Quotation_Instructions_and_Evaluation_Criteria.docx

QUOTATION OF INSTRUCTIONS

L.2 52.252-1 SOLICITATION PROVISIONS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE (FEB 1998)

This solicitation incorporates one or more provisions by reference, with the same force and effect as if they were given in full text. Upon request, the Contracting Officer (CO) will make the full text available. Be cautioned that the listed provisions may include blocks that must be completed by the Offeror and submitted with its quotation/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/offer. Also, the full text of a provision may be accessed electronically at these addresses:

http://farsite.hill.af.mil/vffara.htm http://www.arnet.gov/far

(a) The Government may award without discussions with the offeror; therefore, the offeror 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 offeror to revise its proposal.

(b) The Offeror shall submit an electronically signed and dated offer, by 10:00am Eastern Standard Time (EST) on July 14, 2014 to vernessa.younger@atf.gov.

(c) Offers received after the time and date specified for receipt will be considered LATE.

1. PROPOSAL SUBMISSION

(a) To be considered for selection, the Offeror must submit a complete response to this Request for Quote (RFQ) using the sequence and format provided herein. All pages must be identified with the Offeror’s name and Quotation number.

(b) For the electronic submission, the offer 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 and indexed and cross-indexed to applicable parts of the RFQ 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.

2. FORMAT

(a) Submissions. Submissions shall be on 8 ½” x 11” (with no fold-outs) white papers and printed only on one side of the paper. The text shall have 1” margins on all sides, be single-spaced; font style Times New Roman; font color black; and font size 12. Illustrations (e.g., graphics 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 Offeror’s company name (no logos), the date, quotation number, volume number and section shall be included on each page of the quotation/offer (may be included in a header/footer). All pages of the quotation/offer shall be numbered, using a uniform-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) Offer Volume. The Offeror shall present all information relevant to each factor in the appropriate section. The Offeror shall insert its company’s name in the filename. At the end of each Volume folder/tab, the Offeror may include any “Exceptions” that they take with the requirements, constraints, and terms and conditions. Any exceptions taken shall clearly identify the RFQ Section, paragraph, and requirement/objective, constraint, or 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 RFQ, and these may render the Offeror’s proposal unacceptable.

(c) Requirements

3. CONTENT

3.1 Volume I – The Offeror is requested to provide the below information.

3.1.1 Section 1/Tab A – Introduction & Table of contents for easy reference.

3.1.2 Section 1/Tab B – Executive-Level Summary. Provide a letter formally transmitting the offer. Identify the name, address, e-mail address, telephone and facsimile transmission number of the person(s) whom has the contractual authority and can be contacted concerning any questions about this offer. Also, include the following as attachments to the letter:

(a) A document containing the following information:

· Name, address, telephone number, facsimile number, e-mail address, and cage code of the contractor and of any corporate affiliate at which work is to be performed.

· The Offeror shall demonstrate its corporate experience, as well as that for all proposed subcontractors or team members, in performing tasks similar to those identified in the Statement of Work (SOW), (Attachment I).

3.1.3 Section 1/Tab C – ORCA Certification in accordance with FAR Part 52.212-3. This tab shall contain a completed copy of your company’s ORCA Certification or proper DUNS Number that will allow the government to download your ORCA information.

3.1.4 Section 1/Tab D - Exceptions/Alternatives (Terms and Conditions).

(a) Offerors are cautioned that they take exception to any Terms and Conditions of the solicitation at their own risk. The Government may, at its option, reject an offer which contains any such exceptions.

(b) Nonetheless, any exception taken by the Offeror, at its own risk, shall be identified in this tab. The Offeror shall clearly identify the paragraph and term or condition to which the exception is being made and include appropriate rationale for any such exception.

(c) Suggested, optional wording changes (to include clarifications and addenda) to any terms and conditions of the solicitation shall be identified in this part. The Government may at its option accept or reject any such changes. If accepted, it may be necessary to amend the solicitation and to discuss the changes with other Offerors.

(d) If no exceptions are taken, the Offeror shall include the following statement in this part of the proposal: “[Name of Offeror] takes no exception to any terms and conditions of Solicitation No. DJA-14-AHDQ-Q-0043.

