contract for a period not to exceed six (6) months beyond the date the Option to Extend Services is exercised. In the event the Government requires continued performance under the Option to Extend Services, the Government's evaluation of prices proposed (specifically for the period preceding the exercise of the Option to Extend Services) will be considered fair and reasonable as applied to the Option to Extend Services. For the purposes of calculating the TEP, the Government will take the offeror’s highest proposed contract period for CLINs X001 to X010, multiplied by 0.5, to account for the 6 months of routine services during the 6-month extension authorized under FAR Clause 52.217-8 Option to Extend Services.

ii. Price Reasonableness: Proposals will be reviewed for price reasonableness. A price is reasonable if, in its nature and amount does not exceed that which would be incurred by a prudent person in the conduct of competitive business. It is expected that price reasonableness will be determined based on the comparison of each vendor's total evaluated price (TEP).

iii. Unbalanced Pricing: Proposed unit prices will be evaluated for unbalanced pricing in accordance with FAR 15.404-1(g). Unbalanced pricing exists when, despite an acceptable total evaluated price, the price of one or more contract line items or sub-line items appear to be significantly over or understated as indicated by the application of cost or price analysis techniques. Each offeror price proposal should be detailed to sufficiently demonstrate prices are not unbalanced.

4. TECHNICAL EVALUATION:

The Government will evaluate the technical volume for acceptability and best value based on vendors' capabilities. Following an initial evaluation for responsiveness to the solicitation terms and conditions, all responsive proposals will be ordered based upon the offeror’s Total Evaluated Price (TEP) to be evaluated from lowest to highest TEP. Evaluation will continue until all responsibe proposals have been evaluated. Technical acceptability will be determined based on a contractor's stated capabilities to meet all requirements identified in the PWS. Failure to provide a plan or approach that addresses all requirements identified in the PWS will render the proposal technically unacceptable. Evaluators shall assign a rating as described in the following table:

Table 1. Technical Acceptability Ratings

Technical Acceptable/Unacceptable Ratings

Rating Description

Acceptable Proposal clearly meets the minimum requirements of the solicitation.

Unacceptable Proposal does not clearly meet the minimum requirements of the solicitation.

a. The vendor's technical volume will be determined acceptable, if at a minimum, the volume demonstrates an acceptable approach to the following subfactors:

4.1 TECHNICAL SUBFACTOR 1: Staffing Plan

a. The offeror identifies and demonstrates a staffing plan to include labor category and staffing equivalents, along with the associated number of hours for each functional area which meets all Performance Work Statement requirements.

b. The staffing plan shall include an organizational chart which identifies key personnel to include but not limited to the on-site contract manager, alternate contract manager, and all other personnel the offeror proposes in the management and staffing of the requirement.

c. The staffing plan shall include details of how the offeror intends to recruit, retain, and replace personnel who have the knowledge, skills, and experience to perform Missile Retriever Operations & Maintenance and Administrative Support Services in accordance with the Performance Work Statement.

d. The staffing plan shall include a description of how the offeror intends to maintain uninterrupted service during the absence of personnel due to sickness, vacations, or other sustained leave to ensure no degradation to continued services.

4.2 TECHNICAL SUBFACTOR 2: Security Clearances

a. Offeror shall submit their proposed security clearance plan demonstrating the offerors ability to ensure qualified personnel with the required security clearances are available to satisfy the contract security requirements no later than the contract start date (PWS Paragraph 3.4.2 and 5.2.1)

4.3 TECHNICAL SUBFACTOR 3: Quality Control Plan

a. The offeror will be required to submit a draft copy of the Quality control plan with their proposal. The Quality Control Plan is acceptable when the plan describes an effective approach to addressing Performance Work Statement section 2.5.1 including a minimum:

i. The role of offeror personnel in ensuring Quality Control.

ii. The authority offeror personnel have in ensuring Quality Control.

iii. Commercial and non-commercial methods of Quality Control in identifying and preventing performance defects before overall performance becomes unacceptable.

iv. Procedures offeror personnel are to use in identification, prevention, and ensuring non-conforming services are not repeated to include but not limited to evaluation of root cause analysis and corrective action plan development.

