RFP Question and Answer_02.xlsx
XLSX spreadsheet 13 KB Posted
- Attached to
- Energy Efficient Small Shelter System (EESSS) Federal contract opportunity
- Solicitation number
- FA8534-22-R-0002
About this file
This document contains questions and answers regarding a request for proposals for an Energy Efficient Small Shelter System. Key details include that the solicitation is seeking proposals for the development of a preproduction prototype of an energy efficient tent or shelter system over a base year with the potential for additional option years of production. Proposers must demonstrate their design approach to meet the energy efficiency requirements through testing data, engineering reports, or other analytical methods. Foreign testing or engineering paid for by the U.S. Government is acceptable evidence for proposals. The opportunity is set aside for small businesses, which must contribute at least 51% of the product. A two week extension was granted for proposal submissions in response to Amendment 002.
View the file
Other files for this federal contract opportunity
Show all 34
On GovTribe
Work with this file on GovTribe
- Download the original file
- Contacts named in this file
- Similar government files
- Ask GovTribe AI about this file
Text version
Sheet1
| EESSS RFP FA8534-22-R-0002 | |
| The government’s specification shall take precedence/priority over any questions/answers response in the event there is a conflict between the former and latter. | |
| Questions | Comments |
| Past Performance | |
| The RFP states that, for technically acceptable offerors, a best value trade off “may be made between past performance and price, with past performance considered approximately equal to price.” Section M.I.A. (emphasis in original). | |
| This statement is vague. Can the agency explain whether it will conduct a best value |
tradeoff or if the award decision will be based on a low-price, technically acceptable
| basis? | The statement is not vague and is in accordance with DOD policy. |
| Can the agency provide more information as to how it will weigh price against past | |
| performance? While evaluations are necessarily somewhat subjective, the evaluation criteria are so indeterminate that it is difficult to understand how offerors’ proposals will be compared. Specifically, can the agency identify the criteria by which it will find a low price to warrant a lower-rated proposal, e.g., a proposal rated Substantial Confidence is worth a 10% price premium over a proposal rated Satisfactory Confidence? More clearly explaining the relative weight of the evaluation will assist offerors when developing pricing and result in the agency receiving the best possible proposals for its needs. | Clause M-900 states the manner in which the PCO and SSA will make a decision |
and is not vague, also each individual acquisition is unique based upon the data gathered on each offeror.
| Would the agency clarify what aspects of past performance, beyond adjectival ratings, might justify a higher price? | The agency will evaluate in accordance with the evaluation criteria. As any trade off Past Performance, Price and Technical as the factors. |
| Will the agency consider making past performance a pass/fail as they appear to be doing with technical evaluation? | No, it will not. |
| The RFP states that it will evaluate recency of past performance and defines recency as “as active or completed efforts performed within the past six (6) years from the issuance date of this solicitation.” Id. at II.D.1. The RFP also contemplates a performance period of up to ten (10) years. Thus, a follow-on contract for this procurement adopting the same evaluation criteria would give very little weight to the performance to nearly half of the incumbent’s performance. That seems unreasonable. Some prospective offerors for this procurement hold ten (10) year |
contracts for similar requirements that are reasonable indicators of how they would perform this requirement.
| Will the government consider revising the recency definition to extend consideration of “active or completed efforts” performed within ten (10) years of the date of issuance of this RFP? | No, 6 years is sufficient for this effort. |
| There is a patent ambiguity as to how the Agency will evaluate offerors with Neutral Confidence ratings. The definitions state that, when an offeror receives a Neutral Confidence rating, the “offeror may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on the factor of past performance.” Id. at II.D.6. The solicitation also states that a record of relevant past performance may be considered more advantageous to the Government than a ‘Neutral Confidence’ rating.” Id. | |
| Can the government please explain how it will assess offerors with Neutral Confidence ratings, particularly when Past Performance and Price are the only two factors considered in the best value trade? | As stated "offeror may not be evaluated favorably |
or unfavorably on the factor of past performance" on neutral performance.
| Procurement Procedures |
| Discussions |
| “The Government will consider, throughout the evaluations, the ‘correction |
potential’ of the proposal. The judgement of such ‘correction potential’ is within the sole discretion of the Government. If one (1) or more aspects of an offeror’s proposal do not meet the Government’s requirements and the proposal is not considered to be correctable without substantial rewrite, the offeror may be eliminated from the competitive range.” Id. at II.A.1.
Can the government clarify its view of the “correction potential,” or what aspects of the proposal are “not considered to be correctable?” E.g., is there a threshold where a high price would not be considered correctable, or at what point do numerous unacceptable
| technical subfactor ratings become not considered to be correctable? | Each individual proposal will be evaluated on its merit as outlined in the evaluation clause. |
| Limiting the Competitive Range | |
| “If the Contracting Officer determines that the number of |
proposals that would otherwise be in the competitive range exceeds the number at which an efficient competition can be conducted, the Contracting Officer, with the concurrence of the SSA, may limit the number of proposals in the competitive range to the greatest number that will permit an efficient competition among the most highly rated proposals.” Section M.II.A.1.
| Will this limit only be assessed after all proposals have been evaluated and ranked? | After all proposals are evaluated. |
| Technical Proposal Length | |
| As the testing reports and engineering analysis typically require documentation in excess |
of 26 pages each and there are multiple requirements for such data in the RFP, may the offeror provide such testing reports and/or engineering data as attachments to the 26 pages technical report?
| No, attachments will count within the page limit. | |
| As the Product Description in the RFP is 34 pages long, will you increase the length of the | |
| technical report to allow full response to each item of the product description? | Page length remains as stated in the clause. |
| Submission Date | |
| Considering that Amendment 002 was recently issued, would the agency extend the |
response date to allow offerors time to effectively incorporate the new requirements
| into their proposals? | Yes, another 2 weeks. | |
| Technical Factors | ||
| Energy Efficiency Testing and Engineering Requirement | ||
| For energy efficiency will other mathematical models, such as computational thermal dynamics, be acceptable to demonstrate energy efficiency approach of offeror instead of finite element analysis? | Any method of calculating the thermal efficiency for the proposed shelter is acceptable for design purposes. The first articles will be tested using controlled operational environments to verify efficiency. | |
| Testing Data and Engineering Reports | ||
| Are offerors allowed to use testing data/reports or engineering that was paid for in whole or in |
part by the U.S. Government in their proposal to demonstrate their approach and/or meeting subfactors? Any/All testing information is acceptable in the proposal to demonstrate one's design approach.
| With this solicitation being a small business set aside, what percentage of the product needs to be contributed buy the small business? Does that contribution percentage need to be in terms of cost or labor? | 51% or more |
| Is this contract made in such a way as to allow the base year be a year to develop the final product for approval? Or does the tent need to be a polished product and the base year is used to determine the testing methods to prove that it meets the efficiency requirements? | The base year is for preproduction/first articles |
| Will multiple companies be awarded the opportunity to participate in the base year with a down select choosing the awardee for Option 1 and beyond? | Only 1 award |
| The government’s specification shall take precedence/priority over any questions/answers response in the event there is a conflict between the former and latter. |
File details come from the government source that posted it. Updated .