Attachment 1 Instruction to Offerors Elastic Training.docx

Simplified Acquisition Proposal Request (SAPR)

F1L3E90162AW01

Instructions to Offerors/Basis of Award

1. Instructions to Offerors:

A. This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with (IAW) Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 12.6. Contract award will be made using Simplified Acquisition Procedures in accordance with FAR 13. Contracts awarded under FAR 13 are not subject to FAR 15.3 procedures. Accordingly, award of a contract under this SAPR, should an award be made, shall follow the procedures outlined in FAR 13, as supplemented.

B. The quote submitted in response to this SAPR must be in compliance with the terms and conditions of the requirements as stated in the SAPR and attachments, and the Statement of Work (SOW).

C. An award, if any, will be made to the responsible offeror who submits a quote that (1) conforms to the requirements of the synopsis/solicitation; (2) that receives a rating of “Acceptable” on the Technical Capability evaluation factor; and (3) that submits the quote with the lowest total evaluated price (TEP), provided that the TEP is not unbalanced and is determined to be fair and reasonable.

D. The Government reserves the right to award without discussions or to make no award at all depending upon (1) the quality of quotes received and (2) whether proposed prices are determined to be fair and reasonable.

E. This acquisition is Full and Open Competition under North American Industry Classification (NAICS) Code: 611420, Size Standard: $12,000,000.00

F. Period of Performance. 5 Oct 20 – 18 Oct 20

G. The CLIN structure for this contract is detailed on the Pricing Worksheet, Attachment 4.

H. Quote Submission. Each Offeror shall submit quotes electronically to the email box of Contract Specialist (CS), 2Lt Tri Dinh at tri.dinh.1@us.af.mil and CO, Robyn Knight at robyn.knight.1@us.af.mil. The quotes (via email) shall be submitted no later than the required submission due date. For the electronic file, the offeror shall indicate part number and title as described in the table in paragraph G below, and use separate files to permit rapid location of information. The electronic copies of the quote shall be submitted in a format readable by Microsoft (MS) Office 2010 suite of applications. The Offeror shall submit quotes for consideration no later than 2:00 PM (MDT), 18 September 2020. Only one (1) quote shall be submitted, per company, in response to this requirement. Quotes received after the date/time specified will not be evaluated.

I. To assure timely and equitable evaluation of the quote, the offeror must follow the instructions contained herein. The quote must be complete, self-sufficient, and respond directly to the requirements of this solicitation. The response shall consist of two (2) separate parts; Part I – Cover Letter/Technical Capability and Part II – Price Quote (both in electronic folders).

J. All quote information shall be submitted in either MS Word or PDF format except for the Pricing Worksheet (Part II, Attachment 10). Pricing information shall be submitted in MS Excel format (Pricing Worksheet, Attachment 10). Each part shall be submitted as a separately labeled electronic file.

PART

REFERENCE

TITLE

MAXIMUM

NUMBER

OF PAGES

I

(1) Part I: Cover Letter

Cover Letter shall include:

(a).SAPR number, (b). Small business status/categories, (c).Company primary and alternate points of contact with email/phone and who is authorized to contractually obligate the company.

(d) CAGE Code, DUNS Number,

(e) Timeframe that the quote is valid

(2) Part I: Technical Capability

The technical description of the service should be specific and complete. Legibility, clarity, and coherence are very important. Your responses will be evaluated against the factors defined in Section 3 (Evaluation Factors) below. Provide as specifically as possible the actual methodology you would use for accomplishing/satisfying the factor.

Address your technical solution for meeting or exceeding the government’s minimum performance or capability requirements of each technical factor. All the requirements specified in the solicitation are mandatory. By your quote submission, you are representing that your firm will perform all the requirements specified in the solicitation. It is not necessary or desirable for you to tell us so in your quote. Do not merely reiterate the objectives or reformulate the requirements specified in the solicitation.

(3) Part II: Price

The offeror shall submit pricing information to support the completeness and reasonableness of their proposed prices for all CLINs. The pricing information submitted should fully support the SOW requirements for each major functional element specified in the SOW. This Part shall include the Pricing Worksheet (Attachment 4).