5. PAST PERFORMANCE EVALUATION:

The past performance evaluation is a confidence assessment of the offeror’s ability to meet performance requirements. The Past Performance Evaluation Team will review all recent and relevant past performance information collected and determine the quality of the offeror’s performance, general trends, and usefulness of the information and incorporate these into the performance confidence assessment.

i. Past Performance References/Information (PPI) - The evaluation for the past performance section will ensure the offeror provided a record of relevant and recent past performance information/references on no more than five (5) previous/current contracts. Past performance regarding predecessor companies of the offeror and/or subcontractors and key personnel will perform aspects of the requirement if applicable subcontractors will be rated as highly as past performance information for the principal offeror.

ii. The Other Sources are as follows:

• Past performance information may be obtained from submitted past performance questionnaires (Attachment 09)

• Past performance information may be obtained from established systems such as the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS), Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS), Electronic Subcontract Reporting System (eSRS), or other databases; and may be obtained from other sources available to the Government, such as the Defense Contract Management Agency; and interviews with Program Managers, Contracting Officers, Fee Determining Officials

iii. Recent past performance information includes contracts performed and/or being performed for any customer within the last three (3) years prior to the issuance date of the solicitation. Recency will be evaluated as “meets” or “does not meet.”

iv. Relevancy involves performance aspects similar service scope, magnitude (dollar value) of effort, and complexities to that are required by this solicitation. The government will assess relevancy for each contract and assign a rating as described in Table 2 below:

Table 2. Past Performance Relevancy Ratings

Past Performance Relevancy Ratings

Rating Rating Definition

Very Relevant Present/past performance effort involved essentially the same scope and magnitude of effort and complexities this solicitation requires.

Relevant Present/past performance effort involved similar scope and magnitude of effort and complexities this solicitation requires.

Somewhat Relevant

Present/past performance effort involved some of the scope and magnitude of effort and complexities this solicitation requires.

Not Relevant Present/past performance effort involved little or none of the scope and magnitude of effort and complexities this solicitation requires.

Quality: For each of the recent past performance information reviewed, the performance quality of work will be assessed based on the (i) Quality Assessment Criteria (of prime, predecessor, or subcontractor companies) evaluated in the Past Performance Questionnaire (Attachment 09), (ii) the evaluation ratings in the Federal Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) and FAPIIS if available, and (iii) any data independently obtained by the government.

Confidence Assessment: The purpose of the past performance evaluation is to assess the degree of Confidence the government has in the offeror’s ability to meet the solicitation requirements based on the offeror’s demonstrated record of performance. As a result of the relevancy and performance quality assessments, offerors will receive an integrated past performance confidence assessment rating as described in Table 3 below:

Table 3. Past Performance Confidence Assessment Ratings

Past Performance Confidence Assessment Ratings

Rating Description

Substantial Confidence

Based on the offeror’s recent/relevant performance record, the government has a high expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

Satisfactory Confidence record, the government has a reasonable expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

Neutral Confidence

No recent/relevant performance record is available or the offeror’s performance record is so sparse that no meaningful confidence assessment rating can be reasonably assigned. The offeror may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on the factor of past performance.

Limited Confidence record, the government has a low expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

No Confidence

Based on the offeror’s performance record, the government has no expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

Note: In evaluating past performance, the government reserves the right to give greater consideration to information on those contracts deemed most relevant to the effort described in this solicitation.

v. Neutral Confidence: In the case of offerors for which there is no information on past contract performance or where past contract performance information is not available, the offeror may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on the factor of past contract performance (see FAR 15.305(a)(2)(iv).) In this case, the offeror’s past performance is unknown and assigned a performance confidence rating of “neutral.” Although the evaluation team may not rate an offeror that lacks recent, relevant past performance favorably or unfavorably with regard to past performance, the CO may determine that a “Substantial Confidence” or “Satisfactory Confidence” past performance rating is more advantageous than a “Neutral Confidence” past performance rating in a best value tradeoff.

Integrated Assessment. To be considered for award, the offeror’s technical proposal must be rated as “Acceptable.” The government reserves the right to award a contract to other than the lowest price offer if the Source Selection Authority determines that the difference in the Past Performance Confidence Rating of another offeror justifies the higher price premium. Likewise, the government reserves the right to award to an offeror with other than “substantial confidence” rating if the cost of that offeror is not feasible within the budget of the customer agency. In that event, the CO will make an integrated assessment best value award decision comparing the TEP and the Past Performance Confidence Rating.

6. EVALUATION METHODOLOGY

Step 1: Evaluate all proposals for responsiveness to the solicitation terms and conditions.

Step 2: Evaluate all responsive proposals for technical acceptability and past performance.

Step 3: Make a Best Value determination based on the offerors technical acceptability, past performance, and price.

(End of Provision Addendum)