Attachment 20 - Section M - Evaluation Factors For Award.docx

SECTION M - EVALUATION FACTORS FOR AWARD

A. BASIS FOR AWARD

This is a best-value acquisition conducted In Accordance With (IAW) Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.101-1, Tradeoff Process, and FAR 15.3, as supplemented by the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) Department of Defense Source Selection Procedures, Army Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (AFARS) 5115.3, Source Selection and Army Source Selection Supplement. These regulations are available electronically at the http://www.acquisition.gov . The Government will select for award the proposal meeting all eligibility requirements and representing the best overall value to the Government, considering Schedule, Management, and Small Business. The Government may only award a contract to the Offeror who is deemed responsible IAW the FAR, as supplemented, whose proposal conforms to the Request For Proposal (RFP) requirements (to include all stated terms, conditions, representations, certifications, and all other information required by the instructions), and which is judged, based on the evaluation factors, to represent the best value to the Government. Best value means the expected outcome of an acquisition that, in the Government’s estimation, provides the greatest overall benefit in response to the requirements. The Government seeks to award to the Offeror who gives the Government the greatest confidence that it will best meet or exceed the requirements. This may result in an award to a higher rated, higher priced Offeror, where the decision is consistent with the evaluation factors and the Source Selection Authority (SSA) reasonably determines that the technical superiority and/or overall business approach and/or superior past performance of the higher price Offeror outweighs the cost difference.

The SSA will base the source selection decision on an integrated assessment of proposals against all evaluation criteria in the RFP (described below). While the Government proposal evaluation team and the SSA will strive for maximum objectivity, the evaluation process, by its nature, is subjective and, therefore, professional judgment is implicit throughout the entire process.

Strengths identified in the successful offerors proposal will be incorporated in the resultant contract.

Number of Contracts to be Awarded The Government intends to select one contractor for this acquisition. However, the Government reserves the right not to award a contract at all, depending on the quality of the proposals and prices submitted and the availability of funds.

Correction Potential of Proposals The Government will consider throughout the evaluation, the “correction potential” of any proposal aspect evaluated as “unacceptable”. The judgment of such “correction potential” is within the sole discretion of the Government. If an aspect of an offeror's proposal not meeting the Government's requirements is not considered correctable or if the amount and/or complexity of the corrections needed to meet the Government requirement requires a major proposal revision, the offeror may be eliminated from the competitive range.

Rejection of Offers The Government may reject any evaluated proposal that fails to adequately address a significant portion of the requirement or contract terms and conditions. This may include rejection of a proposal that does not demonstrate an adequate understanding of the contract/program requirements and/or displays a fundamental lack of competence or failure to comprehend the complexity and risk of the program. All aspects/volumes of the proposals may be reviewed to ensure adequate resources to perform the proposed technical approach. A proposal assessed as Technically Unacceptable will not be further evaluated under the Cost/Price factor.

Competitive Range Determination During the evaluation process multiple competitive range determinations may be made that eliminate offerors from the competition. A competitive range determination may eliminate offerors based on their initial proposal evaluation results, after discussions (if necessary), prior to issuance of the Final Proposal Revision (FPR) request or for efficiency. If offerors are excluded from the competitive range they may request a debriefing IAW FAR 15.505.

Discussions The Government intends to award without discussions, but reserves the right to conduct discussions, if necessary. Therefore, it is imperative that offerors submit their best terms initially. However, if during the evaluation period it is determined to be in the best interest of the Government to hold discussions, offeror responses to evaluation notices (ENs) and the FPR will be considered in making the award decision. If a request for FPR is issued, offeror responses to ENs must be incorporated in the FPR in order to be considered in the final evaluation. Failure to include EN responses in the FPR may result in a final “unacceptable” technical rating, or otherwise make your company ineligible for award.

Solicitation Requirements (Terms and Conditions) Offerors are required to meet all solicitation requirements, such as terms and conditions, representations and certifications, and SOW requirements, in addition to those identified as factors in this document. Failure to comply with the terms and conditions of the solicitation may result in the offeror being ineligible for award. Offerors must clearly identify any exception to the solicitation terms and conditions and must provide complete supporting rationale. The Government reserves the right to determine any such exceptions unacceptable, and the proposal, therefore, ineligible for award.

B. FACTORS TO BE EVALUATED

1.0 Factors

The Government will use the following evaluation factors to evaluate each proposal. The Government will award to the Offeror proposing the combination most advantageous to the Government based upon an integrated assessment of the following evaluation factors:

Go/No Go Consideration: Past Performance: Past Performance will be rated on an Acceptable/ Unacceptable basis. In order to be considered eligible for award, an offeror must be rated “Acceptable” in the Past Performance Factor.

