FA485525R0003 - Combined Synopsis_Solicitation.pdf

DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

27TH SPECIAL OPERATIONS CONTRACTING SQUADRON (SOCONS)

Combined Synopsis/Solicitation

Requirement Title: Vertical Transportation Equipment (VTE) Service

Solicitation Number: FA485525R0003

Solicitation Issue Date: 06 December 2024

Questions Due Date: 07 January 2025 at 7:00 AM (MT)

All questions regarding this solicitation shall be emailed to the Contract Specialist identified herein and the responses published by the Contracting Office will be the only official responses.

Response Deadline: 22 January 2025 at 2:00 PM (MT)

All proposals must be received prior to the Response Due Date and Time to be considered. Late proposals WILL NOT be accepted. A proposal is considered late if it is not received in the email inbox of the Contract Specialist listed herein prior to the due date and time. An offeror may request a DoD Safe Upload Link from the Contract Specialist listed herein. The DoD Safe Link with the offeror’s proposal must be received as specified herein to be considered timely.

Contract Specialist: Ariza Gomez, ariza.gomez@us.af.mil, 575-904-5436

Contracting Officer: Corey B. Isaacs, corey.isaacs.1@us.af.mil, 575-784-4243

1. This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in Subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; proposals are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued.

2. The solicitation number is FA485525R0003. This solicitation is being issued as a Request for Proposals (RFP).

3. This solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through:

Federal Acquisition Circular 11/12/2024 Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement 11/25/2024 Department of the Air Force Acquisition Regulation Supplement 10/16/2024

4. This requirement is being set-aside for Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) concerns. The associated NAICS code is 238290 and the small business size standard is $22.0M.

1. Line item number(s) and items, quantities, and units of measure, including options.

See Attachment 2 – Price Proposal Worksheet

General Information

Requirement Information

2. Description of the Requirement.

See Attachment 1 – Performance Work Statement.

3. Date(s) And Place(s) of Delivery/Performance/Acceptance:

See Attachment 1 – Performance Work Statement.

FOB point: Destination

FAR Provision 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors – Commercial Items (Sep 2023) applies to this acquisition and the following addendum applies:

Paragraph (a) – North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code and small business size standard first sentence revised as follows: “The NAICS code and small business size standard for this acquisition appear above.”

Paragraph (c) – Period of Acceptance of Offers is revised as follows: “The offeror agrees to hold the prices in its offer firm for 60 calendar days from the date specified for receipt of offers, unless another time period is specified in an addendum to the solicitation.”

1. GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

a. The purpose of these instructions is to prescribe the format of the Request for Proposals (RFP) and describe the approach for the development and presentation of the RFP data. This is designed to ensure the essential information required for evaluation is submitted.

b. The Contracting Officer has determined there is a high probability of adequate price competition in this solicitation, so offerors are cautioned to submit their best pricing and technical information up-front. Upon examination of the initial offer’s, the Contracting Officer will review this determination and if, in the Contracting Officer’s opinion, adequate price competition exists, no additional cost information will be requested and certification under FAR 15.406-2 is not required. However, if at any time during this competition the Contracting Officer determines that adequate price competition no longer exists, offeror’s may be required to submit information, “Other Than Certified Cost or Pricing Data”, to the extent necessary for the Contracting Officer to determine the reasonableness and affordability of the price.

c. To assure the timely and equitable evaluation of proposals, offerors shall follow the instructions contained herein. Offerors are required to meet and address all requirements, including terms and conditions, representations and certifications, and technical requirements. Failure to meet a requirement may result in an offer being deemed ineligible for award. Offeror’s must clearly

Instructions to Offerors identify any exception to the terms and conditions and provide complete accompanying rationale. Offerors are cautioned that failure to furnish required representations or information or rejection of the terms and conditions of the solicitation may exclude the offeror from competition. The proposal when submitted, shall be comprehensive, complete, self-sufficient, and respond directly to the requirements of the RFP. Elaborate artwork and visual aids are neither necessary nor desired.

The proposal shall consist of:

(1) Technical Capability

(2) Proposal Price Worksheet (Attachment 2)

(3) Offeror Information Document (Attachment 3)

Technical Capability shall not contain any price data or reference to price. Include a statement in the proposal that it contains proprietary information for your company and cannot be released outside the Government, if applicable.

Offeror shall acknowledge any addendums, if any, on the Offeror Information Document (Attachment 3).

