Solicitation F2B3AQ0142AW01_Questions_and_Answers_081020.pdf

Contractor Operated Civil Engineering Supply Store – Hanscom AFB

Solicitation ID: F2B3AQ0142AW01

Questions and Answers

Question 1.

Section L - Instructions, Conditions, and Notices to Offerors, Page 4, subsection G – Volume 1- Price, subsection d states: By proposing a discount percentage against an identified database for each category, the offeror is proposing to sell items found in the database’s corresponding category at the database’s advertised price multiplied by the corresponding category’s coefficient factor. Please provide clarification for the use of the database Granite City Electric for the Electrical category. While reviewing www.granitecityelectric.com, it was noticed that this website is a closed website for pricing. Customers will have to “login” to the site to receiving pricing and availability. If a potential bidder is not a customer of Granite City Electric, then the bidder will be unable to establish pricing as they will not have an account to log in to.

Government Answer:

Granite City Electric and CED were removed as possible databases from the Electrical Category sheet and replaced with Gordon Electric Supply and Pratt, database list prices have been updated to reflect current prices and product discrepancies were addressed.

Question 2.

A very similar question was asked for FA461319RA005 for FE Warren AFB COCESS last year.

This COCESS solicitation was the first to utilize the database pricing model. 5. On Attachment K, Common COCESS Items Price List: Section Electrical, Source Selection: The Electrical section provides for three different sources to choose database pricing from. One of those sources is Rexel. However Rexelusa.com requires a username and password to view pricing. As this is a requirement, Fair and Reasonable Market prices would not be available to our company as we are a customer of Rexel and our pricing differs from market pricing. We would also feel uncomfortable requesting a different login to show market price. This could be construed as Rexel setting up specific market pricing for our company. Another problem would be if all potential bidders of this solicitation were to request such a log in, would the market pricing be the same? Should Rexel be excluded as an option for a source selection database? If not, has arrangements been made to provide offerors with a login and password that reflects the same pricing? a. Rexel has been removed as a database option on the updated Attachment K. Should www.granitecityelectric.com be removed from the database selection as it does not provide an open price to the public as the other databases allow? If so, please remove the following items from Attachment B, Electrical;

See answer from above. Granite City Electric and CED were removed as possible databases from the Electrical Category sheet and replaced with Gordon Electric Supply and Pratt, database list prices have been updated to reflect current prices and product discrepancies were addressed.

Question 3.

All categories for Attachment B reference Grainger and Zoro as source databases. Zoro is owned by Grainger. Please see attached news article dated January 24, 2019:

https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2019/01/24/grainger-invests-more-in-its-zoro-online-only-channel/ All of the items currently found on the Grainger ecommerce site can be found on the Zoro site.

In the Structures category of Attachment B, line 7, there is not a list price for this product under the Grainger column. However, this product is on the Grainger website at https://www.grainger.com/product/LCNManual-

Hydraulic-LCN-4040-28XR05? at a list price of $391.00.

As all Grainger items will be on the Zoro website, this database will never be utilized for pricing purposes.

We request that Zoro be removed as a selection for these categories.

Please see Instructions to Offerors p.4. No databases will be excluded, if you do not find pricing on the Primary database then you would move to the alternate databases.

Question 4:

Due to impact of COVID-19 on personnel along with the summer season involving Holidays/leave from work, requesting the due date of this solicitation be moved to August 24, 2020. Please advise.

The Government has extended the proposal due date to 24 Aug 2020.

Question 5.

Referencing section 1.17 of the SOW: The authority to purchase products is the key point. Each and every order is not deemed an emergency, however, the acting manager must have the ability to procure/order the products necessary to complete a work order. Is this description accurate? If not, would you expand on this requirement?

Yes, this description is accurate. Authority to spend Government funds on any purchase has to be from a Government employee. The acting COCESS manager has to have to authority to procure/order products as necessary to complete these work orders.

Question 6.

In Section 1.17.4 of the SOW, it states….”or when the contractor delivers the material to the worksite.” Are we to assume there will be shipments to various locations across Hanscom AFB for CE or to a single, warehouse location? If there are additional ship-to points, will the required deliveries be more of an exception?

All the material ordered will be to a single warehouse (Bldg. 1833) however, there may be unique situations to bring an asset straight to a job site due to an emergency.

Question 7.

In Delivery Order CLIN Structure(1), CLIN 0001-Monthly Lead Time shows a Lot of 1 while the other 2 CLIN’s show Lots of 13 each. Would you explain the difference?

