Industry_Day_Questions Answers.docx

Questions and Answers in Response to HRPD Industry Day – June 18, 2014

Question #1 Will future TO requirements be mainly for support directly to HRPD?

Response: Future Task Orders related to this IDIQ Contract will support HRPD.

Question #2 Has the government considered leveraging this IDIQ contract to provide HRPDSS services within the offices/branches of ATF to maximize the utilization of the contract?

Response: Within the Office of Human Resources and Professional Development (HRPD) there is no limitation to the use of the IDIQ based on organizational structure. The only limitation is to the services defined in the IDIQ. Therefore, any office within HRPD with a service need covered by the IDIQ can make use of the contract vehicle.

Question #3 Has the government identified any HRPD technology initiatives to be evaluated and/or implemented?

Response: While the contract does not include the purchase of computer hardware or software, contractor staff may be involved in assisting in the identification and implementation of technology solutions addressing HRPD mission needs. As the potential life of the agreement is 5 years, it is expected that new technology initiatives will emerge during that timeframe.

Contractor personnel supporting the various mission areas will likely participate at some point as subject matter experts in business process mapping and reengineering activities that may or may not culminate in the implementation of new HR technology solutions. If new technology solutions are selected, contractor staff will be expected to assist in the implementation of the technology as appropriate for the service area they are supporting. For instance, those contractors supporting staffing functions may help test new technology being implemented related to staffing processes. Contractor staff will be expected to adopt any new technologies acquired by ATF to support business functions.

As a certainty, new analytical (Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise/SPSS), database (Oracle) and performance management (SuccessFactors) technologies will be implemented during the first year as part of the tasks provided for Performance Management Support and HR Data Analysis Support.

Question #4 What does the government define as its most critical HRPD related issue(s) for special agents and the mission of ATF?

Response: See Amendment 0001 and Revised Statement of Work.

Question #5 Are any part of these requirements currently be performed by contractor support? If yes, please identify the contractors and area of requirements currently being performed.

Response: The services related to Classification Management, HR Staffing Operations and Executive Core Qualifications Submission Consultation are being provided with contract support through MRF Consulting, Inc. The other services listed in the SOW are not currently being supported.

Question #6

10.3 "Errors, misleading or uncler statements, incomplete or irrelevant information, and or excessive rhetoric, repetition, and padding shall be considered deficienices" is concerning. Can you provide additional information related to this requirement and what standard will be used to measure Errors, misleading or unclear statements, incomplete or irrelevant information, and or excessive rhetoric, repetition and padding?

Response: This language was deleted from the SOW. See Amendment 0001 and supporting documents.

Question #7 Many federal agencies are implementing telework options. Would ATF reconsider its requirement for onsite work to include telework, work at the contractor location as an option?

Response: In the Statement of Work, see Section 10.0”Place of Performance” and Section 19.0”Teleworking”. Work performed at a contractor’s location is not an option.

Question #8 Can you share any metrics around Workers' Compensation Administration experience since we see this as an area of risk?

Response: ATF receives approximately 150 new claims per year. Most claims are associated with new agent training. Since agent hiring typically happens in surges, claims will follow the same cycle as new agents attend basic training. As a variety of factors effect agent hiring, there is no set annual pattern.

Question #9 Is there an incumbent for this contract, if so, can you provide the name?

Response: See Response to Question #5.

Question #10 Have funds for this work been appropriated?

Response: Funds are currently available.

Question #11 The Solicitation contains ATF Clause ATF-16 – QUARTERLY CONTRACTOR ACCOUNTS PAYABLE LIABILITY INQUIRIES.

a. For clarification purposes, can the Government explain the business requirement for contractors providing this information?

Response: This requirement is a result of an audit performed at the ATF and is implemented on all High Dollar Value contracts.

