Combined Synopsis Solicitation_1333ND26QNB030069.docx

Mid-infrared femtosecond laser system and optical frequency reference / 1333ND26QNB030069

(I) This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial products or commercial services prepared in accordance with the format in part 12 - Acquisition of Commercial Products and Commercial Services as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; quotes are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued.

(II) The solicitation number is 1333ND26QNB030031 and this solicitation is a Request for Quotation (RFQ). This acquisition is being solicited as full and open competition.

(III) The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO).

(IV) The associated North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 334516 - Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing with a small business size standard of 1,000 employees.

(V) All offerors shall provide a firm-fixed-price quotation for the following line item(s):

NTE

TOTAL:

(VI) The requirements for the line items to be acquired above are in the attached Statement of Work document.

Attachment 1- STATEMENT OF WORK- Mid-infrared femtosecond laser system and optical frequency reference Attachment 2- Applicable Provisions and Clauses

(VII) Date(s) and place(s) of delivery and acceptance and FOB point are required in accordance with the attached Statement of Work document.

(VIII) Quoters/Contractors must possess an ACTIVE registration in the System for Award Management, www.SAM.gov, when submitting a quotation and shall continue to hold an active registration until time of award, during performance, and through final payment of any purchase order or contract resulting from this solicitation. This acquisition office will verify that quoters have an active registration through www.sam.gov upon receipt of the quotation. If the SAM.gov registration is not active, the quotation will not be considered for award.

(IX) The provision at FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors—Commercial Products and Commercial Services (DEVIATION Jan 2026), applies to this acquisition. See Addendum to FAR 52.212-1 below.

Addendum to FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors – Commercial Products and Commercial Services (DEVIATION Jan 2026):

DUE DATE FOR QUOTATIONS

Offerors shall submit their electronic quotations, via email, so that NIST receives them not later than 11:00am Eastern Time, March 9, 2025. E-mail quotations shall be submitted directly to the Contract Specialist at tracy.retterer@nist.gov and Contracting Officer at Donald.collie@nist.gov

Please reference the RFQ number in the subject line of email communications. Offerors quotations shall not be deemed received by the Government until the quotation is entered in the e-mail inbox set forth above.

INQUIRIES (CAR 1352.215-72):

Offerors must submit all questions concerning this solicitation in writing to both the Contract Specialist, tracy.retterer@nist.gov and the Contracting Officer, Donald.collie@nist.gov. Questions should be received no later than 5 calendar days after the issuance date of this solicitation. All responses to the questions will be made in writing, without identification of the questioner, and will be included in an amendment to the solicitation. Even if provided in other form, only the responses included in the amendment to the solicitation will govern performance of the contract.

QUOTATION PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS:

All quotations shall conform to solicitation provisions/clauses and be prepared in accordance with this section. The quotation shall be clearly and concisely written as well as be neat, indexed (cross-indexed as appropriate) and logically assembled. Note: The term “indexed” refers to a table of contents that lists sections and page numbers. In the event that the Offeror is unable to create an indexed quotation, an alternative approach such as a Table of Contents shall suffice. All pages of the quotation shall be appropriately numbered.

In preparing the quotation, each volume shall stand on its own. For each given evaluation factor the Government will only evaluate the information provided in the corresponding section of the quotation. The Offeror’s quotation shall be clearly divided into the following distinct volumes:

Volume I – Technical Quotation Volume II – Demonstrated Experience Quotation Volume III – Price Quotation Volume IV – Terms and Conditions

Volume I - Technical Quotation:

The Quoter shall submit one (1) copy of their technical quotation, electronically, via E-mail to the Contract Specialist and Contracting Officer identified above. The technical quotation shall address the following:

Technical Capability:

