Instructions_to_Offerors_Revised_8.6.14.pdf

52.212-1 -- Instructions to Offerors -- Commercial Items (July 2013)

The offeror is expected to show a thorough understanding of the proposed tasks and the existing resources, as specified in the Performance Work Statement (PWS). The proposal should address the requirements in the PWS, not simply repeat the language. The proposal should be written in enough detail so that a review panel can adequately judge its full merits.

Although the intent of each task is spelled out in the scope of work, it is up to the offeror to propose the most effective method for carrying out the tasks and the most feasible timeline and dates for all key activities. The offeror is encouraged to exercise independent judgment with respect to the best methods of attaining the objectives of this contract.

Each offer shall consist of two separately packaged proposals: (1) a technical proposal, and (2) a business proposal. All information necessary to judge the technical soundness and management capabilities of the offeror will be contained in the technical proposal. The business proposal will contain all information related to the determination of the costs/prices associated with each of the project’s tasks. The technical proposal will not contain any reference to specific costs or prices, but resource information (e.g., staff hours) may be included so that the offeror’s understanding of the scope of the work may be evaluated by the Technical Evaluation Panel (TEP). Authors of each section will be clearly identified in the proposal’s Table of Contents.

Submission Instructions

The technical proposal should be written in a standard font, no larger than 12 point for all text outside of titles and headers, and limited to a total of 40 single-spaced pages. Margins should be no smaller than 1 inch on all sides. Specifications pertaining to font do not apply to tables, figures, or exhibits. The page limit excludes resumes and the letters of agreement from subcontractors.

No additional appendices are allowable; offerors shall not put substantive materials in the appendix in order to subvert the page limit.

The business proposal, which also includes the Conflict of Interest Plan, should follow the same font and margin specifications as the technical proposal. There is no page limit for the business proposal.

All pages falling outside these parameters will be immediately discarded and not considered as part of the evaluation process.

The technical and business proposals shall be submitted as separate volumes. The technical and business proposal must be received at or before 11:00am EST on August 18, 2014. Proposals shall be submitted electronically to the Points of Contact listed below:

• Charles Harless, Contract Specialist (Email: Charles.Harless@ed.gov)

• Gabriella McDonald, Contracting Officer (Email: Gabriella.McDonald@ed.gov) mailto:Charles.Harless@ed.gov mailto:Gabriella.McDonald@ed.gov

All questions in response to this solicitation must be received at or before 11:00am EST on August 5, 2014. Questions shall be submitted electronically to the Points of Contact listed below:

• Charles Harless, Contract Specialist (Email: Charles.Harless@ed.gov)

• Gabriella McDonald, Contracting Officer (Email: Gabriella.McDonald@ed.gov)

The Department’s email system cannot handle emails larger than 20mb. Submissions should be broken up into separate emails if necessary.

Technical Proposal Details

The technical proposal shall contain:

1. Table of Contents

The proposal should include a Table of Contents as a means of quickly accessing important points of discussion in the proposal.

2. Introduction

The Introduction should briefly describe the offeror’s overall plan for achieving the objectives of this contract, the scope of work, intended products, and the applicability of these products to the objectives. Additionally, the introduction shall include a short summary of the offeror’s qualifications and unique strengths relevant to this activity.

3. Technical Plan

This section should fully describe the technical and theoretical approach the offeror shall employ in complying with the Performance Work Statement (PWS). While a general statement of strategy is appropriate, procedures should be specific with regard to each task and sub-task, and should reflect efficient utilization of the offeror's resources. The offeror should identify potential and/or anticipated problems and suggest proposed variations in the design of the work, the time frame for completing tasks, and/or deliverable due dates that may facilitate successful completion of the scope of work’s tasks and objectives.

The technical plan should also address the offeror’s knowledge in specific areas of technical competency outlined in the PWS.

4. Past Experience and Performance

This section should demonstrate the offeror’s organizational capacity and ability to carry out all phases of work associated with the major activities stated in the PWS.

