Attachment D - Instructions and Evaluations.pdf

Attachment D RFP No. 75P00121Q00029

INSTRUCTIONS AND EVALUATION CRITERIA

RFP 75P00121Q00029: COVID-19 Wastewater Testing

The Government is issuing this competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) set aside 100% small business set aside under FAR Part 12 and 13.5 for support critical to the COVID-19 response.

Interested parties should submit their proposal in accordance with the following instructions.

This requirement is time sensitive and critical, thus the Government does not intend to extend timeframes for submission.

SOLICITATION PROVISIONS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE (FAR 52.252-1,

FEBRUARY 1998)

This solicitation incorporates one or more solicitation provisions by reference, with the same force and effect as if they were given in full text. Upon request, the Contracting Officer will make their full text available. The offeror is cautioned that the listed provisions may include blocks that must be completed by the offeror and submitted with its quotation or offer. In lieu of submitting the full text of those provisions, the offeror may identify the provision by paragraph identifier and provide the appropriate information with its quotation or offer. Also, the full text of a solicitation provision may be accessed electronically at this/these address(es):

http://www.acquisition.gov/far/ and http://www.hhs.gov/hhsar/

FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION (FAR) PROVISIONS

FAR 52.212-1 Instructions to Offerors – Commercial Items (June 2020)

HHS ACQUISITION REGULATION (HHSAR) (48 CFR CHAPTER 3) PROVISIONS

A. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

The Government does not anticipate allowance of extension to timeframe for submission of questions or quotes due to the urgent nature of this requirement.

It is anticipated that a firm fixed price type order will be placed. Any exceptions must be stated by the Offeror.

Offerors are therefore reminded that they are to submit proposal submissions in response to this solicitation that will be binding should the Government select them for award without discussions, and to do so that they must include their best firm-fixed pricing on letterhead stationary signature by a company representative having the authority to enter into a binding contract. Failure to do so may result in the Offeror being determined as non-responsive and not considered for award.

Failure to comply with the Instructions to Offerors will result in the offeror being determined as non-responsive and not considered for award. Proposals will first be evaluated for compliance to the RFP to determine if the quote is responsive. Proposals evaluated as non-responsive to the solicitation will not be considered for award and will not be further evaluated for technical acceptability.

The proposal shall be prepared and submitted in two volumes: Volume I - Technical Submission and Volume II- Price Submission. Each of these volumes shall be separate and complete in itself so that evaluation of one may be accomplished independently of evaluation of the other. The Government shall evaluate proposals in accordance with the Evaluation Criteria. It is essential that the Offeror be compliant with the RFP and explicitly address all evaluation criteria including subjective factors in the written submission.

The RFP does not commit the Government to pay any costs for preparation and submission of a proposal. In addition, the Contracting Officer is the only individual who can legally commit the Government to the expenditure of public funds in connection with this proposed acquisition. If a offeror has activity to report, it shall complete SF-LLL “Disclosure of Lobbying Activities” and shall include one signed copy with the business proposal.

SUBMISSION INDICATES ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF REPRESENTATIONS,

CERTIFICATIONS

Offerors MUST include a completed copy of the provision at FAR 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications – Commercial Items (JAN 2021) with its offer or acknowledge its listing in the System for Award Management (SAM) website.

1. Questions: Vendors must submit all questions pertaining to the RFP in the format provided in Attachment C, and be sent electronically to the Contract Specialist, LaShawn Haggins, at lashawn.haggins@psc.hhs.gov and the Contracting Officer, Jennifer Browning, jennifer.browning@psc.hhs.gov, no later than 5 pm EST, February 24, 2021. The Government’s response to all inquiries received within the required timeframe will be posted publicly with this combined synopsis solicitation.

2. Solicitation Proposal Submission: Offerors must submit their proposals via email to Contract Specialist LaShawn Haggins, at lashawn.haggins@psc.hhs.gov and Contracting Officer, Jennifer Browning at jennifer.browning@psc.hhs.gov no later than 12pm EST, March 2, 2021.

Offeror’s initial proposal should contain the Offeror’s best terms from a price and technical standpoint. The Government reserves the right to conduct exchanges with Offerors if the Contracting Officer later determines them to be necessary.

3. Transmittal and Cover Letter: The Offeror’s transmittal and cover letter for the proposal must contain the name, phone number, and e-mail address of the person to be contacted concerning any matter related to the solicitation.