2. Basis of Award:

A. This is a Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) source selection. Pursuant to FAR 12.602 contract award will be made using Simplified Acquisition Procedures in accordance with FAR 13.500(a) and IAW with FAR 9.104-1. Vendor’s submissions will be evaluated based upon the following:

B. First, the Government will rank the quotes from lowest price to highest price, in order to establish an Initial Total Evaluated Price (I-TEP). If the lowest priced quote is technically acceptable and the TEP is complete, reasonable, and balanced this Offeror's quote represents the best value to the Government and award will be made to that Offeror. If the lowest priced quote is not technically acceptable, the Government will consider the correction potential and may enter into interchanges with that offeror. If after interchanges with that Offeror, their quote is technically acceptable and remains the lowest priced (with the TEP complete, reasonable and balanced), the contract will be awarded to that Offeror. If the Government deems the quote not easily correctable, or if at any time it becomes other than the lowest priced quote, the next lowest priced quote will be evaluated for technical acceptability, followed by an analysis of their I-TEP to verify reasonableness, completeness and balance to arrive at the TEP. Interchanges will take place as necessary or deemed appropriate by the Government. The evaluation process will continue until reaching a technically acceptable quote with a TEP that is reasonable, complete and balanced, or until all quotes are evaluated.

C. The Government intends to make award based on the initial quote submissions without conducting interchanges. Therefore, each offer should contain the Offeror’s best terms from a price and technical standpoint. However, the Government reserves the right to hold interchanges if, during the evaluation, it is determined to be in the best interest of the Government. Interchanges are fluid interaction(s) between the CO and the offerors that may address any aspect of the quote and may or may not be documented in real time. However, the Government reserves the right to conduct interchanges using Interchange Notices (IN) with one, some, none, or all offerors. Offeror responses to INs will be considered in making the award selection decision. Interchanges may be conducted with one, some or all offerors as the Government is not required to conduct interchanges with any or all offerors responding to this SAPR.

3. Evaluation Factors:

A. Responses to this SAPR will be evaluated against the following factors:

FACTOR 1: TECHNICAL CAPABILITY

Under this factor, the Government will identify the Offeror’s proposed technical capability by acceptable or unacceptable based on the following:

Offeror must show capability to train the Mission Defense Team members on capabilities of the Elasticsearch software in accordance with Statement of Work Dated 17 Aug 2020 Paragraph 2.

During evaluation of each quote, the Government will assign each factor a rating, as shown below, to identify an offeror’s ability to accomplish each factor. Offerors will be scored by the following adjectival ratings for Technical Approach Factor:

TABLE A – Technical Ratings

FACTOR 2: PRICE

Price quotes should support the proposed technical approach and will be evaluated for (1) TEP, (2) completeness, (3) reasonableness and (4) unbalanced pricing. Offerors whose price is determined to be incomplete, unreasonable, or unbalanced will not be considered for award.

A. Completeness. The quote will be reviewed to determine the extent to which all the price elements have been addressed. The Offeror’s proposed price and other information will be evaluated to ensure continuity and traceability of prices to the technical volume and between the initial quote and any revisions thereto. The review will determine the adequacy of the Offeror’s quote in addressing and fulfilling the SAPR requirements.

B. Reasonableness. For a price to be reasonable, it must represent a price to the Government that a prudent person would pay in the conduct of competitive business. The Government will determine prices fair and reasonable through the use of one or more of the price analysis techniques at FAR 13.106-3(a).

C. Unbalanced pricing. Offerors are cautioned against submitting an offer that contains unbalanced pricing. Unbalanced pricing may increase performance risk and could result in payment of unreasonably high prices. Unbalanced pricing exists when, despite an acceptable total evaluated price, the price of one or more contract line items is significantly over or understated. The Government shall analyze offers to determine whether they are unbalanced with respect to separately priced line items or sub-line items. An offer that is determined to be unbalanced may be rejected if the Contracting Officer determines that the lack of balance poses an unacceptable risk to the Government.

B. Point of Contacts (POC): The POCs for this acquisition are: CS 2Lt Tri Dinh, he can be reached at 575-904-5155 or by email at tri.dinh.1@us.af.mil, and the CO Robyn Knight, she can be reached at 575-681-6510 or by email at robyn.knight.1@us.af.mil. Any questions regarding this SAPR must be submitted by email to the POCs above by 2:00 PM (MDT), Thursday 17 September 2020.