Question #12 The Solicitation contains ATF Clause ATF-31 – KEY PERSONNEL. However, there is no listing of Key Personnel, nor is there a reference to the SOW paragraph describing Key Personnel.

a. Can the Government confirm that Key Personnel, as listed in the SOW, include the positions and provisions contained in the SOW Para 21.0 – Key Personnel?

b. Is it required that the Contractor shall provide one person in each of the functional key personnel categories identified in SOW Para 21.0, and 21.4.3? Or are all functional personnel (if there are more than one proposed) specified as Key Personnel?

c. Does the Government require one, or more resumes for each key personnel labor category?

Response: All personnel directly providing the following services are considered key personnel: performance management, HR data analysis, classification management, HR staffing operations, employee relations, workers compensation administration, HR policy liaison, and executive core qualifications submission consultation. Employees in future work orders identified to work on special projects (task 10) will be considered key employees for the duration of the special project.

Question #13 In the Statement of Work (SOW) Para 20.0 -- Contractor Personnel Qualifications – states: “The additional 90 days are being added for ATF required background investigations.”

a. Can the Government clarify this 90 day statement?

Response: ATF requires that background investigations for all contractors used by the Bureau who will have access to our systems and facilities. The 90 days referred to in the SOW is the typical time it takes for the background investigations to be processed by ATF. While the 90 days are added to the dates for the period of performance of the agreement, they are not billable hours and not included in the 1920 hour work year since services are not being rendered.

Question #14 The Solicitation, Quotation Instructions and Evaluation Criteria, contains this provision: “3.4.1.3 The Offeror shall submit its Contract Line Item Number (CLIN) structure and pricing. The Offeror shall be responsible for fully pricing out all requirements in the SOW.”

a. Please confirm that the Government requires Offerors to develop their own CLIN structure proposal, including estimated labor hours and labor categories for the base year and all option years.

b. Is it the Government’s expectation that Offerors will propose one and only one full-time-equivalent (FTE) for each of the Tasks listed in the SOW?

Response: The ATF provided a sample CLIN Table in Amendment 0001. Task Orders One, Two and Three provided the number of employees required.

Question #15 Will the Government be awarding any task orders when awarding the IDIQ contracts? Or will task orders be issued, competed and awarded subsequent to IDIQ contract award(s)?

Response: The Government will award the IDIQ Contracts and Task Orders One, Two and Three at the same time.

Question #16 Will offerors be allowed to submit additional questions post the industry day next Wednesday?

Response: See Amendment 0001.

Question #17 In several places (I.e., page 18 under Performance Management Support), we note that the government has combined functional expertise with IT implementation expertise. In our experience, successful enterprise software development and implementation is most successful when the business owners and functional requirements are separated from the development and implementation of the system. Will the government consider separating functional expertise from IT implementation expertise in the key personnel descriptions?

Response: The expectation is that contractor vendors will assist in efforts to identify or implement new HR systems based on their areas of expertise as a system user (functional). As the ATF environment is becoming more and more technology driven, we expect contractor personnel to be comfortable using technology and preferably have experience participating in acquiring, testing and implementing new software and systems from the standpoint of the customer. Unless specific requirements related to IT (such as experience establishing Oracle databases) are defined in the SOW qualifications, then IT implementation “expertise” should be interpreted as someone with some technical depth but is primarily end user based with a focus on their expertise area.

Question #18 Section 3.4.1.3 The government requests pricing for each task area. However there are no deliverables specified in the SOO, only descriptions of the type of work to be performed in each task.

a. Will the government provide an expected LOE for each task?

b. If not, what would the government suggest we use as for a basis of estimate?

Response: See Amendment 0001 and supporting documents.

Question #19 Section 4.3 of Quotation Instructions states, “Price. The total evaluated price shall be the sum of the prices for all proposed labor categories and rates as calculated by the Offeror and for the CLINs as they relate to the Tasks, Deliverables and Optional Deliverables in the SOW. Price will not be evaluated adjectivally.” a. How can the sum of prices be evaluated without any sample or actual task order or without any deliverables identified that would enable the offeror to complete a detailed level of effort assessment?