Include the following information in your quote:

a. DUNS number and TIN;

b. Company Name mailing address, and website address;

c. Date submitted and quote expiration date;

d. All of the above-cited information for each entity on the proposed team, if a team is proposed;

e. Company Point of Contact, Phone and Email address.

4. Formatting: Page size 8.5 by 11 inches with 1 inch margins. Paragraphs single spaced. Minimum font size/style 12 point Times New Roman font for Text, 11 point font in the Arial family for Tables, and 10 point font in the Arial family for Graphics.

Tables and graphics may be landscape; all other text must be portrait.

5. Proposal Organization and page limits:

The following table shows the organization and page limits to which Offerors’ submissions must adhere.

Volume Section Page Limit Volume 1 Section 1 1. Technical

a. Performance Work Statement

b. Roadmap

c. Resource Plan

d. Quality Management Plan

1.a. 10 Pages 1.b. 4 Pages 1.c. 3 Pages

(Page count does not include resource evidence or supporting data documentation to be attached as unlimited appendices)

1.d Unlimited

Volume 2 Section 1 1. Price Proposal

2. Pricing Assumptions

3. COI

4. 3.

Unlimited

VOLUME 1 – TECHNICAL SUBMISSION

FACTOR 1 - Performance Work Statement: Offerors must provide a PWS in response the Statement of Objectives and requirements in Attachment A, SOO /RFP. The PWS must include the Offeror’s proposed approach/solution to fulfilling the objectives and requirements of the RFP and not simply restate the requirements. The PWS must include extensive details for the approach to the requirements in the below table and provide the table with their Technical Submission references completed in the table and the completed table incorporated as part of their PWS:

RFP Objective / Requirement Offeror is to provide an approach/solution to meeting, not simply a restatement of the requirement

SOO / RFP Reference Offeror’s Technical Submission Reference

Testing Methods approach that is consistent with CDC guidelines for wastewater surveillance and includes references from the CDC guidelines throughout the Testing Methods approach to identify aligned consistency, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/wastewater-surveillance/testing-methods.html

Section 1.6.3.3.1

PWS explains how their quality controls produce highest level of data quality and details how it will take measures to provide reports free of data errors

Section 1.6.3.6, 1.6.2

PWS includes a list of Laboratory QA/QC procedures and assay controls that includes definitions and pass/fail criteria

Section 1.6.3.3.3

PWS includes laboratory protocol for processing and testing waste water for SARS-CoV-2

Section 1.6.3.3.2, 1.6.2

Approach for project and resource ramp up and management, with details on how they plan to recruit wastewater facilities

Section 1.6.3.1.4, 1.6.3.1.5, 1.6.3.1.7, 1.6.3.1.8

PWS includes communication plan with the Government, addressing program management of QA/QC measures and document their implementation as a part of their wastewater analysis methodology.

Section 1.6.3.7.1, 1.6.3.7.2

Approach detailing security requirements, documentation, and reporting will function in conjunction with the proposed approach to completing all of the objectives and requirements of the RFP.

Section 1.6.3.7.1 detailed approach meeting RFP objective:

Leveraging wastewater data to predict new COVID-19 cases

Section 1.6.2, 1.6.3.1.1 objective:

Data use

Section 1.6.2, 1.6.3.4 objective:

Facility Monitoring approach includes details how they plan to proactively manage their wastewater facilities

Section 1.6.3.7.1 detailed approach to RFP objective:

Data Quality

Section 1.6.3.6

Detailed approach meeting entire RFP Phase 0 requirement:

Rapid ramp-up of testing deployment and establishment of data transfer protocols between Contractor and HHS Protect

Section 1.6.4.1

Detailed approach meeting entire RFP Phase 1 requirement:

a minimum of 47 states including US territories and federally recognized Indian tribes, representing at least 100 million people, including quality assurance and quality control.

Section 1.6.4.2

Approach details plan to fulfill the capacity to perform wastewater testing for SARS-CoV-2 and associated Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) required for at least 640 samples per week.

Section 1.6.3.1.5

PWS reporting approach plans to consistently reports results of wastewater surveillance testing within 36 hours of sample collection for the duration of this Contract.

Section 1.6.3.1.6

PWS approach includes details for their logistics pipeline

Sections 1.6.3.1.2 and 1.6.3.1.3

PWS approach details how they plan to ensure wastewater facility recruitment will hit the targeted diversity.