The quoter shall submit technical approach and capability documentation which may include a narrative, charts, graphs, tables, drawings, product / service literature, and as applicable, demonstrated authority to provide the necessary items and perform the required services identified in the statement of work (Attachment 1). The documentation shall clearly describe, in sufficient detail, the vendor's authority, proposed items, resources and methods to successfully fulfill the requirements including specifications, performance capability requirements, delivery schedules, warranties, and all service requirements. The submission shall clearly identify each line item above. The submission must demonstrate that the proposed system meets or exceeds each minimum requirement described within the attached statement of work document by providing a citation between the statement of work paragraph and the relevant section of the technical description or product literature. The offeror must not simply state they will meet or exceed the requirement; evidence must be provided. If applicable, evidence that the offeror is authorized by the manufacturer to provide the item(s) in the quotation shall be included. A higher confidence rating will be given to products that provide the following:

CLIN 0001:

a. Higher confidence rating will be given for mid-infrared laser output tunable from 2.6 μm to 3.0 μm:

i. Pulse bandwidth ≥50 cm−1.

ii. Laser average power ≥25 mW.

b. Higher confidence rating will be given for mid-infrared laser output tunable from 4.8 μm to 5.2 μm:

i. Pulse bandwidth ≥50 cm−1.

ii. Laser average power ≥25 mW.

Volume II – Demonstrated Experience:

The quoter shall provide the following information for relevant contracts and/or projects (item and/or service) to that of the requirement in the RFQ that were completed within the past five years:

a) Experience For: Organization Name, address, phone number, email and a Reference Point of Contact (POC).

b) Role as prime contractor or subcontractor.

c) Description of the work in terms of items and services provided and relevance to RFQ requirements.

d) Date of delivery (Items) and dates of services provided (Service contracts).

e) Contract/Project total dollar amount/value

The quoter is encouraged to focus on prior projects encompassing the same RFQ requirements and describe how these requirements were specifically supported by the quoter. The quoter may use prior experiences in which they served as a prime contractor or subcontractor; however, experience as a prime contractor may instill higher confidence. The Government may contact the Reference POC to assess the validity and accuracy of the demonstrated prior experience submissions.

The Government reserves the right to review and consider any information contained within the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) or any other Government system, source, individual contact or any other source of information that may have knowledge or information on a quoter’s relevant experience.

Volume III - Price Quotation:

The offeror shall submit one (1) copy of their entire quotation, electronically, via E-mail to the Contract Specialist and Contracting Officer identified above. The pricing quotation shall be separate from any other portion of the quotation. The offeror shall propose a firm-fixed-price for each CLIN identified above, unless otherwise noted as a Not to Exceed amount. Price quotations shall remain valid for a period of 90 days from the date quotations are due.

Offerors that are proposing products manufactured outside of the United States must identify any other or unknown charges that may be applicable to the sale of these products (here indicated as CLIN 0005 - Other related transportation expenses) as a separate line item on price quotes/proposals. This price element may be listed as part of the cost of the product or as a sub-total element but must be clearly identified. This price element must only apply to the total value of the goods identified for customs processing. Only include the country of origin and the tariff percentage currently in place or the expected amount at time of delivery for that country. Price quotes shall clearly identify the relevant tariffs in terms of percentage and total cost. If there are multiple countries of origins and associated tariffs, identify each separately.

Volume III – Terms and Conditions:

The offeror shall review the provision and clauses attachment and complete any required information as record via a separate volume response to this solicitation.

Note: System updates may lag policy updates. The System for Award Management (SAM) may continue to require entities to complete representations based on provisions that are not included in this solicitation. Contracting officers will rely on representations from offers based on provisions in the solicitation. Entities are not required to, nor are they able to, update their entity registration to remove these representations in SAM.

Acceptance of Terms and Conditions:

If the offeror objects to any of the terms and conditions contained in this solicitation, the offeror shall state "The terms and conditions in the solicitation are acceptable to be included in the award document with the exception, deletion, or addition of the following:" If the offeror does not accept the terms and conditions, the offeror shall list exception(s) and rationale for the exception(s). It is the sole responsibility of the offeror to identify in their quotation any exceptions to the terms and conditions of the solicitation. If the offeror does not include such a statement, the submission of a quotation in response to this solicitation will be regarded as the Offeror's acceptance of the Government's terms and conditions for inclusion into the resultant purchase order (PO).

