Instr2Offrs_NMSS_RevisedPgs.pdf

DJA-13-AHDQ-R-0035, Page 1 of 9

INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS

52.252-1 SOLICITATION PROVISIONS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE (FEB 1998)

This solicitation incorporates one (1) or more provisions by reference, with the same force and effect as if they were given in full text. The full text of a provision may be accessed electronically via these websites: http://farsite.hill.af.mil/vffara.htm or https://www.acquisition.gov/far/current/pdf/FAR.pdf. Be cautioned that the listed provisions may include blocks that must be completed by the prospective Contractor and submitted with the offer. In lieu of submitting the full text of those provisions, the Contractor may identify the provision by paragraph identifier and provide the appropriate information with its offer.

(a) The Government may award without discussions with the contractor; therefore, the contractor is cautioned to examine the solicitation in its entirety and to ensure that its proposal is complete, containing all necessary information/all required documentation, in all respects.

However, the Government reserves the right to conduct discussions and to permit the contractor to revise its proposal(s).

(b) The Contractor shall submit an electronically signed and dated proposal, by 5:00pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) on FridayTuesday, 912/327/13, to the Contract Specialist (CS) via Sheray.Millhouse@ATF.gov and the Contracting Officer (CO) via Kristian.Jovanovic@ATF.gov.

(c) Proposals received after the time and date specified for receipt will be considered

LATE.

1. PROPOSAL SUBMISSION

(a) To be considered for selection, the Contractor must submit a complete response to this Solicitation/Request for Proposal (RFP) using the sequence and format provided herein. All pages must be identified with the Contractor’s name and the Solicitation number, DJA-13-

AHDQ-R-0035.

(b) Proposals shall be submitted in one (1) hard copy and one (1) electronic copy. For the electronic submission, the proposal shall be in uncompressed files submitted via email.

(c) The electronic version of the text shall be in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat Portable Data Format (PDF).

(d) Information shall be confined to the appropriate volume folder/tab to facilitate independent evaluation. The technical proposal should be clear and concise, logically assembled, indexed and cross-indexed to applicable parts of the RFP as appropriate. Pages over the maximum-page limitation for any volume folder/tab will be excluded from evaluation.

The page limits shall include any diagrams, figures, tables, or reference material, unless otherwise indicated in paragraph 2(c). RESUMES ARE NOT A PART OF THE PAGE LIMITATION.

http://farsite.hill.af.mil/vffara.htm https://www.acquisition.gov/far/current/pdf/FAR.pdf mailto:Sheray.Millhouse@ATF.gov mailto:Kristian.Jovanovic@ATF.gov

Instructions to Offerors - NMSS, DJA-13-AHDQ-R-0035, Page 2 of 9

2. PROPOSAL FORMAT

(a) Submissions. Submissions shall be on 8 ½” x 11” (with no fold-outs) whitepaper and printed only on one side of the paper. The text shall have 1” margins on all sides, be single-spaced; font style Calibri; font color black; and font size 12. Illustrations (e.g., graphic figures, graphs, and tables) shall be in portrait format with font colors other than black allowable and font sizes 12, 10, and 9 are considered acceptable. The Contractor's name (no logos), the date, solicitation number, volume number and section shall be included on each page of the proposal (may be included in a header/footer). All pages of the proposal shall be numbered, using a uniformed-paragraph-numbering system. Page numbers, headers and footers may be outside the page margins, and are not bound by the font, color and point-size requirement.

Information not contained within the above limitations will not be evaluated.

(b) Volume. The Contractor shall present all information relevant to each factor in the appropriate section. The Contractor shall insert its name in the filename. At the end of each Volume folder/tab, the Contractor may include any “Exceptions” that they take with the requirements, constraints and terms and conditions. Any exceptions taken shall clearly identify the RFP Section, paragraph, requirement/objective, constraint, and terms and conditions to which exception is being made and include appropriate supporting rationale for each exception. The Government is not obligated to accept such exceptions to the RFP, and these may render the Contractor’s proposal unacceptable.

(c) Requirements

Volume Section/Tab Title Number of Hard/Electronic

Copies

Total Page Limits

I Section 1 – Tab A/Table of Contents & Introduction, Tab B/Executive-Level Summary & Corporate Qualifications, Tab C/Contractual Documents and Tab D/Exceptions

1 Not-to-Exceed (NTE)

I Section 2 – Technical/Managerial Approach

1 NTE 30

I Section 3 – Personnel Qualifications 1 2 Pages per DisciplineResume

I Section 4 – Past Performance (per the Survey enclosed with the RFP)

1 4NTE 3 Pages per Reference

II Price 1 NTE 12

Comment [SAM1]: An optional 2-page summary of overall experience & qualifications of proposed personnel

Comment [SAM2]: Contractors won’t be dinged for having 4 pages since there was a discrepancy.

Instructions to Offerors - NMSS, DJA-13-AHDQ-R-0035, Page 4 of 9

(d) If no exceptions are taken, the Contractor shall include the following statement in this part of the proposal: “[Name of Contractor] takes no exception to any terms and conditions of Solicitation No. DJA-13-AHDQ-R-0035.