Failure to comply with these instructions may result in an offeror’s proposal being summarily rejected due to non-responsiveness. Any commitments made in the proposal shall become part of the resultant contract.

d. Complete in its entirety the “Offeror Information Document”, which is included as Attachment 3 in this solicitation. An official having authority to legally bind the company contractually must sign and date this document. Failure to acknowledge any amendments to this solicitation can result in an offeror being deemed non-responsive. Award CANNOT be made to a non-responsive offeror. Note: Be sure to sign and date where required.

e. Representations and Certifications. Complete the required Representations and Certifications or indicate if the information is contained in the System for Award Management (SAM) located at https://sam.gov/content/home.

f. It is the offeror’s responsibility to ensure its proposal is received prior to the submission due date and time specified. Offerors are required to submit their proposal electronically and offerors shall not lock, or password protect any file included in their submission. .ZIP files are not an acceptable format and will not be processed through our email system.

g. Late proposals. All proposals must be received prior to the Response Due Date and Time to be considered. Late proposals WILL NOT be accepted. A proposal is considered late if it is not received in the email inbox of the Contract Specialist listed herein prior to the due date and time. An offeror may request a DoD Safe Upload Link from the Contract Specialist listed herein.

https://sam.gov/content/home

The DoD Safe Link with the offeror’s proposal must be received as specified herein to be considered timely.

h. To avoid rejection of a proposal, the offeror shall make every effort to ensure its electronic submission is virus free. Submissions or portions thereof submitted and which the automatic system detects the presence of a virus, or which are otherwise unreadable will be treated as unreadable pursuant to FAR 15.207(c).

i. Discrepancies. If an offeror believes the requirements in this solicitation contains an error, omission, or are otherwise unsound, the offeror shall immediately notify the Contract Specialist herein in writing with supporting rationale as well as the remedies the offeror is asking the Contracting Officer to consider as related to the error or omission.

j. All offerors must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) at https://sam.gov/content/home at the time of submission to be considered for award. The Government will not provide contract financing for this acquisition. Invoice instructions shall be provided at time of award.

2. FORMAL COMMUNICATIONS

a. Any formal communication shall be submitted in writing (via email) to the Contract Specialist and Contracting Officer specified herein. It is the offeror’s responsibility to confirm receipt of all formal communications. Offeror’s proposals to this solicitation shall be submitted electronically to the Contract Specialist, with a copy to the Contracting Officer.

3. PROPOSAL PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS

a. The following instructions prescribe the format for proposals and describe the approach to be used for the development and presentation of proposal data. The proposal shall include all the information requested in the specific instructions. Failure to include all information requested may adversely affect the evaluation and may result in a determination that the proposal is non-responsive. A proposal that merely reiterates or promises to accomplish the requirements of the PWS will be considered unacceptable. A proposal that is orderly and sufficiently documented will enable the Government to easily understand the proposal and perform a thorough and fair evaluation of it. The Government may incorporate into the contract by reference or full text, portions of the successful offeror’s proposal as revised and supplemented through the proposal submitted in response to this solicitation.

b. Proposal. The proposal shall be prepared and submitted in three (3) distinct documents:

Part I. Technical Capability Part II. Proposal Price Worksheet (Attachment 2) Part III. Offeror Information Document (Attachment 3) https://sam.gov/content/home

PART I – Technical Capability – Limited to no more than five (5) pages.

To facilitate the evaluation, Technical Capability should be specific, detailed, and complete to clarity and fully demonstrate that the offeror has a thorough understanding of the requirements for the accomplishment of this effort. Statements that the offeror understands, can, or will comply with the PWS; statements rephrasing the PWS or parts thereof; and phrases such as “standard procedure will be employed” or “well known techniques will be used” etc., will be considered unacceptable.

Offeror must demonstrate that it possesses all the required expertise, knowledge, equipment, and tools required to meet the Government’s objectives as identified in the PWS.

Offeror must also provide its plan for Continuation of Essential Services as identified in the PWS, Section 8.5.

PART II – Proposal Price Worksheet – (Attachment 2)

The offeror shall complete and return Attachment 2 – Proposal Price Worksheet. There are separate tabs at the bottom of the worksheet (Base, OY1, OY2, OY3, OY4, Dash_8), for each year of the contract. Offeror is required to complete all tabs and fill out all CLIN pricing to be considered responsive.

Total Evaluated Price (TEP) – TEP will be the sum of all CLINs for the Base Year and Option Years 1 through 4. The Government will evaluate the pricing for the “Option to Extend Services” under FAR 52.217-8 for the additional six-months of service, if needed; however, the pricing for the “Option to Extend Services” will not be used as part of the award decision. Only TEP will be used award purposes.

The Government will correct any apparent mathematical miscalculations, such as the extended price not equal to the unit price multiplied by the number of units, to determine TEP.

PART III – Offeror Information Document (Attachment 3)

The offeror shall complete in its entirety and return Attachment 3 – Offeror Information Document as part of its proposal response. An official having authority to legally bind the company contractually must sign and date this document.

Failure to acknowledge any amendments to this solicitation can result in an offeror being deemed non-responsive. Award CANNOT be made to a non-responsive offeror. Note: Be sure to sign and date where required.