Response: See Revised Quotation of Instructions in Amendment 000 and supporting documents.

Question #20 Section 3.4.1.2 states: “Section 1 shall contain the SF 1449 and a signed copy of each amendment, if any, to the solicitation.”

a. Will the signed copy of the SF 1449 and the Amendments be included or excluded from the page limitation for Section I of the Price Volume?

Response: SF 1449 will be provided in Amendment 0002. See revised Instructions of Instructions provided in Amendment 0001.

Question #21 Section 4.1 states, “The Government intends to award at least 3 contracts resulting from this RFQ to the responsible Offerors whose offer, conforming to the RFQ, will be the most advantageous to the Government, Key Personnel and Technical/Management Approach, performance and price considered. Also, at contract award, the Government will award tasks 2 through 9.

The government states that task orders 2 thru 9 will be awarded at the time the BPA is awarded.

a. Does this mean that the task or tasks that a contractor is awarded becomes their defined task area(s) for the life of the BPA? Response: A contractor may be awarded different task orders at various times during the life of the IDIQ contract.

b. If so, does that mean that only awardees named for that task will be able to compete for future task orders that fall within the task area?

Response: There may be other task orders awarded from the IDIQ contract. Only those vendors who are awarded an IDIQ contract are eligible for task order awards.

Question #22 Section 3.2 of Quotation Instructions states, Offeror must demonstrate its complete understanding of ATF’s tasks and deliverables by fully describing its proposed key personnel and technical/management approach to perform each task and deliverable specified under the SOW.

a. No deliverables are included for each task in the SOW. Will the government please identify the deliverables for each task or clarify this statement?

Response: See Amendment 001 and supporting documents along with Revised Quotation of Instructions.

Question #23 Section 3.4.1.2 states “…Commitment letters shall be provided with the offer for personnel employed by other than the offeror.”

a. Should these letters be included with the Resumes in Section 2? Will commitment letters be excluded from the page limitation?

Response: The letters should be included but will not be part of the page limitation.

Question #24 Section 4.3 of Quotation Instructions states, “Describe job duties to be performed by proposed Key and Non- Key Personnel under the resulting task order.”

a. Since there is no sample or actual task order included, can the government please clarify what is expected under this clause?

Response: See Amendment 001 and supporting documents along with Revised Quotation of Instructions.

Question #25 Task 10: Special Projects is difficult to price because the projects are not finalized. How would ATF suggest that vendors price this task?

Response: The vendor’s ability to support tasks 1 – 9 and the documentation provided for the work orders will be used to determine ability to address special projects. The expectation is that the rates defined for the IDIQ and the work orders will reflect pricing and qualifications for special projects.

Question#26 Per the Personnel Security Requirements section of the solicitation, regarding employee personal history screening on page 6 of 22, could the government please specify the time period for screen aspects 1 through 4, e.g., the last 5 years, 10 years, etc.?

Response: The period of time is 5 years.

Question #27 Per the Personnel Security Requirements section of the solicitation, regarding background investigations on page 7 of 22, will the government grant reciprocity to eligible contractors that possess an active security clearance, e.g., Confidential, Secret or Top Secret?

Response: The ATF Personnel Security Branch reviews all documents and may grant reciprocity based on case by case.

Question #28 Is there currently an incumbent or incumbent firms supporting this work for ATF?

Response: See Response to Question #5.

Question #29 Will the tasks outlined in the SOW be delivered to the Office of Human Resources and Professional Development (HRPD)? Or will the tasks be delivered directly to HRPD customers?

Does ATF envision the awarded vendors working in close collaboration with HRPD? If so, is ATF willing to share an HRPD organizational chart or POC listing generally aligned to the Task areas 2 – 10?

Response: The tasks outlined in the SOW will be delivered both externally and internally to HRPD. External customers are generally not restricted to a specific point of contact, but support individuals and groups across the entire organization. Therefore a POC list is not available. Relevant HRPD organizational information related to the areas being serviced can be found in the industry day presentation.