Sections 1.6.3.1.8

PWS approach meets RFQ requirement that Contractor generates SARS-CoV-2 sequence data that is appropriate for strain surveillance and submits the raw sequence data and sample metadata to NCBI within 3 weeks of sample receipt by the Contractor.

Section 1.6.3.3.4

FACTOR 2 - Roadmap: Offerors must propose a roadmap which correlates how the stated RFP objective aligns with the timeframe for implementation and the Offeror’s proposed performance work statement. The roadmap must include a resource ramp up aligning the capability to support the specific RFP percentage of population within the timeframe required by RFP. The roadmap must demonstrate the Offerors recommended steps to reach the stated RFP objectives and how the outcomes of the stated objectives will be measured by the Offeror to determine success.

FACTOR 3 - Resource Plan: Offerors must include a resource plan that provides an overview of the support and resources that will be provided in their proposed approach to fulfilling all requirements and timelines required by the RFP. The resource plan must provide focus on utility relationships and inventory capacity.

Offerors must provide evidence to support their proposed resource plan and capability to support the required percentage of population at the time of contract award. Offerors must provide the following evidence as appendices to their submission:

Offerors must provide at least 100 Material Transfer Agreements that have been executed in the past 2 years with wastewater utilities in at least 40 states.

Offerors must provide evidence of inventory capability through an inventory list of sampling, shipping, and testing supplies on hand.

FACTOR 4 - The Quality Management Plan (QMP), which includes the performance standards, QASP, and performance measurement methodology, shall be proposed by the Offeror.

Upon Government approval, the plan will be incorporated into the contract award. Offerors shall utilize the QMP template, Attachment B, to propose and describe the Quality Control (QC), Quality Assurance (QA) and Performance Measurement approach, including how proposed performance standards will be monitored, evaluated, and reported. The Offeror must incorporate the performance standards from the table in RFP section 2.3 as metrics into table 1.1.3 of their proposed Quality Management Plan. The Offeror may propose additional metrics that align with their approach. Offeror proposed metrics must meet or exceed any stated government performance metrics, objectives and requirements. The Offeror must include SOO/RFP references to identify the alignment for any proposed additional metrics.

VOLUME 2 – PRICE SUBMISSION

FACTOR 5 – Price Instructions The price proposal shall include the following:

The Government anticipates that a firm-fixed price contract will result from this RFP.

Offerors, please reference Section 1.5, Contract Pricing, of the Solicitation document for the contract pricing structure to include in the Offeror’s Pricing Volume submission.

CLIN Description QTY/WEEKS Extended Price 1 Phase 0 3 weeks $ 2 Phase 1 9 weeks

TOTAL FFP $

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION:

The offeror shall submit, at a minimum, information on prices at which the same item or similar items have previously been sold in the commercial market that is adequate for evaluating the reasonableness of the price for this acquisition. Such information may include-

(A) For catalog items, a copy of or identification of the catalog and its date, or the appropriate pages for the offered items, or a statement that the catalog is on file in the buying office to which the proposal is being submitted. Provide a copy or describe current discount policies and price lists (published or unpublished), e.g., wholesale, original equipment manufacturer, or reseller. Also explain the basis of each offered price and its relationship to the established catalog price, including how the proposed price relates to the price of recent sales in quantities similar to the proposed quantities;

(B) For market-priced items, the source and date or period of the market quotation or other basis for market price, the base amount, and applicable discounts. In addition, describe the nature of the market;

Price Assumptions, Conditions, or Exceptions

Submit all (if any) assumptions, conditions, or exceptions with any of the terms and conditions of this statement of objectives. If not noted in this section of your proposal, it will be assumed that the Offeror proposes no assumptions for award, and agrees to comply with all of the terms and conditions as set forth herein. It is not the responsibility of the Government to seek out and identify assumptions, conditions, or exceptions buried within the proposal.

Business Ethics, Conflict of Interest and Compliance

If the Government determines that an organizational conflict of interest (OCI) exists, that cannot be satisfactorily avoided, neutralized or mitigated or waived, the Contracting Officer may determine that the offeror will not be eligible for award. The Government reserves the right to only consider mitigation plans proposed by the apparent successful offeror.