This procurement is not being conducted under the GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) program or another Government-Wide Area Contract (GWAC). If an Offeror submits a quotation based upon an FSS or GWAC contract, the Government will accept the proposed price. However, the terms and conditions stated herein will be included in any resultant purchase order, not the terms and conditions of the Offeror's FSS or GWAC contract, and the statement required above shall be included in the quotation.

(XII) Addendum to 52.212-2, Evaluation-Commercial Products and Commercial Services (DEVIATION Jan 2026) applies to this procurement.

The evaluation criteria included in paragraph (a) of the provision are as follows:

EVALUATION CRITERIA

The Government intends to award a single purchase order (PO) from this solicitation utilizing FAR part 12. The Government reserves the right not to award a PO and to make an award without discussions based solely upon initial quotes. Offerors are strongly encouraged to submit their best technical solutions and price in response to this RFQ. The Government intends to make an award, based on best value, to the offeror with the proposed solution that is most advantageous, price and non-price factors considered. When combined, non-price factors are more important than price. As the non-price factors become more equal among offerors, price shall become more of a determining factor. The Government reserves the right not to award a PO and to make an award based solely upon initial quotes.

Evaluation Factors:

The government will make an award, based on best value, to the vendor with the proposed solution that is most advantageous, price and other factors considered. When combined, non-price factors 1 and 2 are more important than factor 3.

Factor 1: Technical Capability: The Government will evaluate the extent to which the proposed instrument and solution meets all SOW requirements to determine the level of confidence the Government has in the quoters ability to successfully deliver and perform SOW requirements. A higher confidence rating will be given to products that provide the following:

2.1 Being able to operate in both XCL and XCT modes provides additional value to the government and a higher confidence rating will be given to a system that can operate in both modes.

2.2 A higher confidence will be given for higher spatial resolution and faster scan speeds in XCT mode.

Factor 2: Prior Demonstrated Experience: The Government will evaluate the Offeror’s prior demonstrated experience delivering, installing, and providing warranty and service contracts for instruments similar to the those in the SOW to determine the level of confidence the Government has in the quoters experience and ability to successfully deliver and perform SOW requirements.

Factor 3: Price: Price will be evaluated on all quotations that receive ratings above low confidence in both non-price factors. The price quotation will be evaluated for consistency with the technical approach, current marketplace, and Independent Government Estimate. A price realism analysis will not be conducted. The price offer will be evaluated for reasonableness.

The option line items will be evaluated for award purposes by adding the total price for all options to the total price for the basic requirement. The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable if the option prices are significantly unbalanced. Evaluation of any option shall not obligate the Government to exercise such option.

Evaluation Ratings:

The evaluation of each non-price factor (factors 1 and 2) may be done holistically with a rating scale of "high confidence," "some confidence," and "low confidence," representing the Government’s confidence that the offeror understands the requirement and will be successful in performing the work per factor.

Confidence Ratings:

requirement, proposes a sound approach, and will be successful in performing the requirements with little or no Government intervention.

performing the requirements with some Government intervention.

Upon evaluation, if a quotation is deemed Low Confidence on any given non-price factor, that quotation may not be evaluated further by the Government.

Once the Government determines the quoter that is the best-suited (i.e., the apparent successful quoter), the Government reserves the right to communicate with only that quoter to address any remaining issues, if necessary, and finalize a contract with that quoter. These issues may include technical and price. If the parties cannot successfully address any remaining issues, as determined pertinent at the sole discretion of the Government, the Government reserves the right to communicate with the next best-suited quoter based on the original analysis and address any remaining issues. Once the Government has begun communications with the next best-suited quoter, no further communications with the previous quoter will be entertained until after the purchase order has been awarded. This process shall continue until an agreement is successfully reached and a contract is awarded.

(End of provision 52.212-2)