Question #30 Can ATF provide additional details around the types of research, studies, analyses, reports, or efforts that might be requested (historical or planned) relative to Task 10?

Response: Task 10 provides a mechanism to use the IDIQ as a means of acquiring additional services in the defined task areas as the need arises over the course the agreement’s effective period. As such, the description of task 10 is not specific and broad in nature. Historically, ATF goes through hiring surges that we know will additional support for short periods of time. Looking forward, HRPD expects to review our internal business processes which may result in the need for research and reporting related to that effort. The HR strategic planning services are new to ATF and may require additional support as the organizational functions of that unit develop.

Question #31 Will ATF permit vendors to propose personnel at less than full-time status? May non-key personnel be proposed in addition to key personnel? May this non-key positions be other than full-time?

Response: See Response to Question #21.

Question #32 Can ATF provide additional clarification on the following statement:

“A variety of skill sets are needed for resources associated with this Statement of Work. The Contractor shall provide a qualified team of experts with a variety of skill sets needed for Human Resources and Professional Development. The contractor shall provide the following below listed personnel (titles or categories not necessarily the same as those being proposed) in sufficient numbers and with the skills and experience levels necessary to perform all the tasks identified in this SOW.”

Response: The skills mentioned in this section refer to the general qualification requirements identified in 21.4 and to the key personnel labor categories and their qualifications listed in 21.4.1, a through i.

Question #33 Are the offerors to assume that they should only bid 1 FTE per Task Area (e.g., Key Personnel)? Or are offers permitted to bid the estimated LOE necessary to satisfy the stated requirements?

Response: See Response to Question #21.

Question #34 Is ATF amenable to providing historical workload quantities, case load, volume, or other throughput information to help vendors understand that volume of work affiliated with Tasks 2 – 9? This information will help vendors prepare reasonable and grounded price proposals.

Response: In FY13, ATF advertised 319 vacancies, made 335 selections and processed 62,323 employment applications, classified 226 position descriptions, and completed 7 desk audits. Roughly 200 referrals were processed for employee relations inquiries, 150 new claims for worker’s compensation and 11 SES candidates received direct ECQ documentation support. It should be noted that work orders will be purchasing blocks of hours for any given area of expertise.

Question #35 Can ATF provide any additional documentation to support price proposal development (e.g., price build templates; range of FTE per labor category)?

Response: See Amendment 0001 and supporting documents.

Question #36 Are any parts of this requirement currently being performed by contractor support? If yes, please identify the contractors and areas currently being performed.

Response: See Response to Question #5.

Question #37 Will the government permit the addition of partners at the Task Order level?

Response: Yes

Question #38 Please clarify if the Non-Disclosure Agreement is to be provided at the time of this proposal response submission by the prime only, or by all proposed Key Personnel instead. If so, would this be added to the Appendix that includes resumes?

Response: The Non-Disclosure Agreement is to be provided by all proposed Key Personnel. Add to the Appendix that includes resumes.

Question #39 The SOW outlines that this opportunity should be submitted electronically via email; however, the table in Section 2. Format identifies that Volumes I & II should be presented in hard copy. Please confirm that email submission is acceptable and that no hard copies are required.

Response: Submission should be electronic. Pages that require signatures should be submitted in pdf. version.

Question #40 Should Section “I” be Section “1” to be consistent with the other section numbers in format?

Response: See Amendment 0001 and supporting documents.

Question #41 Should full resumes (limited to 2 pages) be provided as an Appendix to Volume I? Please confirm that resumes are not included in the 60 page limit for Volume I.

Response: See Amendment 0001 and supporting documents.

Question #42 If we have one customer who has issued multiple contracts to our firm for related HRPD services, can we bundle these under one past performance?

Response: Past Performance contracts should not be bundled.

Question #43 Upon Contract award to the three vendors, will ATF award directly or compete Task Orders for tasks 2-9.

Response: See Response to Question #15.