B. METHOD OF EVALUATION

The evaluation shall be conducted in accordance with the evaluation criteria stated below. In order for proposals to be considered acceptable and eligible for evaluation, they must be prepared in accordance with and in compliance with the instructions given in this solicitation and address all of the objectives in Attachment A, Statement of Objectives, as well as requirements set forth within the RFP Terms and Conditions. Proposals which merely offer to conduct a program in accordance with the requirements of the Government's scope of work will not be eligible for an award. Proposals that do not comply with the solicitation instructions will be considered non-responsive and will not be eligible for an award. Contract award shall be made to the Offeror, in conforming to this RFP, that provides the lowest price, technically acceptable (LPTA) submission.

The Government reserves the right to make an award based on a Offeror’s initial proposal, so Offerors should provide their best solution and price in its response to the solicitation.

The technical evaluation criteria are as follows:

Factor 1: Performance Work Statement Factor 2: Roadmap

Factor 3: Resource Plan Factor 4: Quality Management Plan

Technical Assumptions, Conditions, or Exceptions shall be evaluated as part of the individual factor or sub factor to which they apply.

The Government reserves the right to reject any proposal that includes any assumption(s) that impact satisfying the Government’s requirements.

An adjectival rating system for scoring will be utilized and the technical panel will determine final scoring, based on a consensus. The following is the adjectival rating system that will be used to evaluate Offerors proposals:

Adjectival Rating

Abbreviation Definition

Acceptable A Fully meets all solicitation requirement(s) for this factor item(s)

Unacceptable U Submission has one (or more) deficiency and/or substantial omissions for the factor item(s) or does not meet the factor requirement(s).

Volume 1:

The following template contains the template with the evaluation factors that the Government will use to evaluate the technical submission of the responsive proposal to determine technical acceptability for each Offeror. PSC will develop an overall adjectival rating for the following Factors for each Offeror:

TECHNICAL ACCEPTABILITY

ADJECTIVAL

RATING (A / U)

Factor 1 Performance Work Statement:

*All items listed under this Factor must be rated as A for the overall Factor 1 rating to be rated A

The table from the Technical Instructions for Factor 1, PWS, is in the Offeror’s PWS and is completed with the Offeror’s corresponding correct reference locations from their submission to all of the listed requirements in the table.

Each of the Offeror’s reference locations in their completed table correspond to a detailed approach/solution and not simply a restatement of the requirements

The Testing Methods approach is consistent with CDC guidelines for wastewater surveillance and includes references from the CDC guidelines throughout the Testing Methods approach to identify aligned consistency, https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/wastewater-surveillance/testing-methods.html (SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.3.1)

The PWS explains how their quality controls produce highest level of data quality and details how it will take measures to provide reports free of data errors

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.6, 1.6.2)

The PWS includes a list of Laboratory QA/QC procedures and assay controls that includes definitions and pass/fail criteria

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.3.3)

The PWS includes laboratory protocol for processing and testing waste water for SARS-CoV-2

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.3.2, 1.6.2)

The PWS includes approach for project and resource ramp up and management, with details on how they plan to recruit wastewater facilities

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.1.4, 1.6.3.1.5, 1.6.3.1.7, 1.6.3.1.8)

The PWS includes communication plan with the Government, addressing program management of QA/QC measures and document their implementation as a part of their wastewater analysis methodology.

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.7.1, 1.6.3.7.2)

The PWS includes approach detailing security requirements, documentation, and reporting will function in conjunction with the proposed approach to completing all of the objectives and requirements of the RFP.

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.7.1)

The PWS includes detailed approach meeting RFP objective:

Leveraging wastewater data to predict new COVID-19 cases

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.2, 1.6.3.1.1)

Data use

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.2, 1.6.3.4)

Facility Monitoring approach includes details how they plan to proactively manage their wastewater facilities

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.7.1)

The PWS includes detailed approach to RFP objective:

Data Quality

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.6)

The PWS includes detailed approach meeting entire RFP Phase 0 requirement:

Rapid ramp-up of testing deployment and establishment of data transfer protocols between Contractor and HHS Protect

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.4.1)

The PWS includes detailed approach meeting entire RFP Phase 1 requirement:

a minimum of 47 states including US territories and federally recognized Indian tribes, representing at least 100 million people, including quality assurance and quality control.

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.4.2)

The PWS includes approach to fulfill the capacity to perform wastewater testing for SARS-CoV-2 and associated Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) required for at least 640 samples per week.

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.1.5)

The PWS reporting approach plans to consistently reports results of wastewater surveillance testing within 36 hours of sample collection for the duration of this Contract.

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.1.6)

The PWS approach includes details for their logistics pipeline

(SOO/RFP Sections 1.6.3.1.2 and 1.6.3.1.3)

The PWS approach details how they plan to ensure wastewater facility recruitment will hit the targeted diversity.