Factor 3. Small Business Participation: Each offeror’s level and degree of commitment to utilize small business in execution of the requirement will be evaluated.

Factor 4: Cost/Price: The Cost/Price proposals will be evaluated for compliance with Section L- Volume V Cost/Price instructions, business system adequacy, reasonableness, and unbalanced pricing. Additionally, the CPIF CLIN proposed prices will be evaluated for cost realism.

1.1 Relative Importance of Factors

The Past Performance Factor will be rated Acceptable/Unacceptable.

The Schedule Factor is significantly more important than the Management Factor.

The Management Factor is significantly more important than the Small Business Factor.

Within the Schedule Factor, the Technical Maturity Sub-factor is more important than the Production Maturity Sub-factor.

Within the Management Factor, the System Synchronization and Metrics Sub-factor significantly more important as the Depot Subcontracting Sub-factor.

To receive consideration for award, a rating of no less than “Acceptable” must be achieved for the Past Performance Factor. Additionally, any other than small business offeror must have an acceptable Small Business Subcontracting Plan to receive an award in accordance with FAR 19.702(a). Offerors will be cautioned that the award may not necessarily be made to the lowest cost offered. NOTE: ALL NON-PRICED FACTORS COMBINED ARE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE IMPORTANT THAN COST/PRICE.

Go/No Go Consideration: Past Performance:

The Past Performance factor will be evaluated on Go/No Go basis. Proposals must be deemed acceptable pursuant to all criteria described below to be rated “Acceptable”. Proposals rated “Acceptable” will be evaluated for award in accordance with the best value factors of Schedule, Management, Small Business, and Cost/Price. Proposals rated as “Unacceptable” will not be further evaluated or otherwise considered for contract award. Past Performance will be evaluation using the Acceptable/Unacceptable rating scheme provided below:

To be assessed as acceptable, the offeror’s record of recent and relevant performance history must provide the Government a reasonable expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort. The offeror’s past performance will also be assessed as acceptable in the event (i) the offeror has no recent or relevant performance history, or (ii) past performance information on the offeror is not available or is so sparse that no meaningful past performance rating can be reasonably assigned. In either of these cases, the offeror’s past performance will be considered as “unknown” and will be deemed acceptable for the past performance portion of the Acceptable/Unacceptable evaluation. For offerors whose performance histories are known, the evaluation of past performance will be conducted in accordance with the following:

(1) The evaluation of past performance will assess the offeror’s recent and relevant corporate experiences under the prior or current federal contracts identified in Section L. The term "offeror" for this portion of the evaluation criteria includes the prime offeror (inclusive of all joint venture partners) and major subcontractors/team members. For a newly formed joint venture (JV) with no experience as an entity, the past performance of each individual partner will be assessed. For an existing JV with experience as an entity, the past performance of the JV will be assessed. At its discretion, the Government may also assess the offeror’s recent and relevant performance data obtained from other Government data sources such as the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARs); Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS); Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS); or other Governmental databases as they relate to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes 541712, 541330, 561210 or other relevant codes. In determining relevancy of the offeror’s performance history, the Government may rely on information provided in Section L, of the offeror’s proposal for the solicitation and/or information obtained from the other Government data sources described above.

(2) For the recent and relevant performance record included in Section L, of the offeror’s proposal for the solicitation, and any other recent and relevant performance record identified other Government data sources (as applicable), the Government will assess the acceptability of the offeror’s performance based on the (i) overall quality of products/services delivered in terms of conforming to contract requirements, (ii) timeliness of products delivered/services performed in terms of meeting contractually required delivery/performance schedules, (iii) effectiveness in forecasting and controlling estimated costs,and (iv) cooperation and commitment to customer satisfaction. The assessment will focus on whether the performance met contract requirements, the frequency of performance problems, and the effectiveness of corrective actions taken by the contractor. In conducting the quality assessment, the Government reserves the right to use data provided by the offeror in its proposal, data obtained from interviews with cognizant Government personnel having knowledge of the offeror’s performance; data obtained from applicable contract files; and/or data obtained from other sources such as the CPARS; PPIRS; FAPIIS; or other Governmental databases. A significant achievement, problem, or lack of relevant data in any area of evaluation can become an important consideration in the past performance assessment. In the event that a source other than the proposal submission provides the Government with derogatory or adverse past performance information, the offeror will be given the opportunity to rebut or corroborate such information if such opportunity has not been previously afforded. The evaluation will place greater emphasis on the performance history of the firms which are proposed to perform the greatest percentage of the solicitation’s requirements.

Table 1: Past Performance Rating Scheme

Green

Acceptable Based on the offeror’s performance record, the Government has a reasonable expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort, or the offeror’s performance record is unknown.

