IRSP_QA_posted_17_Mar_15.xlsx
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- Attached to
- Instrumentation Radar Support Program (IRSP) Federal contract opportunity
- Solicitation number
- FA2521-13-R-0008
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IRSP Draft RFP Questions and Answers as of 17 Mar 15 attached.
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Sheet1
| Number | Questions/Answers | Answers | RFP Section/ Exhibit/Attachment |
| Below Question/Answer posted 16 Mar 15 | |||
| 1 | Is the contractor required to provide the depot support function in Florida? | No, the contractor can house inventory and perform the depot support activities from any location or locations they choose. No government owned facility is available to warehouse IRSP items. | Attachment 1, SOW, para 3.2.1 |
| 2 | Section L, Paragraph 2.2.2.1.5 states: Phase-In is a 3-month period of performance. Should the quantities shown in Section B for CLINs 0002 and 0003 be 57 months? | The quantities for CLINs 0002 and 0003 are 60 months (five years). The three month phase-in period is not meant to erode the five years of ordering under full performance. In accordance with Section I 52.216-22, any order can be issued during the effective period (five years from contract award), however the contractor is not required to make any deliveries after one year after the five year ordering period. | Section B CLINs 0002 & 0003 |
| 3 | Section L, Paragraph 2.4, states: “Pricing for out year requirements and labor rates/burdens must show a decline for each Government fiscal year. Compliance with these requirements is mandatory and failure to comply may result in rejection of your proposal.” Is it the Government’s intent that only the fully burdened labor rate show a decline each year or the base labor rate before the burdens are applied? Will the Government please explain the rationale for this requirement? | The requirement for downward pricing labor rates/burdens will not be included in the final RFP. | Section L, para 2.4 |
| 4 | Section L, Paragraph 2.4 at the top of page 107 of 123 states: “Each MS Excel workbook shall be submitted as both a protected version and one that can be manipulated by the Government.” Is it the Government’s intent that offerors submit 2 copies of each Excel file, one protected and one unprotected? | Yes. Offerors must submit two copies of each Excel file; one as a protected file to ensure integrity of the original proposed spreadsheet and one unprotected to facilitate the cost/price evaluation of the proposal to include cost realism analysis. | Section L, para 2.4 |
| 5 | Section L, Paragraph 2.4.1.7.3 states: “However, NO fee/profit shall be applied to Material, Travel, or Transportation on this contract.” Recommend offerors be allowed reasonable profit on Materials, Travel, and Transportation costs included in FFP CLINs such as Overhauls and FFP Modifications. This will allow offerors the ability to offset the risk of proposing these costs up to five years in the future. | Contractors will not be proposing material, travel, or transportation five years in the future for field overhauls and system modifications. Material, travel, and/or transportation will be proposed on separately negotiated proposals for overhauls and system modifications throughout the course of the five year ordering period. Therefore the cost risk is minimal since these costs will be proposed immediately prior to being put on contract as a new delivery order or delivery order modification. | Section L, para 2.4.1.7.3 |
| 6 | Section L, Paragraph 2.4.1.7.3 states: “For example, under CLIN 0002, Inventory and Program Management, the number which becomes part of the TEP Worksheet is the cost for the 3-month Phase-In.” Attachment L-11 TEP Worksheet states: “Phase-In price proposed shall be consistent with Phase-In Plan and the requirements under SOW 3.1 and will be incorporated into the contact - This is not part of the TEP.” Recommend deleting “This is not part of the TEP” from Attachment L-11 to maintain consistency with Paragraph 2.4.1.7.3. | There is a typo in the "For example," sentence which should read "For example, under CLIN 0002, Inventory and Program Management, the number which becomes part of the TEP Worksheet is the cost for the first year of Inventory and Program Management.” For clarity, the Phase-In price will not be a part of the total evaluated price. | Section L, para 2.4.1.7.3 and Attachment L-11 TEP Worksheet |
| 7 | Section L, Paragraph 2.4 states prices and labor rates must show a downward trend year after year. Section M, Paragraph 2.4.2 states: “To be considered awardable, the offeror’s proposed prices and labor rates must show a decline for each Government fiscal year supported by a proposed efficiency or other activity that results in downward pricing.” Is the Government looking for a downward trend in CLIN cost, labor rates, or both? Efficiencies only affect the number of hours required to complete a task. Recommend the downward trend requirement be limited to CLIN cost. | The requirement for downward pricing labor rates/burdens will not be included in the final RFP. The downward trend requirement applies only to the FFP CLIN 0002 Inventory and Program Management (see Section L paragraph 2.4.1.8). This downward trend in CLIN 0002's price could be achieved through any means the offeror deems appropriate while still meeting SOW requirements. | Section L, para 2.4 |
| 8 | Affordability: The Government’s budget for the FFP CLIN 0002 Inventory and Program Management is $730,000 annually. This number seems low for all the purposes stated for this CLIN in the RFP. Can the Government confirm this is the cap? | The Government confirms this is the cap. | Section L, para 2.4.1.8 & Section M, para 2.4.3 |