Specifically, the offeror shall describe its level of experience, or lack thereof, in the following areas:

mailto:Charles.Harless@ed.gov mailto:Gabriella.McDonald@ed.gov

• Experience working with educational agencies, community organizations, and families;

• Experience hosting an educational support center;

• Experience hosting national and regional conferences and meetings;

• Experience developing publications for the purpose of information dissemination;

• Experience working with panels of experts and practitioners

• Experience working with interagency governmental initiatives;

• Experience hosting web sites, listserves, hotlines;

The offeror shall also detail its past performance in regards to project implementation and timeliness of completion. Brief summaries of such work should be submitted, including the names, current affiliations, and current telephone numbers of appropriate references. Include also: (1) vehicle number and type; (2) funding agency (DOL, HHS, etc.); (3) original dollar value and final dollar value (including options if a contract); (4) original completion date and final (or current) completion date; (5) the scope of the effort; (6) relevance of the work to this contract; (7) performance experience summary; (8) methodology and tools used; (9) challenges in the effort and how they were overcome; and (10) explanation as to why the effort was considered “successful.”

It is the responsibility of the offeror to ensure that telephone numbers and points of contact for references are current and accurate. Inability to contact references may figure negatively in any evaluation of past performance. The Department also reserves the right to obtain past performance information from other sources, such as the Past Performance Information Retrieval Systems (PPIRS).

5. Key Personnel

The offeror shall propose a team with appropriate knowledge, skills and abilities to support the Department’s goals and objectives for this initiative. The offeror shall identify the name of key staff positions and the criteria used to fill these positions. A proposed Director for the requirement should be identified by name and supported by their resume/vita.

The proposal should describe in detail the qualifications of key personnel, detailing their competencies and experience in performing work of similar size and scope to that outlined in the Performance Work Statement, and describing their role in the project.

The offeror shall include specifics about the level of effort invested in the project by all key personnel proposed for this project.

The key personnel section of the proposal should indicate clearly the relationship between past staff experience and proposed task assignments under this contract. Resumes shall be included for all key staff for this contract, including key staff from subcontractors, and consultants.

Resumes should document only directly related experience, educational background, publications, and professional activities. All resumes should share a similar format and organization. A letter of commitment from all proposed consultants and key staff not currently employed by the offeror should be included. The need for any proposed consultants shall also be fully justified, including how they would contribute to the project.

If key personnel are unknown at the time of submission, a position description (including job duties, qualifications required, and selection criteria) should be substituted for resumes.

OME, upon review of the resumes, shall have approval rights of the key personnel selected by the contractor to staff the team, including the project director. By listing key personnel as part of the proposal, the offeror is making a firm commitment to use said personnel to carry out the activities in the PWS.

The proposal should indicate the current time commitments to both federal and non-federal contractual obligations (as well as outside consulting assignments) by all personnel who will be assigned to this project. For assigned personnel, the percentage of their time allocated to those contractual obligations must be specified.

6. Management Plan

The offeror shall provide a summary description of the management control system that is used internally for planning, scheduling, budgeting, managing, and reporting the accomplishments of this requirement. The application of the proposed management system should include procedures for effective management of project resources, procedures for controlling the quality of services, and procedures for early identification of potential problems in carrying out task activities. The offeror shall describe how the internal management control system will be applied to the work of this proposal as specified in the PWS and the evaluation criteria.

The proposal shall provide details on how the offeror will coordinate and communicate with OESE, grantees and interested third parties with regard to virtual meetings (i.e. webinars), planning meetings, conference calls and face-to-face meetings.

The proposal shall also list any materials or services the offeror expects the Department to make available (e.g., data, reports, etc).

In summary, the management approach should provide a clear indication that all tasks can be completed on time, and with a high level of quality. For planning purposes, the contract award is planned for September 19, 2014.

7. Small Business Partnership.

The Department values an approach where substantive work in a meaningful capacity is performed by small businesses more highly than an approach in which only menial work or supply line work is performed by small businesses. A meaningful capacity for substantive work includes work other than courier services, office supplies or travel services. Therefore, a valued approach for this contract will be one in which technical, analytical, or significant service is performed by a small business.

Proposals should include plans to subcontract part of the work, provided that evidence is presented that any proposed subcontractor is fully capable of performing the assigned tasks, and that the offeror has effective control of the participation of the subcontractor(s) in the project.

Large businesses shall submit a plan in accordance with FAR 52.219-9 (Alternate II). Offerors shall state the work to be performed by a small business and the percentage of work proposed to be performed by a small business as a percentage of the total subcontracted amount. The offeror shall also state the name of the small business and type of small business concern.