Red

Unacceptable Based on the offeror’s performance record, the Government does not have a reasonable expectation that the offeror will be able to successfully perform the required effort.

FACTOR 1 – SCHEDuLE Schedule Factor Overview The Schedule Factor is divided into 2 Subfactors. The Government will assess the completeness and extent of understanding of the offeror’s schedule approach to meeting the requirements set forth in the RFP. The Government will assign an overall factor-level rating for the Schedule Factor. A color/adjectival rating that includes an assessment of risk will be assigned at the factor level, as listed in Table 2. The Government will evaluate proposals for strengths, significant strengths, weaknesses, significant weaknesses and deficiencies.

Subfactor 1: Technical Maturity The technical maturity will be evaluated using two scenarios. (Network Enclosure Assembly (NEA) Design Approach; and Cooperative Aviation Surveillance System (CASS) to Passive Detection and Reporting System (PDRS) Design Approach). The government will evaluate the offeror's proposal for the extent to which it provides an adequate/sufficient capability to provide and approach to meet the following two scenarios. The Government will evaluate the Preliminary Class 1 ECP solutions in a subjective manner, addressing the totality of all data submitted by the offerers in support of the potential implementation of the Class 1 ECPs. The data submitted by the offerers, will not be evaluated separately in the preliminary Class 1 ECP assessments.

Scenario 1: NEA The Government will evaluate the Offeror’s understanding and approach to meet the requirements stated in Section L, Volume III, Section I, Scenario 1, NEA.

The Government’s evaluation will address the benefits, shortcomings and risk of the proposed scenario solution.

Scenario 2: CASS to PDRS design approach The Government will evaluate each Offeror’s understanding and approach for substituting the CASS system with the PDRS system stated in Section L, Volume III, Section I, Scenario 2.

The Government will evaluate the method for accomplishment of the work and how the work will be performed to maintain quality results and enhance the capabilities of the Engagement Operations Center (EOC). The Government will evaluate offeror's ability to provide an adequate/sufficient approach for replacing the current CASS with the PDRS.

The Government’s evaluation will address the benefits, shortcomings and risk of the proposed scenario solution.

Subfactor 2: Production Maturity The Government will evaluate the extent to which the proposal demonstrates an understanding and sound approach to meet the requirements stated in Section L, Volume III, Section 2, Subfactor 2. The government will evaluate the offeror's proposal for the extent to which it provides an adequate/sufficient capability to provide a sound approach to Production Maturity.

The Government will evaluate the benefits, shortcomings and risk of the proposed capabilities.

FACTOR 2 – Management The Management factor is divided into 2 subfactors. The Government will assess the completeness and extent of understanding of the offeror’s management approach to meeting the requirements set forth in the RFP. The Government will assign an overall factor-level rating for the Management Factor. A color/adjectival rating that includes an assessment of risk will be assigned at the factor level, as listed in Table 2. The Government will evaluate proposals for strengths, significant strengths, weaknesses, significant weaknesses and deficiencies.

Subfactor 1: System Synchronization and Metrics The Government will evaluate the Offeror’s understanding and approach to System synchronization as set forth in Section L Volume IV, Section I, Subfactor 1. System synchronization is the management of IBCS hardware and software integration to ensure consistency in product acceptance, Materiel Fielding, support of fielded systems, implementing new capability growth and support of Government simulation labs.

The Government will evaluate the Offeror’s approach to managing the execution of the contract using quantifiable metrics.

The Government will evaluate the benefits, shortcomings and risk of the proposed approaches.

Subfactor 2: Depot Subcontractor Management.

The Government will evaluate the offerors past experience and current approach to identifying work that will be allocated as subcontractor work to Army depots as set forth in Section L Volume IV, Section 2, Subfactor 2. The contractor shall identify the work that will be allocated as subcontractor work for the Army Depots.

The Government will evaluate the benefits, shortcomings and risk of the proposed approach.

Factor 1, Schedule and Factor 2, Management, and the respective subfactors, will be evaluated using the Combined Technical/Risk Ratings listed in Table 2 below:

Table 2: Factor 1 and 2 Rating Scheme

TABLE 2 – COMBINED TECHNICAL/RISK RATINGS

Factor 3: Small Business Participation. IAW Defense FAR Supplement (DFARS) 215.304(c)(i), the extent to which offeror’s identify and commit to small business performance of the contract shall be evaluated. All Offerors (both large and small businesses) will be evaluated on the level of proposed commitment to utilize U.S. small businesses in the performance of acquisition (as small business prime Offerors or small business subcontractors) based on percentage of total contract value (price) and not based on total subcontracting value. The Government will evaluate the following:

a. The extent to which such firms, as defined in FAR Part 19, are specifically identified in proposals;

b. The extent of commitment to use such firms (and enforceable commitments will be considered more favorably than nonenforceable ones);

c. Identification of the complexity and variety of the work small firms are to perform;

d. The extent of commitment of small business participation in terms of the percentage of the value of the total acquisition.