Question #44 Will the government provide more guidance with regard to what it defines as the CLINs (i.e., are the CLINS and the 10 Tasks one and the same?).

Response: See Amendment 0001 and supporting documents.

Question#45 Would the government please provide guidance on the basis of estimate against which to provide the firm fixed price (i.e., are their specific outcome or volume metrics the government is seeking by CLIN?).

Response: The work orders that are being released with the SOW define the expected number of hours being purchased for a given year. Due to the nature of an IDIQ, specific tasks are not being billed. Instead, blocks of hours for a given expertise (labor category) are being purchased. Estimates should be based on the number of hours and the service area (labor category) being requested for the contract period. With the exception of SES Qual Submission Consultation, service areas will require 1,920 hours per individual annually. The SES consultation is considered part-time and should be estimated at 1,536 hours.

Question #46 Does the government have specific labor rates (LCATS) for each CLIN that must be priced?

Response: See Amendment 0001 and supporting documents.

Question #47 May additional LCATs be added at the Task Order (TO) level to address any future unique requirements?

Response: See Amendment 0001 and supporting documents.

Question #48 May the awardee offer the government additional discounts when responding to TO RFPs?

Response: Yes.

Question #49 How many task orders does the government anticipate awarding in over the life of the contract? If unknown, can the government provide a rough range?

Response: See Response to Question #15.

Question #50 Will all TOs be firm fixed price (FFP)?

Response: Yes, all work orders will be firm fixed price.

Question #51 Does the government anticipate purchasing all 9 tasks (CLINS) at the same time under a single TO or a few tasks (CLINS) at a time?

Response: The first nine tasks in the SOW will be awarded immediately in the form of three work orders. Services are bundled in the work order based on the responsibility to provide the services in the organization. Services within each work order will not be awarded separately.

Question #52 Can the government provide a basis of estimate or level of effort for the optional task (Task 10)?

Response: See Response to Question #25.

Question #53 Please confirm the proposal is due at 10:00 AM (vs. PM) on 7/14/2014 Response: The proposal is due 7/14/2014, 10:00 AM.

Question #54 Is there a vendor supporting organizational strategic planning with whom we will required to coordinate?

Response: There are no vendors currently providing this service.

Question #55 Is there a vendor supporting employee communications with whom we will be required to coordinate?

Response: There are no vendors currently providing this service.

Question #56 Please confirm ATF is using SuccessFactors to manage employee performance?

Response: The primary performance management system used by ATF is e-performance through HRConnect which is a PeopleSoft company. The Bureau is currently conducting a pilot of the SuccessFactors product with our executive staff. However, it is not being used ATF-wide at this time.

Question #57 Please confirm that pricing should be labor rates for full time staff at 1920 hours Response: See Amendment 0001 and supporting documents.

Question #58 What Applicant Tracking System is ATF using to manage staffing?

Response: ATF uses a couple of systems to manage staffing functions: HRConnect and Career Connector (which interfaces with USAJOBS). Both systems are provided through a shared service agreement with the Department of Treasury.

Question #59 What HRIS is ATF using to manage staffing?

Response: ATF uses a couple of systems to manage staffing functions: HRConnect and Career Connector (which interfaces with USAJOBS). Both systems are provided through a shared service agreement with the Department of Treasury.

Question #60 Does ATF work with an agency/communications firm that handles candidate sourcing strategy and o utreach (e.g., stakeholder outreach, ads, etc.)

Response: No

Question #61 Will we be working with any union?

Response: ATF does not current have any unions.

Question #62 What are considerations with regards to any union?

Response: See Response to Question #61.

Question #63 Are there existing training materials that can be leveraged/reviewed?

Response: ATF has generic training materials for the computer systems being used. We do not have training materials that are ATF specific for our staffing and recruiting systems nor do we have materials specific to ATF processes.

Question #64 Is ATF open to using various modes of communication/training (video, webinar, etc.)

Response: ATF currently has limited in-house capabilities to develop on-line instruction and provide webinars.