3.1.4 Section 2 – Technical/Managerial Approach:

a) Contractor must demonstrate its complete understanding of ATF’s tasks and deliverables by fully describing its proposed technical/management approach to perform each task/deliverable specified under the SOW, including methods used and scheduling of time.

b) Contractor must identify any technical barriers that the company would conceivably encounter in pursing the required work and make specific proposals for their solution.

c) Contractor shall submit a management plan for how the company intends to accomplish, administer, and manage the tasks and deliverables in the SOW. The staffing plan, detailing the labor categories, hourly rates and number of hours, should be included in this document.

d) If the Contractor proposes subcontractors and teaming arrangements, the management plan shall explain to what extent subcontractors and team members will be involved in the performance of the proposed tasks and how the contractor will manage the subcontractor and team member participation.

e) Contractor shall identify its turnover rate for fiscal years 2010, 2011, and 2012.

Turnover rates shall be calculated using Bureau of Labor Statistics definition, which is ‘the number of total separations during the month divided by the number of employees who worked during or received pay for the pay period that includes the 12th of the month (monthly turnover); the number of total separations for the year divided by average monthly employment for the year (annual turnover).”

f) Contractor shall address its employee retention program, including, but not limited to training programs, salary and benefits plans.

g) The proposal shall describe the transition methods, budget management, issues, resolutions, and communication plans.

h) Contractor shall describe the methods used to conduct the asset inventory validation.

3.1.5 Section 3 - Personnel Qualifications: The Contractor shall demonstrate the experience and qualifications of personnel to perform services within this SOW. Resumes are only to be provided for Key Personnel and limited to two (2) pages each which shall indicate the proposed job category to be performed.. Each resume shall contain the following information:

(a) Company: Current company affiliation and location

(b) Education: Degree(s), School, Location of School, Major, and Year of Graduation

(c) Job Title: Current & Planned Job Title

(d) Professional Experience/Qualifications: Brief summary of experience and training

(e) Security Clearance: Current security clearance (if applicable)

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3.1.6 Section 34 – Past Performance: The Contractor shall provide references for a minimum of three (3) contracts/orders each for Network Management Support Services (NMSS) with the Federal Government and commercial customers that demonstrate recent and relevant past performance of similar scope, size and complexity for NMSS. Recent is defined as within the last three (3) years. Relevant is defined as work similar in complexity, magnitude, and type of the work described in the SOW.

3.1.6.1 Contractors are instructed to send requests for references to the referenced party with instructions that they, in turn, should complete the “Past and Present Performance Survey” and send the information directly to the ATF CS listed above. The Contractor shall provide a detailed summary of the work performed for each past performance reference submitted.

Where possible, ATF intends to interview each reference provided to verify project scope, dollar value and obtain additional past performance information. The Solicitation Number is already identified on the past performance surveys.

3.1.6.2 The Contractor shall provide telephone, fax and email address for the points of contact for the technical and contractual personnel with each referenced project as well as a description of the referenced contracts/orders.

3.1.6.3 The description of each contract/order and subcontract shall include the following information:

(a) Contract/Order number

(b) Title of Program/Project

(c) Scope

(d) Contract Type

(e) Period of Performance

(f) Awarded Price

(g) Final, or Projected Final, Price

(h) Original Delivery Schedule

(i) Final, or Projected Final, Delivery Schedule

(j) Government/Commercial Contracting Activity, Address, Telephone and Fax numbers, and e-mail address

3.1.6.4 The Government may also consider information obtained through other sources. Past performance information will be utilized to determine the quality of the contractor’s past and present performance as it relates to the probability of success of the required effort. In this section the Contractor will include demonstrated and relevant corporate experience, including subcontractors and teaming partners, in performing projects requiring the type of services solicited.

Instructions to Offerors - NMSS, DJA-13-AHDQ-R-0035, Page 7 of 9

6.1.2 The Government may determine that a proposal is unacceptable if the option pricing is significantly unbalanced.

6.1.3 A written notice of award or acceptance of a proposal, mailed or otherwise furnished to the successful Contractor within the time for acceptance specified in the proposal, shall result in a binding contract without further action by either party. Before the proposal's specified expiration time, the Government may accept an offer, whether or not there are negotiations after its receipt, unless a written notice of withdrawal is received before award.

6.2 BASIS FOR AWARD

Evaluations will be conducted and a selection will be made IAW the guidelines provided in the FAR, the Department of Justice Acquisition Regulation (JAR), and the RFQ. Award will be made to that Contractor whose proposal represents the greatest overall value to the Government, technical/managerial approach, personnel qualifications, past performance and price considered. ATF requires and intends to procure services for LCWCSNMSS. The task order awarded as a result of this solicitation shall be a Hybrid Firm-Fixed Price with Cost- Reimbursement for Travel only.

ATF may award without discussions; however, ATF reserves the right to hold discussions, if deemed in the best interest of the Government.

6.3 EVALUATION AND EVALUATION FACTORS

The evaluation will be based on the following criteria, which are of equal importance:

Technical/Managerial Approach, Personnel Qualifications, Past Performance, and Price. As the technical/managerial approach, personnel qualifications and past performance approach equality, price will become more important in making the award determination. The Government may also award to other than the highest technically-rated contractor, if the Government determines that a price premium is not warranted.

Factor 1: Technical/Managerial Approach. ATF will evaluate the contractor on the soundness of its technical/management approach to accomplish the work as described in the SOW. ATF will evaluate the Contractor on its ability to effectively and efficiently accomplish, administer and manage the day-to-day operations. In addition, ATF will evaluate the Contractor on its ability to transition within no more than (NMT) 45-days in and NMT 45-days out.

Factor 2: Personnel Qualifications. ATF will evaluate the contractor on the experience and qualifications of the proposed personnel relevant to the tasks and deliverables specified in the SOW. The key personnel for this requirement shall be an Admin Assistant, a Network Engineer(s), a Program Manager, a Telecom Analyst, and Technical Writers.

Formatted: Font: 12 pt