Section M.doc

RFP DOL110RP20935

PART IV – REPRESENTATIONS AND INSTRUCTIONS

SECTION M – EVALUATION FACTORS FOR AWARD

SECTION M - EVALUATION FACTORS FOR AWARD

M.1 NOTICE LISTING SOLICITATION PROVISIONS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

The following solicitation provisions pertinent to this section are hereby incorporated by reference (by Citation Number, Title, and Date) in accordance with the FAR provision at FAR 52.252-1 SOLICITATION PROVISIONS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE in Section L of this solicitation. See FAR 52.252-1 for an internet address (if specified) for electronic access to the full text of a provision.

NUMBER

TITLE

DATE

52.217-5

EVALUATION OF OPTIONS

JUL 1990

M.2 METHOD OF AWARD

Basis for Award: The Government will award a single Labor Hour, Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity contract from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation is most advantageous to the Government based on the best overall proposal that is determined to be the most beneficial to the Government, with appropriate consideration given to the three evaluation factors: {Technical, Past Performance, and Price}. Factor I, Technical is significantly more important than Factor II, Past Performance. All sub-factors under Factor I, Technical are of equal importance.

The evaluation factors other than cost or price, when combined, are significantly more important than price. However, price will become significantly more important as non-price factors approach equality. Offerors are cautioned that the award may not necessarily be made to the lowest price offered. The Government is more concerned with obtaining superior technical features than with making an award at the lowest overall price to the Government. However, the Government will not make an award at a significantly higher overall price to the Government to achieve slightly superior technical features. To receive consideration for award, a rating of no less than “Acceptable” must be achieved for each evaluation factor or subfactor.

The Government intends to evaluate offers and award a contract without discussions with offerors. Therefore, the offeror’s initial offer should contain the offeror’s best terms from a price and technical standpoint. However, the Government reserves the right to conduct discussions if later determined by the Contracting Officer to be necessary. The Government may reject any or all offers if such action is in the public interest; accept other than the lowest offer; and waive informalities and minor irregularities in offers received.

Rejection of Unrealistic Offers: The Government may reject any proposal that is evaluated to be unrealistic in terms of program commitments, including contract terms and conditions, or unrealistically high or low in price when compared to Government estimates, such that the proposal is deemed to reflect an inherent lack of competence or failure to comprehend the complexity and risks of the program.

Correction Potential of Proposals: The Government will consider, throughout the evaluation, the “correction potential” of any deficiency or uncertainty. The judgment of such “correction potential” is within the sole discretion of the Government. If an aspect of an Offeror’s proposal not meeting the Government’s requirements is not considered correctable, the Offeror may be eliminated from further consideration for award.

M.3 EVALUATION OF TECHNICAL PROPOSAL

Factor 1- Understanding of the Work The Government will evaluate the offeror’s understanding of the work, detailed below. The offeror shall submit a proposal that demonstrates its understanding of the work described below and in Section C. A response should be provided, for each element.

1) Demonstrated ability to perform General Support System (GSS) administration, including configuration and management of Windows server and workstation operating systems Office and Exchange

2) Experience in supporting management tracking systems, technical assistance systems, regulations data systems, and network security activities such as network vulnerability scans and penetration testing

3) Experience using Concordance and SharePoint to support Computer Forensics activities, including converting incoming documents and data to searchable format

4) Understanding of and experience with Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act (COBRA) - systems design, development, and test support

5) Demonstrated ability to support Technical Assistance and Inquiry System (TAIS) design, development, testing, and modification

6) Experience with and ability to design, develop, test, and maintain public disclosure systems, including: providing OCR services for 5500 filing attachments, and identification of accountants' reports and sensitive data included with filings

7) Ability to administer large Oracle databases such as the ERISA Data System (EDS)

8) Ability to implement mandated Federal Information Systems Management Act of 2002 (FISMA) and National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST) security and IT initiatives, including writing Contingency Plans and Disaster Recovery Plans

9) Detailed knowledge of Microsoft's Active Directory

Factor 2- Knowledge/Experience of Proposed Personnel

The Government will evaluate the experience and qualifications of all proposed contractor personnel, to include resumes for personnel and also provide a matrix to include the background/experience of the company’s proposed personnel mapped to the appropriate SOW tasking that supports the proposed labor category and level. Refer to Section C of this RFP for labor descriptions.

Factor 3 Phase-In Plan The offeror shall be responsible for providing a start-up plan with his proposal, which includes:

a) A Start-up Plan which clearly demonstrates a reasonable, realistic approach for assuming full contractual responsibility without disruption or degradation.

b) Proposes a realistic, achievable, and affordable start-up schedule and staffing plan. It is anticipated that funding will be available to cover overlap between the old and new contract.

c) Ensures sufficient resources are on hand and available to begin work on the effort.

d) Offers an approach to ensure the availability of trained and qualified personnel.

e) Phase-Out Plan which enables a smooth transition to replacement services when the contract ends (including technical data rights considerations).