3.2 Section 2 –Key Personnel and Technical/Managerial/Approach

3.2.1 Key Personnel Approach and Technical/Managerial: 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. Offeror shall include a management plan for how your company intends to accomplish, administer, and manage the tasks and deliverables in the SOW. If the Offeror proposes subcontractors and/or teaming arrangements, the management plan shall explain to what extent subcontractors and/or team members will be involved in the performance of the proposed tasks and how the Offeror will manage the subcontractor and/or team member participation.

3.3 Section 3 – Past Performance

The evaluation will be based on past performance and price, past performance being more significant. The Offeror shall provide references for a maximum of three contracts/Orders with the Federal Government and/or commercial customers that demonstrate recent and relevant past performance of similar scope, size and complexity of services identified. Recent is defined as within the last three years. Relevant is defined as work similar in complexity, magnitude, and type of the work described in the SOW.

Offerors 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”, Attachment III and send the information directly to the ATF Contracting Officer listed above. The government may consider the past performance of other companies when they are team members, affiliates, or significant subcontractors, who will perform major or critical aspects of the requirement when such information is relevant to the acquisition; however, the offeror must clearly explain how these other companies will be significantly involved in the proposed contract. The Offeror 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.

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

Contract Descriptions. The description of each contract and subcontract shall include the following information in the task order listed:

(i) Government/Commercial Contracting activity, address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address.

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 performance as it relates to the probability of success of the required effort. In this section the Offeror will include demonstrated and relevant corporate experience, including subcontractors and teaming partners, in performing projects requiring the type of services solicited.

3.4 Volume II – Price

3.4.1 General. The Offeror shall ensure that all information is presented in an organized fashion to allow ATF to understand the cost of the work to be performed. The contract resulting from this RFQ shall be a Firm Fixed Price Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity contract. In order to assess price reasonableness and amount:

3.4.1.1 The Offeror shall present the information via email using Microsoft Excel.

3.4.1.2 Section 1 shall contain the SF 1449 and a signed copy of each amendment, if any, to the solicitation. An official authorized to bind the company shall sign the SF 1449. An acrobat file, “.pdf”, shall be created to capture the signatures for submission.

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. Each task must be separately priced. Pricing for optional tasks (if applicable) shall be separated. The price must contain sufficient information to allow the Contracting Office to perform an analysis of the proposed price of the work. The Offeror must include sufficient detail and any support material necessary to determine price reasonableness (i.e.: breakdown of each CLIN by labor category/rates/hours).

4. EVALUATION FACTORS FOR AWARD

4.1 EVALUATION PROCESS

(a) 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 remaining optional task order will be awarded at the Government’s discretion.

(b) The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable if the option pricing is significantly unbalanced.

(c) A written notice of award or acceptance of an offer mailed or otherwise furnished to the successful Offerors within the time for acceptance specified in the offer, shall result in a binding contract without further action by either party. Before the offer's/quote’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.

4.2 BASIS FOR AWARD

Evaluations will be conducted, and a Selection will be made in accordance with the guidelines provided in the FAR, the Department of Justice Acquisition Regulation (JAR), and the Solicitation. Award will be made to those Offerors whose quotation represents the greatest overall value to the Government, technical/management and key personnel, past performance and price considered. ATF requires and intends to procure services for Human Resource and Professional Development services. The contracts awarded as a result of this RFQ shall be Firm-Fixed Price Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity. ATF may award without discussions; however, ATF will hold discussions, if deemed in the best interest of the Government.

4.3 EVALUATION AND EVALUATION FACTORS

Quotations will be evaluated in accordance with technical/managerial and key personnel approach, past performance and price.

FACTOR 1- KEY PERSONNEL APPROACH AND UNDERSTANDING (Add blank working pages as necessary)

Identify all strengths, significant strengths, weaknesses, significant weaknesses, deficiencies, omissions and risks.

Please be sure to include the following information:

1) Identify the section and/or page number from the quotation that each comment addresses.

2) Identify the "type" for each comment as one of the following: strength, significant strength, weakness, significant weakness, deficiency, omission or risk. Also provide an adjectival rating for each factor.

3) Be sure your comment is factual and written in an objective manner.