As outlined in 52.212-2 Evaluation of Commercial Items, preference will be given to offerors who submit a plan outlining a subcontractor partnership with one or more of the socio-economic small business types:

• Small disadvantaged business (SDB);

• Women-owned small business (WOSB);

• Service disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB); and/or

• HUB Zone small business (HUBZone)

As a point of information, the Department's goal for small business subcontracting is that 43% of all subcontracting work be subcontracted to small businesses, in the following categories:

• SDB (5%),

• WOSB (5%),

• SDVOSB (3%), and

• HUBZone (3%),

• Other small business concerns.

The proposal should also outline reporting arrangements and any other terms of the subcontractor agreement. Letters from proposed subcontractors indicating their willingness to serve, if selected, must be included with the offeror’s proposal.

Business Proposal Details

It is anticipated that this contract shall be awarded as a firm fixed-price contract. The staff-loading chart included in the technical proposal should be consistent with the information provided in the business proposal. While there is no page limit to the business proposal, offerors shall adhere to the same guidance for use of font and line-spacing provided for preparation of the technical proposal.

As part of its business proposal, offerors shall submit a complete Per-Task and Per-Subtask Price Breakdown that includes the identification of proposed labor categories by labor category name, fully burdened hourly labor rates and labor hours. The breakdown should also include any other direct costs (ODCs), travel costs (including individual airfares, per diem rates, number of travelers, rental car expenses), and any other non-labor expenses proposed to perform the work.

Any applicable mark-up or indirect cost applied to these non-labor costs should be included.

The prices shall be presented by task and shall include any applicable assumptions used to formulate the price build-up.

The business prospoal must match the same functional labor categories and/or named individuals provided in the staff mix for the technical proposal and the same hours and/or percentage of time committed for each functional labor category and/or named individual in the technical proposal.

For any tasks designated as “optional” in the Performance Work Statement, the offeror should submit a price breakdown that matches the level of effort for a single instance of the work outlined in the Performance Work Statement. For example, Subtask 9.a assumes two presentations at Department-sponsored conferences. If Optional Subtask 9.a(i) is exercised multiple times, there may be more than two presentations of the materials developed under Subtask 9.a in a given year, but the price breakdown should indicate the price for a single instance of this meeting that could be exercised multiple times under Optional Subtask 9.a(i).

To aid the Department in tracking the expenses associated with in-person meetings (as opposed to webinar and other non-face-to-face meetings), the offeror should be sure to provide a detailed cost breakout for the Annual Meeting under Task 2 of the PWS. The meeting cost breakout should include, if applicable, the following cost components for each instance of the meeting in the base and option periods:

• Contractor/subcontractor labor*

• Contractor/subcontractor travel/lodging/per diem

• Honoraria

• Meeting/facilities

• Printing

• Communication

• Mail Courier

• Supplies

• Other ODCS

• Indirect Costs

*Labor costs for the breakout should only include labor related to performing the meeting logistics and not labor related to preparing the meeting materials.

Other Administrative Details:

• The proposal shall list the names and telephones numbers of persons authorized to conduct negotiations;

• A statement to the effect that your offer is firm for a period of at least 60 calendar days from the date of receipt of offers specified by the Department;

• The business proposal shall include a Small Business Subcontracting Plan;

• The business proposal shall include a Conflict of Interest Plan and Certificate (see next section for more information);

• The business proposal shall include a payment schedule that is aligned with the Schedule of Deliverables at the end of the PWS.

Conflict of Interest Plan

The offeror shall submit a Conflict of Interest Plan, providing details on its policies and procedures to identify and avoid potential organizational or personnel conflicts of interest (or apparent conflicts of interest). The Plan should also address procedures taken to neutralize or mitigate such conflicts, if they have not been or cannot be avoided. The Plan should indicate that such policies and procedures are operative throughout the period of outside activities financial interests, or other significant connections or identifications that would establish, or give the appearance of establishing, a conflict of interest. A method for periodically reviewing financial interests of employees, subcontractors and consultants, and their immediate families, in order to assess actual or apparent conflicts of interest, should be included in the plan. The term “potential conflict” means a reasonably foreseeable conflict of interest.

The thoroughness, completeness, and effectiveness of the Plan shall be evaluated as part of the offeror’s overall proposal. The Plan will be incorporated into the contract awarded to the successful offeror.

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