| 9 | Paragraph 2.2.2.1.1 states: “Identify the proposed managers and other key personnel and functions assigned to each organizational entity”. A strong management and technical team is critical to the success of any program especially one as complex as IRSP. Recommend the Government include the following language in Section H of the RFP. Key Personnel: The Key Personnel listed in this section and below are considered to be critical to the successful performance of this contract. The offeror must submit resumes and letters of firm commitment from these Key Personnel. These Key Personnel must remain, as assigned, on the contract for a period not less than 6 months after contract award. Key Personnel need to be replaced within 30 days of vacancy of the position. In addition, prior to replacing these Key Personnel, the offeror shall obtain written consent from the Contracting Officer. In order to obtain such consent, the offeror must provide advance notice of the proposed changes and must demonstrate that the qualifications of the proposed substitute personnel are generally equivalent to or better than the qualifications of the personnel being replaced. The offeror may have different job titles for their Key Personnel and must map their job titles to the list of Key Personnel below: Program Manager, Inventory Manager, Engineering Manager, Obsolescence Manager, Overhaul Manager, Principle Engineer, Transmitter Engineer, Remanufacture Manager, Fabrication Manager. | We agree that a strong management and technical team is critical to the success of IRSP. The Government considered the approach of evaluating key personnel through resumes and letters of commitment but decided against including these requirements and instead focusing on evaluating the organizational structure as a whole and staffing levels and skills assigned to each unit. | Section L, para 2.2.2.1.1 |
| 10 | DRAFT Attachment L-01, Historical Info, Paragraph 2 on page 2 states: “There will be 20-30 budgetary requests for PWS changes that will typically result in 10-20 proposal requests and 20-30 budgetary requests for system modifications that typically result in 15-20 more proposal requests.” It is assumed system modification proposals will require extensive technical staff (senior engineers, software engineers, program managers, etc.) to prepare a response. The previous IRSP RFP included a CLIN to cover budgetary estimates and proposal preparation as part of the TEP, but proposal preparation for these requests is not mentioned as reimbursable in the draft RFP. Recommend the Government include a CLIN for pricing these services, which also should be included in the TEP. | A CLIN will be included in the Final RFP for Budgetary / Proposals as CLIN 0015. However, this CLIN will be not separately priced and bid & proposal will be an indirect charge. | DRAFT Attachment L-01, para 2 & Section B of the Draft RFP |
| 11 | Given the magnitude and complexity of a contract to support more than 800 systems of many different types and global locations, the past performance criteria seem low for relevancy. The Draft RFP requires meeting only 3 of the listed relevancy areas for the offerors to be relevant and 2 of the listed relevancy areas for offerors to be somewhat relevant. Recommend relevancy requirements be a minimum of 80% of the relevancy areas included in order to minimize the Government’s risk of failed support to all the IRSP test ranges. | Based on the Government's market research of similar contracts, we feel that including more than three relevancy areas would hinder competition. Additionally, from a technical standpoint, we believe that if an offeror has performed in at least three of those relevancy areas, the offeror would be successful in performing the IRSP contract. | Section M Table 2.3.2.2 |
| 12 | The relevancy criteria in the table includes 5 areas, but given the magnitude and complexity of this contract the relevancy areas as listed seem to be low and incomplete. Specifically, the relevancy areas don’t include experience with supporting international ranges, FMS, ITAR compliance, and special packing/shipping requirements, etc. Other significant areas that are not listed as relevant but are vitally important to range support are supply chain management experience and obsolescence management. To demonstrate capability to provide global support, strongly recommend adding relevancy categories, including: 1) performance at no fewer than 5 simultaneous locations with at least one location being foreign; and 2) contracts that include either FMS requirements or working with foreign customers, including export and ITAR requirements; 3) management of obsolescence (proactive vs. reactive) in designs and the tools that offerors have used to manage obsolescence to minimize the impact to the systems. Also, offerors should demonstrate the capability to to perform multiple relevancy areas simultaneously. | When developing the relevancy criteria, the Government determined what the critical areas of performance / risk included. While we agree that global support could be a valid relevancy area, the Government decided to only consider the top five relevancy areas as key areas of importance to emphasize in the source selection decision (FAR 15.304(b)(1)). | Section M Table 2.3.2.2 |