M.4 EVALUATION OF PAST PERFORMANCE

FACTOR II: PAST PERFORMANCE: The Government will evaluate past performance on current or previous (last 5 years) contracts for relevancy.

If an Offeror has no single project that encompasses all types of the required experience, the Offeror may: (i) Show relevant experience through a combination of projects that together show that work has been accomplished that is consistent in scope and complexity with the SOW; (ii) Show relevant experience through personnel who are proposed to work on the contract that have had the required experience with another company.

Offerors without a record of relevant past performance or for whom information on past performance is not available will not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance and, as a result, will receive a neutral rating for the Past Performance factor. For Offerors with no relevant performance record, the Government may consider relevant performance information regarding key personnel.

The absence of past performance data will be rated neither favorable nor unfavorable. Contracts listed may include those entered into with Government agencies or private sectors. For contractors with no relevant corporate past performance, the Government may take into account information regarding the past performance of predecessor companies, key personnel with relevant past performance, or subcontractors that will perform key aspects of the requirement.

To demonstrate the Offerors previous experience, a response should be included for each of the below listed work areas that are required to be performed in Section C, Scope of Work and Statement of Work of the Schedule. These responses should: (1) identify individually, previous contracts of the Offeror; (2) the Contracting Officer’s Technical Representative (COTR) of the contract and (3) demonstrate that the Offeror has the qualifications necessary to effectively perform the proposed work. Include different contracts for each work area if possible. The areas to address are as follows:

1) Experience developing and supporting large-scale multi user, multi location tracking systems using a variety of architectures;

2) Work developing and supporting large databases and/or data warehouses;

3) Development/support of web (Internet) and client based user interfaces;

4) Development and support of Windows and network Infrastructures in a complex, multi location organization, and;

5) Experience administering litigation support programs.

6) Contractor Performance Evaluation Survey. For each individual past performance synopsis provided in response to the above section, the Government intends to survey the Government contacts listed, and have those persons, or their designated representatives, complete Section J Attachment A the Past Performance Information Sheet (PPIS). These completed surveys will become part of the documentation set evaluated by the Government as part of the technical evaluation of Offerors under this solicitation.

7) Past Performance Questionnaire Section J Attachment B. The offeror shall complete Part I of the Past Performance Questionnaire and e-mail the questionnaire to the Government and private sector technical representative responsible for the past/current contract. The POC's shall be instructed to electronically complete Part II of the questionnaire and e-mail the entire questionnaire to Thompson.Sheila@dol.gov no later than January 4, 2010 at 11:00am EST. The offeror shall also e-mail to the Contract Specialist a list of all the POC’s who were sent a questionnaire. The Government must receive this list no later than January 4, 2010 at 11:00 am EST. The POC List shall be submitted in Word for Windows Table Format to include the following fields: Solicitation Number; Company Name; Contract Number; Government Agency; POC Last Name, First Name; POC Title; POC Telephone Number; POC E-Mail Address; Date E-Mailed to POC (month/day). Please note, that the Past Performance Questionnaire will not be a part of the resultant contract.

M.5

EVALUATION OF PRICE PROPOSALS

FACTOR III: – PRICE: The Government will evaluate price for this procurement will be pursuant to determining best value. However, as the other assessments of the Offerors become more equal cost may become a determining factor in award selection.

The Offeror’s submission for Volume 3, Price, will be evaluated as follows:

The Government will review the Pricing submissions for completeness and accuracy.

A price reasonableness review will be conducted for all Offerors. For a price to be reasonable, it must represent a price to the Government that a prudent person would pay when consideration is given to prices in the market. Normally, price reasonableness is established through adequate price competition, but may also be determined through price analysis techniques as described in FAR 15.404.

The Government will evaluate offers for award purposes by adding the total of all CLIN prices, including all options to ensure that pricing is not unbalanced. Price will be evaluated for completeness and reasonableness using the techniques in FAR 15.404-1(b) (2).

Non-Price Factors: The importance of the Non-Price Evaluation Factors is in the following descending order with the most important factor listed first:

Factor I, Technical is significantly more important than Factor II, Past Performance, which when combined, are significantly more important than Factor III “Price”. However, as offerors ratings for the non-price factors approach equality, Factor III “Price” becomes significantly more important in the award decision.

(a) Options. The Government will evaluate offers 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 options shall not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s).

(b) A written notice of award or acceptance of an offer, mailed or otherwise furnished to the successful offeror 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 specified expiration time, the Government may accept an offer (or part of an offer), whether or not there are negotiations after its receipt, unless a written notice of withdrawal is received before award.

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