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.1.8)

The PWS approach meets RFQ requirement that Contractor generates SARS-CoV-2 sequence data that is appropriate for strain surveillance and submits the raw sequence data and sample metadata to NCBI within 3 weeks of sample receipt by the Contractor.

(SOO/RFP Section 1.6.3.3.4)

FACTOR 2 ROADMAP

overall Factor 2 rating to be rated A

The Offeror’s roadmap is aligned with the Government’s requirements, population percentage, volume, and timeline.

(SOO/RFP Requirements 1.6.4, 1.6.4.1 Phase 0, 1.6.4.2 Phase 1)

The Offeror’s roadmap correctly identifies the Government objectives and contract deliverables that reflect successful completion of all contract requirements/objectives on schedule.

(SOO/RFP Requirements 1.6.4, 1.6.4.1 Phase 0, 1.6.4.2 Phase 1)

FACTOR 3 RESOURCE PLAN

overall Factor 3 rating to be rated A

The Offeror’s resource plan is in alignment to meet or exceed the Government’s requirements, population percentage, volume, and timeline.

(SOO/RFP Requirements 1.6.4, 1.6.4.1 Phase 0, 1.6.4.2 Phase 1, 1.6.3.1)

The Offeror provides at least 100 Material Transfer Agreements that have been executed in the past 2 years with wastewaster utilities in at least 40 states as acceptable evidence of acceptable viability to provide data on 30% of the US population within three weeks of contract award

The Offeror has provided an inventory-on-hand list with supplies that align with their approach to receive, process, and test at least 640 samples within 3 weeks of contract award

FACTOR 4 QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLAN

overall Factor 4 rating to be rated A

The Offeror proposed a Quality Management Plan using the Attachment B Quality Management Plan Template

The Offeror translated the performance standards from the table in section 2.3 of the SOO/RFP as metrics into the table 1.1.3 of their proposed Quality Management Plan

Offeror proposed metrics meet or exceed any stated government performance metrics, stated objectives and requirements and identifies alignment of any of their proposed metrics by referencing the associated SOO/RFQ requirement their proposed metric meets

Volume 2:

FACTOR 5 - PRICE/COST

Price/cost will be evaluated to determine whether the proposal proposed is reasonable and covers all needs of the solicitation, including shipping and test kits. The total pricewill be evaluated by the Government. The Government will evaluate the breakdown of each CLIN, to determine the offeror’sproposal in accordance with the solicitation instructions and providing supporting breakdown/back up documentation of their price to identify coverage for all needs beneath this solicitation. The Government will also evaluate the price submission for alignment with the Offeror’s technical submission. If the price submission does not align with the offeror’s technical submission, the proposal will not be considered for award.

The following factors will be evaluated for acceptability and compliance (yes/no):

Business Ethics, Conflicts of Interest and Compliance

1. In the event that Business Ethics, Organizational and Personal Conflicts of Interest (hereinafter collectively or individually referred to as COI) and/or Compliance information is required and/or submitted, it will be reviewed for the apparent successful Offeror, but not receive a score/rating.

2. In accordance with FAR 9.504(e), “The contracting officer shall award the contract to the apparent successful Offeror unless a conflict of interest is determined to exist that cannot be avoided, neutralized or mitigated. Before determining to withhold award based on conflict of interest considerations, the contracting officer shall notify the contractor, provide the reasons therefor, and allow the contractor a reasonable opportunity to respond.”

3. PSC will not enter into a contract with an entity that PSC determines has, or has the potential for, an unresolved COI unless PSC determines that it is in the Government’s best interest to do so. If the Contracting Officer finds that it is in the best interest of the United States to award the contract, notwithstanding an unresolved conflict of interest, a request for waiver shall be submitted by the Contracting Officer in accordance with FAR 9.503.

4. In cases where conflicts of interest cannot be avoided, neutralized, or mitigated satisfactorily, or waived when it is in the Government’s best interest to do so, the Contracting Officer shall preclude the Offeror from consideration for contract award

ATTACHMENTS:

Attachment A. Statement of Objectives / RFP Attachment B. Quality Management Plan Template Attachment C. Question and Answer Template Attachment D. Instructions and Evaluations Attachment E. EPA Wastewater Facilities Attachment F. FIPS Attachment G. NWSS DCIPHERE Data Dictionary