| 13 | Section M states “The Past Performance factor will receive one of the performance confidence assessments described in Table 2.3.1, Performance Confidence Assessments.” Is it possible for offerors to receive a Substantial Confidence rating if some or all of their past performance efforts are considered only somewhat relevant? | It is possible to receive a Substantial Confidence rating if some of an offeror's past performance efforts are considered only somewhat relevant. However, it is unlikely that an offeror will receive a Substantial Confidence rating if all of their past performance efforts are considered only somewhat relevant. The Performance Confidence Assessment Rating also considers a Performance Quality Assessment and the recency of past performance in arriving at a final Performance Confidence Assessment Rating (see Section L paragraphs 2.3.2.3 & 2.3.2.4). | Section M, para 2.3.1 |
| 14 | The draft RFP documents do not state a requirement for quality guidelines using ISO 9001:2008+AS9100C standards. Recognizing the risk inherent to this program, we recommend adding requirement for ISO9001:2008+AS9100C. | The Government has decided to not include a specific requirement for quality guidelines using ISO 9001:2008+AS9100C standards. However, the contract will include FAR 52.246-2 through -5 as quality assurance measures for items acquired under this contract. | RFP Section E |
| 15 | The draft RFP does not provide requirements for the contractor facility. In addition to the environmentally controlled storage and open air storage listed in Attachment L-01, Historical Info, will the IRSP contractor be required to provide a radar/system test capability to include a system tower as well as an operational boresight tower for system calibration? Are FCC licenses and authorization to radiate required? Are there special facility electrical requirements such as 400 Hz power a requirement for testing components? Is a fully functional machine shop, mechanical fabrication/assembly, paint booth, chem film capabilities , and large high bay required? Please elaborate on the full requirements for the contractor’s facility. | Part of the GFE provided includes radar test bed equipment. The work does necessitate testing components, subsystems, such as transmitters, fabricating components and subsystems, and painting components and subsystems. The successful offeror will be required to provide all support and materials necessary to ensure unique supplies and specialized maintenance capabilities meet range needs as required in the SOW and contract (to include clauses). The successful offeror will be required to complete the work on contract in compliance with the terms and conditions of the contract and make business decisions to include subcontracting portions of the work. | Attachment L-01, Historical Info |
| 16 | This table does not appear to be clear as to what the annual contract magnitude requirement is. Are three relevancy areas to total a minimum of $20M or do each relevancy area need to be a minimum of $20M? | The $20M minimum to be considered relevant is across the entire contract (total contract magnitude). Each relevancy area does not need to be a minimum of $20M. A contract with an annual value of $25M which contains $1M of inventory and program management type tasks, $5M in field overhauls, $4M in logistics support, and $15M in other requirements not in those relevancy areas would be considered relevant. | Section M Table 2.3.2.2 |
| 17 | Section 2.3.1 states “ Provide a comprehensive list of up to ten recent and relevant contracts…” while section 2.3.2.3 states “Any PEQs received from a major subcontractor will be in addition to the 10 surveys provided for the prime offeror”. One section says “up to” while the second section implies 10 surveys are to be provided by the prime. Can the government please provide clarity on how many relevant past performance citations are required and how many of those are required by the prime offeror? | The information related to this question will be revised in the final RFP. The final RFP will request submission of eight PEQs from the prime contractor and no more than three PEQs per major subcontractor. Regardless of the number of major subcontractors, the Government will not accept any more than 12 major subcontractor PEQs. This information will be in Section L paragraph 2.3.2.5 in the final RFP. | Section L Para 2.3.1 |
| 18 | Are there page limitations for each of the sections of the Technical Capability/Risk Volume? If so, could the government please provide them? | There are no page limitations for each of the sections of the Technical Capability/Risk Volume. The volume as a whole must be 120 pages or less. | Section L Table 1.3 |
| 19 | Since the application of the Service Contract Labor Standards are not specifically checked as “exempt,” would FAR 52.222-41, Service Contract Act Of 1965, 52.222-17 Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers apply to this solicitation? Considering that many of the incumbent employees may be subject to the Service Contract Act (other than any person employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity), there may be an obligation for the new contractor to apply FAR 52.222-17 Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers. • 14000 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OCCUPATIONS |
• 14070 COMPUTER PROGRAMMER
• 30080 ENGINEERING TECHNICIAN
• 30460 TECHNICAL WRITER
• §541.200 ELECTRONIC CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS October 7, 2014 Also, will instructions be included in the RFP requiring the incumbent contractor to identify employees that fall under the SCA and be required to provide the opportunity to discuss 52.222-17 Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers with these incumbent workers?