e. The extent of overall management and oversight of subcontractors.

f. The extent of evidence (small business utilization) in support of small business goal attainment on prior and similar work effort to ensure realistic and attainable goals.

g. The extent of evidence of supply chain subcontractors, including information technology subcontractors and suppliers that are proposed for use at any time in the performance of the contract and may involve the use of all-source intelligence information.

Based on the evaluation of the small business participation and commitment as discussed above in 1(a) – 5(g), this factor shall be rated using the definitions found below in Table 3.

TABLE 3. Small Business Participation Factor Rating Definitions

*Proposed target goals shall be evidenced and substantiated by the Small Business Commitment Document. The Commitment Document will become part of the resultant contract. Proposed target goals that meet or exceed the examples above may not receive the coordinating rating above.

Factor 4: Cost/Price. Adjectival ratings shall not be used for offerors’ Cost/Price proposals. The Government reserves the right to make award based upon the Cost/Price factor in the event that the Technical, Past Performance, and Small Business Participation evaluation results of all the offerors’ proposals are substantially the same. The Government will fully evaluate all CLINs’/ordering periods’ proposed prices. The evaluation of all ordering periods will not obligate the Government to issue delivery orders/task orders in any ordering period.

The Total Evaluated Price consists of summing the proposed FPIF amounts at the maximum quantities, FP LOE proposed amounts, the CPIF probable cost amount plus proposed fee, and the Cost No Fee Government provided plug amounts.

The offeror’s Cost/Proposal proposal will be evaluated for the following:

(a) Compliance with Section L-X Cost/Price: The Cost/Price proposal submitted by the offeror will be evaluated for compliance based upon the submission requirements contained in the Section L- Volume V Cost/Price instructions.

(b) Unbalanced Pricing: The offeror’s Cost/Price proposal will be evaluated for unbalanced pricing as defined in FAR 15.404-1(g). Unbalanced pricing exists when, despite an acceptable total evaluated price, the price of one or more contract line items is significantly over- or understated as indicated by the application of cost and price analysis techniques. Offerors are cautioned that a proposal the Government assesses to be unbalanced as to price, may either be rejected or determined unacceptable for award. See FAR 15.404-1(g) for information on unbalanced pricing.

(c) Business Systems: The Government will verify the adequacy of the offeror’s accounting system and purchasing system.

(d) Reasonableness: The Cost/Price proposal submitted by the offeror will be evaluated to determine if it is reasonable. In accordance with FAR 31.201-3, a cost/price is reasonable if, in its nature and amount, it does not exceed that which would be incurred by a prudent person in the conduct of competitive business.

(e) Cost Realism: A cost realism analysis will be performed on the CPIF CLINs to determine whether specific estimated proposed cost elements are realistic for the work to be performed; reflect a clear understanding of contract requirements; and are consistent with the unique methods of performance described in the offeror’s proposal. The realism analysis will also be used to evaluate the offeror’s understanding of the contract’s technical requirements and the risk associated with the offeror’s proposal. Therefore, the offeror is advised to clearly show justification for unique practices that significantly lower costs. The offeror’s CPIF proposal and estimates will be traced from the Cost/Price proposal volume basis of estimates to the performance of the requirements addressed in the proposal. The Government will perform an evaluation of the technical elements contained within the offeror’s Cost/Price proposal to perform the SOW. The results of the Government’s evaluation of the Cost/Price proposal’s technical elements will be incorporated into the cost realism evaluation.

The offeror’s proposed fee dollars will be utilized in the Government’s evaluation of the CPIF CLINs and the total evaluated price. The offeror’s proposed incentive fee structure will be evaluated to verify that the offeror utilized the share ratios, target fee, minimum fee, and maximum fee as stated in Section L- Volume V

The results of the cost realism evaluation will determine the probable cost of performance as it relates to the technical approach proposed by each offeror and will be utilized in the selection of the offer that provides the best value to the Government. As part of the cost realism analysis to determine the probable cost, the Government will calculate an evaluated cost by adjusting each offeror’s proposed cost to reflect any additions or reductions in cost elements to realistic levels based on the results of the cost realism analysis. The evaluated cost may differ from the proposed cost and will reflect the Government’s best estimate of the cost that is most likely to result from the offeror’s proposal. For the FPIF and FP LOE CLINs, price realism will not be conducted.