(End of Addendum to FAR 52.212-1)

FAR 52.212-2 Evaluation – Commercial Products and Commercial Services (Nov 2021) applies to this acquisition and the following addendum applies:

(a) The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. The following factors shall be used to evaluate offers:

a. Technical Capability

b. Past Performance

c. Price

This competitive best value source selection will be conducted using the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) source selection process in accordance with FAR part 15, Contracting by Negotiation and FAR part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Items. One (1) award will be made to the offeror who is deemed responsible in accordance with FAR part 9, whose proposal conforms to the solicitation requirements and is the lowest evaluated price with an “Acceptable” rating in the Technical Capability Factor and Past Performance Factor, respectively. The awarded contract will be Firm-Fixed- Price.

Proposals that exceed the evaluation criteria will not receive higher ratings. If an offeror fails to meet all solicitation requirements, the Government may not make an award to that offeror. The LPTA source selection process does not permit tradeoffs between price and non-price factors.

IAW FAR 15.306 and 52.212-1, the Government intends to evaluate proposals and award a contract without discussions with any offeror (except clarifications as described in FAR 15.306(a)). Therefore, the offeror’s initial proposal should contain the offeror’s best terms from a price and technical standpoint. The Government reserves the right to conduct discussions if the Contacting Officer later determines them to be necessary.

Factor 1 – Technical Capability

The technical rating reflects the degree to which the offeror’s proposal meets or does not meet the requirements.

Technical Acceptable/Unacceptable Rating Method Adjectival Rating Description Acceptable Proposal meets the requirements of the solicitation.

Unacceptable Proposal does not meet the requirements of the solicitation.

Factor 2 – Past Performance

Past Performance will be rated on an “Acceptable” or “Unacceptable” basis at the overall factor level using the ratings shown below.

Evaluation Criteria

Past Performance Acceptable/Unacceptable Rating Method Adjectival Rating Description

Acceptable

Based on the offeror’s performance record, the Government has a reasonable expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort, or the offeror’s performance record is unknown.

Unacceptable Based on the offeror’s performance record, the Government does not have a reasonable expectation that the offeror will be able to successfully perform the required effort.

There are three aspects to the past performance evaluation. The first is to determine whether the offeror’s performance information is recent and second, is the performance information relevant to the effort to be acquired (this solicitation). The third aspect is to determine how well the offeror performed on those contracts and the quality of performance provided.

Recency. Recency will be assigned a rating of “Recent” or “Not Recent” for each relevant record.

Performance occurring within the last three years from the date of issuance of this solicitation will be considered “recent”.

Relevancy. In evaluating relevancy, the Government will assign a rating of “Relevant” or “Not Relevant”. Relevant past performance for this acquisition is having provided similar services for a federal or DoD agency where cost, schedule, and performance were measured/evaluated.

Performance Quality. The Government will evaluate the quality of work performed for each recent and relevant record reviewed in the Contract Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS). The Government will evaluate the offeror’s demonstrated record of contract compliance in providing services that meet user’s needs, including quality, cost and schedule. Performance assessed as “Satisfactory”, “Very Good”, or “Exceptional” in CPARs shall be considered compliant with contract requirements. Any performance area assessed as “Marginal” or “Unacceptable” shall be considered unfavorable.

In the case of an offeror without a record of recent or relevant past performance, or for whom information on past performance is not available or so sparse that no meaningful past performance rating can be reasonably assigned, the offeror may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance. Therefore, the offeror shall be determined to have “Unknown” past performance. In the context of acceptability/unacceptability, “Unknown” shall be considered “Acceptable”.

Factor 3 – Price

Price will be evaluated using the price analysis process established in FAR 15.404-1 to ensure the Government receives a fair, reasonable and balanced price. If the Government cannot determine the proposed pricing to be fair and reasonable, then “Other Than Certified Cost and Pricing Data” will be obtained from the offeror. The Government will evaluate offers for award purposes by adding the total price for all Contract Line Item Numbers (CLINs) including the Base Year and Option Year 1 through 4 CLINs. The Government will evaluate the pricing for the “Option to Extend Services” under FAR

52.217-8 for the additional six-months of service, if needed; however, the pricing for the “Option to Extend Services” will not be used as part of the award decision.

In addition to the price analysis as described in FAR 15.404-1(b), price proposals will be analyzed to identify any potential unbalanced pricing (see FAR 15.404-1(g)). If the Government sees a wide variation in proposed CLIN prices, the technical evaluation team will be informed as soon as possible during the initial evaluation of proposals so the appropriate personnel may seek clarity through offeror exchanges. Absent any issues related to the stated requirements, unbalanced pricing may pose an unacceptable risk to the Government and may be a reason to reject an offeror’s proposal.

There is an expectation of competition for this requirement; offerors are cautioned to present their best price proposal up-front. The offeror’s price proposal shall represent the offeror’s best effort to respond to the solicitation.

Technical Capability and Past Performance, when combined are approximately equal to price.

(b) 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).

(c) 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 withdrawal is received before award.

(End of Provision)

Attachment 1 – Performance Work Statement (PWS)

Attachment 2 – Proposal Price Worksheet

Attachment 3 – Offeror Information Document

Attachment 4 – Wage Determination 2015-5457, Rev. 25, 22 Jul 24

Attachment 5 – Provisions and Clauses

Attachments