Attachment 4 - Evaluation Factors.pdf

Attachment 4 ADDENDUM TO FAR 52.212-2: Evaluation—Commercial Products and Commercial Services (Nov 2021)

Basis for Contract Award Award will be made based on the Best Value, meaning the Government seeks to award to an offeror who provides the greatest confidence that they will affordably meet the Government’s requirements. The Subjective Best Value technique chosen for this acquisition will be a Tradeoff, where past performance and technical acceptability is more important than price. No contract award shall be made unless the Contracting Officer makes an affirmative determination of responsibility in accordance with FAR 9.104.

Discussions The Government intends to award without discussions; therefore, offerors should submit offers that represent their best efforts.

Solicitation Requirements, Terms and Conditions Offerors are required to meet all solicitation requirements, such as terms and conditions, representations and certifications. 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 as unacceptable.

Evaluation Factors The Government will evaluate offers for price, technical acceptability and past performance, but will not rank the offers by the non-price factors. Offerors are advised that their initial submission should be their best effort. Only offerors with acceptable Past Performance reports will be eligible for award. Since an award will be made without discussions, offer revisions will not be permitted.

The first step of the evaluation process is to evaluate prices and rank all responsive offers from lowest to highest.

The evaluation team will then proceed to the second step. In the second step, the first three (3) of the lowest priced, responsive offers shall be evaluated for technical acceptability and past performance. If the first three (3) evaluated offers do not yield at least two (2) offerors with a Substantial Confidence past performance rating, the evaluation process will continue until a minimum of two (2) acceptable offers are identified with a Substantial Confidence past performance rating or all offers are evaluated.

The Selection Authority shall then make an integrated assessment to render the best value award decision. The Selection Authority may also make the determination it is in the best interest of the Government to evaluate all offerors for technical acceptability and past performance prior to rendering the best value award decision.

While the Government will strive for maximum objectivity, the acquisition process, by its nature is subjective; and therefore, professional judgment is implicit throughout the entire process.

The following evaluation factors will be used to arrive at an award decision:

Factor 1: Price Factor 2: Technical Acceptability Factor 3: Past Performance

EVALUATION METHODOLOGY:

Offers will be evaluated using three evaluation factors, which are (1) Price and (2) Technical Acceptability and (3) Past Performance. All offeror cover pages and (if applicable) teaming arrangements will be reviewed for completeness in accordance with the requirements stated in Addendum to FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors – Commercial Items to determine the offeror responsive or non- responsive. Only those offers determined complete and responsive will be considered for further evaluation.

Factor 1 –PRICE

The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose quotation conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. The Government reserves the right to award to other than the low quote for a higher quality item.

Factor 2 – Technical

The purpose of the technical factor is to assess whether the vendor’s quoted item meets all provided information from the Performance Work Statement Attachment. Each vendor’s quote will be evaluated against technical requirements and will be assigned a rating of “acceptable” or “unacceptable.” Technical submission must be completed using a secondary document. The Technical information shall be clear, concise, and include sufficient detail for effective evaluation and for substantiating the validity of stated claims. Proposals shall provide convincing rationale addressing how the technical portion of the offer meets solicitation requirements.

Offerors shall assume the Government has no prior knowledge of the offeror’s experience. The Government will base its evaluation on the information presented in the offer.

Rating Description:

“Acceptable” - Quote clearly meets the minimum requirements of the solicitation.

“Unacceptable” - Quote does not clearly meet the minimum requirements of the solicitation.

The quote will be determined technically acceptable if it meets the requirements set out in the Attachment 1 - Performance Work Statement.

VOLUME 3 – PAST PERFORMANCE

Offers evaluated for technical acceptability will also be evaluated for past performance. The Government will evaluate the recency, relevancy, and quality of the offeror’s past performance by analyzing offeror-provided past performance information and any other past performance information data independently obtained from Government and/or commercial sources which may include but is not limited to the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) and other databases.

Contractors may submit no more than three (3) recent and relevant contracts performed for Federal agencies or commercial customers where offerors performed as the prime contractor that demonstrate offeror’s ability to successfully perform the scope and breadth of the requirements described in the Performance Work Statement of this solicitation. Past performance information submitted in excess of the first three contracts will not be evaluated.

1. Past Performance will first be evaluated for recency. Recent past performance information includes contracts performed and/or being performed for any customer within the last five (5) years prior to the issuance date of the solicitation. Recency will be evaluated as “acceptable” or “unacceptable” as outlined below in Table 1.

Table 1: Recency Ratings and Descriptions Rating Description Acceptable Past performance submission is for contract work completed prior to the solicitation, but not before the previous five years.

Unacceptable Past performance submission is for contract work completed more than five years before this solicitation was released.

2. Past Performance will then be evaluated for relevancy. The offeror shall identify what elements of each contract are deemed relevant to this solicitation and indicate what percentage of service was performed by the offeror (prime), subcontractor (if applicable) and teaming contractor (if applicable). The final determination of the identified and demonstrated relevancy elements of each contract will be the decision of the Government.

Relevant past performance requires performance of other contracts similar in scope, magnitude, and complexity to the requirements defined in this solicitation. Relevancy will be evaluated as outlined below in Table 2.

Table 2: Relevancy Ratings and Descriptions Rating Description 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

3. Finally, Past Performance will be evaluated for quality and assigned a performance confidence assessment rating. Performance confidence assessment is an evaluation of the likelihood that the offeror will successfully perform the solicitation’s requirements based upon the offeror’s past performance information. Performance confidence will be assessed as outlined below in Table 3.

Table 3: Quality Ratings and Descriptions 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

Based on the offeror’s recent/relevant performance 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 reasonable assigned. The offeror may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on the factor of past performance per FAR 15.305(a)(2)(iv).

Limited Confidence

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

No Confidence Based on the offeror’s recent/relevant performance record, the Government has no expectation that the offeror will be able to successfully perform the required effort

Past performance regarding predecessor companies, key personnel who have relevant experience, or sub-contractors that will perform major or critical aspects of the requirement will not be considered as highly as past performance information for the principal offeror.

Offerors are cautioned to submit sufficient information as required in this proposal to permit a meaningful assessment of past performance. Offerors may be asked to clarify certain aspects of their proposal or respond to adverse past performance information to which the offeror has not previously had an opportunity to respond. Adverse past performance is defined as past performance information that supports a less than satisfactory confidence rating on any evaluation element or any unfavorable comments received from sources without a formal rating system. Communication conducted to resolve minor or clerical errors will not constitute discussions and the contracting officer reserve the right to award a contract without the opportunity for proposal revision.

At a minimum, the first three (3) lowest priced offers will be evaluated for past performance. Evaluations will continue as necessary until at least two (2) offers are determined to have Substantial Confidence Past Performance ratings or until all offers are evaluated. The Selection Authority will then make an integrated assessment to render the best value award decision or may open discussions if determined to be in the best interest of the Government.

(End of addendum)