CLIN 0001 COCESS Items -Monthly Items has a Lot of 1 rather than 13 lots for CLIN 0002 COCESS Items -Long Lead Items and CLIN 0003 COCESS Items - Special Interest Items because CLIN 0001 will be allowed by DFAS to be incrementally funded and invoiced multiple times whereas CLINs 0002 and 0003 will only be invoiced 13 times.

Question 8.

In Solicitation +-+FA283520R001(1).pdf, each CLIN is showing a Lot of 1. Is the Lot of 1 meaning the awardee can bill only once yearly for each CLIN?

Solicitation FA283520R001 only has a Lot of 1 because that is the IDIQ CLIN structure. Each CLIN represents 1 year of the IDIQ. The totals per year will be used for evaluation purposes per Attachment H- Section M - Evaluation Factors for Award. Billing will be made against issued delivery orders which will allow for CLINs to be billed more than once. Please see Attachment I

- Delivery Order CLIN Structure and Question 8.

Question 9.

A detailed review was conducted of the Grainger items and pricing on the “Common COCESS Items Price List”. Product and pricing discrepancies are detailed on the attached spreadsheet with explanations listed below.

Various color codes added to items on the spreadsheet along with some additional columns.

Please see below for attached explanations:

• Green Highlighted columns C through F were added to highlight the pricing, product description and Grainger part # challenges. Column E is the most current Grainger price along with column F which shows the difference between current Grainger.com price versus what is shown on the spreadsheet. Some of the incorrect pricing dates back to 2019.

o ACTION: Pricing needs to be updated to current price on any items with a number other than 0 (zero) in column F.

• Yellow highlighted rows – Column C shows the correct Grainger part number along with an updated description that requires approval from Hanscom CE to be used as alternate items.

o ACTION: Grainger products listed need to be approved as an acceptable alternate. Alternate manufacturer name and model # need to be updated for these items as well.

• Orange highlighted rows – The items need additional information in order to find a Grainger part number.

o ACTION: Please provide additional product information (full description, dimensions, unit pack…).

• Red highlighted lines – These are items that are either discontinued and no alternate is available or they are special ordered items, not regular stock Grainger items with available pricing.

o ACTION: These products need to be removed as a source for Grainger in the spreadsheet.

• Blue highlighted lines – items we were able to match to Grainger part numbers, however, the price discrepancy was large.

o ACTION: Review to see if the products have different unit of measure issues (ex. 1 item versus 1 case).

The inability to have accurate product and pricing doesn’t allow bidders to provide a competitive, accurate proposal. Also, there are other businesses which benchmark Grainger pricing putting them at a disadvantage.

This reinforces the need for an extension in order to insure accuracy and competitiveness across the offerings. Please advise on next steps.

Attachment B - Common COCESS Items Price List has been updated to reflect current prices and the solicitation proposal due date has been extended to 24 August 2020.

Question 10.

SOW 1.3.3: The Contractor shall identify a primary database and a minimum of one alternate database. The contractor may propose more than one alternate. People are more than likely not going to propose more than one alternate database. A few examples I could see that being a problem are Line 4, 47, 55, 65, 108, 115, 122, 129, 130 …from the Electrical tab Attachment B.

(There are more obviously.) If an offeror were to pick Granite City as the primary and CED as the secondary for example, no price would be recorded for that line because pricing is only available in the Grainger or ZORO columns. How will this be handled?

The Government will evaluate the coefficient provided for the primary, and alternate(s) catalogs for each category and with a calculation how much of the percentage of money is used on that type material. The items that are not in each catalog, however similar/necessary items are available in the other catalogs with different part numbers and manufacturers. Meaning a similar or like kind item can be found in the catalog just in as a different part number. The Government anticipates a coefficient of less than 1 to be acceptable.

Question 11.

Will the Contractor be authorized to use GSA vendors under this contract?

Government Answer:

Yes, the contractor can use GSA venders if it is the exact item selected from one of the catalog databases can be purchased from one of these venders. The price charged to the Government will be the price of the item on the catalog multiplied by the applicable coefficient.

Question 12.

Attachment G, Section L, p. 2 of 7 , states, "All documents shall be submitted in .pdf format.”

Are the pricing spreadsheets, Attachments B and C, included in this requirement or does the Government prefer only Excel spreadsheets for Attachments B and C?

Either format is acceptable by the Government.

Question 13.

Attachment G, Section L, p. 4 of 7, asks for "h. Financial Institution Reference Sheet" to be included in the price volume. There doesn’t appear to be an attachment that fits this requirement.

Does the Government have a preferred format?

The Government does not have a preferred format.

Question 14.

Is there a deadline for questions on this solicitation?

The Government has set a deadline of 11 August for all questions. That way the Contractors have enough time to incorporate items from Q&As into their proposal as needed.