| FAR 52.222-41 & 52.222-17 do not apply to this solicitation because IRSP is a supply contract. Instead, 52.222-20 Contracts for Materials, Supplies, Articles, and Equipment Exceeding $15,000 (formerly the Walsh Healey Public Contracts Act) applies. In Section K 52.204-8, the boxes for 52.222-48 and 52.222-52 are not checked since this is not a service contract therefore certifications of exemptions to those clauses are not necessary. Additionally, there is no contractual obligation in the predecessor contract for Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers (FAR 52.222-17) therefore the current contractor is not obligated to comply with the requirements of 52.222-17. | Section K FAR 52.204-8, checkboxes 52.222-48 and 52.222-52 | |||
| Below Question/Answer posted 17 Mar 15 | ||||
| 20 | Would the Government please confirm when the current contract period of performance ends? | The existing contract's period of performance will expire on 31 Dec 15. | General | |
| 21 | Will there be a technical library available to bidders? | The Government does not have a technical library of information to provide. We believe all relevant information is already include in the Draft RFP specifically Attachments 7 (Supported Ranges System List), Attachment 8 (Range Resource List), and Attachment L-01 (Historical Program Information/Workload Indicators). If you would like a specific piece of information, please let the Contracting Officer know and we'll see if the information exists and we can provide it. If a request is received and the information is available to provide, it will be posted to FedBizOpps for all interested parties to see. | General | |
| 22 | Will the confidence rating for Past Performance be evaluated as a total team or will each participating company receive a rating (or be evaluated on their own)? If rated as a team, does the prime past performance weigh more (or is more important) than subcontractor teammates? | The confidence rating for past performance will be evaluated as a team (i.e. each proposal submission will receive one performance confidence assessment rating consistent with the rating and description in Section M Table 2.3.1). The prime's past performance may or may not weigh more than subcontractor teammates depending on an integrated assessment taking into account recency, relevancy, and quality. Therefore, it depends on the ratings the past performance evaluation team assigns based on their assessment while following the criteria in Section M. More recent and/or relevant performance may have a greater impact on the Performance Confidence Assessment than less recent or relevant performance. | Section M Para 2.3 | |
| 23 | What is the definition of a major subcontractor? % of work, of revenue, etc? Does the Attachment 5, Section M criteria apply to all subs or just major subs? | As defined in Section L para 2.3.2.3, a major subcontractor is defined as those subcontractors performing more than 10% of the effort on a total cost basis. If you are referring to Section M past performance evaluation in Section M para 2.3 in your follow-up question, past performance information is only required for (and therefore will only be evaluated on) the prime and major subcontractors, not all subcontractors. | Sections L & M | |
| 24 | There is a push from Under Secretary of Defense for Acq/Log to remove past performance as a major part of acquisitions. Does the IRSP Acquisition Strategy fall in line with this philosophy? (of de-emphasizing past performance) | The approved IRSP acquisition strategy follows the DoD Class Deviation 2013-O0018 at DFARS 215.304(c)(3)(i)(A) which states that past performance must be evaluated in source selections for negotiated competitive acquisitions for systems and operations support acquisitions expected to exceed $5M. Past performance will be evaluated as approximately equal to cost/price. | Sections L & M | |
| 25 | Material Acquisition, Page 2 of Attachment L-01 Para 1a - last sentence in para states "of the component remanufacture actions historically 60% have been in-house and 40% vendor actions." Does in-house refer to current incumbent or Gov't requesting agency? | In-house refers to the remanufacture of parts by the current incumbent. | Attachment L-01, Historical Info |
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