CRITERIA

The Offeror’s quote shall include the resumes for the proposed Key and Non- Key Personnel who will perform under the resulting task order(s). The resumes shall contain, at a minimum: company name/address; telephone number; points of contact; duties performed by individual Key and Non- Key Personnel; dates employed; qualifications; experience; skills; availability; and credentials (education, training and certifications) and current security clearance. Identify whether each proposed key or non-key personnel is a current full-time employee, current part-time employee, contingent-employee, subcontractor, or other. Describe the availability and existing commitments of Key and Non- Key Personnel. The resumes are limited to two pages. Describe job duties to be performed by proposed Key and Non- Key Personnel under the resulting task order.

If subcontractor or personnel employed by other than the offeror are proposed, the government will only consider those qualifications if a firm commitment is demonstrated with the firm by which they are employed or with the individuals identified. Commitment letters shall be provided with the offer.

FACTOR 2- TECHNICAL/MANAGERIAL APPROACH AND UNDERSTANDING (Add blank working pages as necessary)

Identify all strengths, significant strengths, weaknesses, significant weaknesses, deficiencies, omissions and risks.

Please be sure to include the following information:

1) Identify the section and/or page number from the quotation that each comment addresses.

2) Identify the "type" for each comment as one of the following: strength, significant strength, weakness, significant weakness, deficiency, omission or risk. Also provide an adjectival rating for each factor.

3) Be expansive enough so that others understand why a particular comment represents a strength, significant strength, weakness, significant weakness, deficiency, omission or risk. Remember that final reports must be generated using the consensus and that the unsuccessful quoter may be provided the results of the consensus evaluation as part of a basis for the award decision.

4) Be sure your comment is factual and written in an objective manner.

CRITERIA

1. Discussion of background, objectives, and work requirements of SOW.

2. Discussion of proposed methods and techniques for completing each task.

3. Discussion which supports how each task will be evaluated for full performance and acceptability of work from the quoter’s perspective.

4. Discussion of any anticipated major difficulties and problem areas, along with potential recommended approaches for their resolution.

5. Management approach shall include all key personnel and a description of the firm’s current personnel resources.

6. Identifies a Project Manager their past experience and expertise in managing a program described in the SOW to include responsibilities, any proposed subcontracting arrangements, communication and coordination plans, schedules of all tasks and subtasks, meetings, and deliverables.

FACTOR 3: PAST PERFORMANCE (Add blank working pages as necessary)

When evaluating past performance, you should assess the extent to which the quoters past performance is likely to affect its performance on the prospective contract.

Please be sure to include the following information:

1) Identify the section and/or page number from the past performance information that each comment addresses.

2) Identify any negative or adverse past performance information. It may be necessary to allow the quoter to respond to this adverse performance information; the CO will make this determination.

3) Be expansive enough so that others understand why a particular comment represents a strength, significant strength, weakness, significant weakness, deficiency, omission or risk. Remember that final reports must be generated using the consensus and that the unsuccessful quoter may be provided the results of the consensus evaluation as part of a basis for the award decision.

4) Be sure your comment is factual and written in an objective manner.

CRITERIA

Past performance – will assess the relevance, breadth and quality of the Quoter’s recent past performance on similar type of work. The quality of the quoter’s past performance based on the past performance references provided in the quoter's submission and/or other information obtained from references provided by the quoter, as well as other relevant past performance information obtained from other sources known to the Government. The Government reserves the right to perform customer surveys only for those contracts which are deemed by the Government to be most relevant to this procurement. A Quoter without a record of past performance or for whom information on relevant past performance is not available will be evaluated as neutral.

Offerors shall be asked to provide the organization name, technical, and contractual points of contact, the dollar value and period of performance (dates), a three (3) page or less description of the project or contract referenced and the Offeror’s rationale as to the relevance of the experience to the prospective work to be performed under this solicitation. ATF shall assess the relevance of the experience and references provided to the work to be performed under the contract/task order to be awarded under this solicitation and evaluate the Offeror’s relevant experience and related past performance (how well the Offeror performed on the referenced project). If the Offeror has no past performance readily available (FAR 15.306 (a) (2) (IV)), it will be evaluated as Neutral. References shall submit responses directly to the CO or CS no later than the date and time quotations and past performance surveys are due, Monday, July 14, 2014, 10:00am EST.

Price. Please submit detailed Pricing. Price shall be evaluated for amount and reasonableness. 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.