Draft_Section_M-_IAFNOS_27_Feb.docx

M-1 EVALUATION OF OFFERS

A. BASIS FOR CONTRACT AWARD.

This is a competitive best value source selection, evaluating technical, past performance, and price, in which competing offerors' past performance history will be evaluated on a basis approximately equal to cost or price considerations where the Government may elect to trade present/past performance for price if warranted. IAW FAR 15.101-1(c), the government reserves the right to award a contract to other than the lowest priced offer if the lowest priced offeror is judged to have a performance confidence assessment of “Satisfactory Confidence” or lower. In that event, the Source Selection Authority shall make an integrated assessment best value award decision. By submission of its offer, the offeror accedes to all solicitation requirements, including terms and conditions, representations and certifications, and technical requirements, in addition to those identified as evaluation factors or subfactors. Additionally, a Offeror must have an Active TOP SECRET Facility Clearance or provide an acceptable explanation of how the Offeror will acquire a TOP SECRET Facility Clearance prior to award. Failure to do so shall result in the government determining a proposal unacceptable. Failure to meet a requirement may result in an offer being determined technically unacceptable. The Government intends to award a single contract to the offeror who is deemed responsible IAW FAR Subpart 9.1, as supplemented, whose proposal conforms to the solicitation’s requirements (to include all stated terms, conditions, representations, certifications, and all other information required by Section L of this solicitation), and is judged, based on the evaluation factors and sub-factors, to represent the best value to the Government. While the Government will strive for maximum objectivity, the source selection process, by its nature, is subjective; and therefore, professional judgment is implicit throughout the entire process.

B. EVALUATION FACTORS AND SUBFACTORS.

1. The evaluation process to be used is as follows:

0. Step 1: Evaluate all proposals for technical acceptability and risk (if rated “unacceptable”, consider and document the correction potential if discussions are to be conducted). For each subfactor, the Government will assess risk as it pertains to the degree to which the Offerors proposed technical approach for the requirements of the solicitation may cause disruption of schedule, increased costs, degradation of performance, the need for increased Government oversight, or the likelihood of unsuccessful contract performance. The perceived risk to the Government will be taken into account when assigning an Acceptable/Unacceptable rating to each subfactor.

0. Step 2: Assess performance confidence for each offeror (include “unacceptable” proposals with correction potential).

0. Step 3: Evaluate all proposals to determine whether the price is fair and reasonable (in accordance with FAR 15.404 and FAR 31.201-3), balanced (in accordance with FAR 15.404-1), and affordable (within any budgetary information included in the solicitation); then rank by total evaluated price.

0. Step 4: If a competitive range is established and discussions are to be conducted, they will be IAW DoD Source Selection Procedures paragraphs 3.4 – 3.6. The Government reserves the right to eliminate offerors for the purposes of efficiency.

0. Best Value Decision IAW DoD Source Selection Procedures paragraphs 3.8 and 3.9.

2. The proposals shall be evaluated against the following factors and subfactors:

Full Trade-off procedures will be utilized with all non-cost factors (past performance and price) approximately equal and technical subfactors (including risk) of technical approach, staffing and transition being equal and evaluated on a pass/fail basis.

3. FACTOR 1- TECHNICAL ACCEPTABILITY. The government technical evaluation team will evaluate the technical proposals on a pass/fail basis, assigning ratings of Acceptable or Unacceptable, defined as follows:

Acceptable: Proposal clearly meets the minimum requirements of the solicitation Unacceptable: Proposal does not clearly meet the minimum requirements of the solicitation

The technical evaluation assesses the offeror’s demonstrated understanding and capability to satisfy the Government’s requirements. A failure in any technical subfactor will result in an unacceptable rating for the technical factor. Only those technical proposals determined to be technically acceptable, either initially or as a result of discussions, will be considered for award. The proposals shall be evaluated against the following subfactors:

Subfactor 1: Staffing/Management. This subfactor is met when the offeror presents an acceptable staffing and management approach for this effort that meets the following criteria:

a. An acceptable position descriptions and IAFNOS Labor Matrix Chart (Attachment 9).

b. An acceptable description of recruiting personnel, including employee accession, retention, and ensuring they have and maintain the training, certifications, and security clearances necessary to perform the PWS requirements by the required date.

c. An acceptable description ensuring continuity of services during personnel absences due to sickness, leave and vacancies from employment such that impact to the Government is minimal.

d. An acceptable description of managing enterprise projects to ensure standard procedures, processes, and capabilities across the 690 COG AOR. This includes coordinating the integration, deployment and employment of enterprise initiatives/projects and addressing project risk management.

e. An acceptable description of managing processes to ensure personnel maintain ability to operate existing and evolving network resources, topology, processes and procedures.

Subfactor 2: Transition Plan. This subfactor is met when the offeror provides an acceptable transition plan that identifies the parties, dates, critical actions, deliverables required and a work breakdown structure (WBS) that ensures a smooth transition and effective continuity of services between the current contracts and this effort IAW PWS requirements.

Subfactor 3: AFIN Mission Assurance Center (AMAC) Support.

This subfactor is met when the offeror demonstrates in its response to scenario 1 that it has an acceptable AMAC support approach that meets PWS sub-paragraphs 3.6 requirements that included, at a minimum, the following details:

a. An action plan that resolved the outage and addressed related core problems

b. An acceptable description of the interaction required between 690 COG mission areas

c. The steps and procedures necessary to establish and maintain acceptable performance of such network devices

Subfactor 4: Network Operations and Core Services. This subfactor is met when the offeror demonstrates an acceptable approach to the scenarios 2, 3 and 4:

Scenario 2 is met when the offeror demonstrates a proactive vs. reactive approach ensuring the four checkpoints below are enforced, allowing the DoD to evolve its anti-spillage efforts supporting network operations and core services that meets the PWS requirements.

i. Authorized user is able to access data they have rights to

ii. Authorized user is able to make changes they are authorized to make.

iii. Authorized user uses an acceptable transmission vector for data.

iv. Authorized user sends data to an approved destination.

Scenario 3 is met when the offeror demonstrated an approach that included the following:

i. A complete explanation of why the infrastructure work center is no longer able to access their devices.

ii. Description of the actions taken that resolved the problems that were preventing access.

Scenario 4 is met when the offeror demonstrated an acceptable approach that outlined the steps required to troubleshoot the three component areas where potential issues may exist with the virtual machine host.

Subfactor 5: Operations Support. This subfactor is met when the offeror demonstrates in its response to scenario 5 an acceptable action plan and/or approach to operations support that meets the PWS sub-paragraphs 3.5 requirements including an adequate explanation for the inconsistent changes and procedures to avoid the inconsistencies.

4. FACTOR 2 -- PAST PERFORMANCE INFORMATION. Past Performance evaluation assesses the degree of confidence the Government has in an offeror’s ability to perform the required services to meet users’ needs based on a demonstrated record of performance. The past performance team will assess recent and relevant performance information on all offerors.

a. EVALUATION PROCESS. In conducting the past performance evaluation, the Government reserves the right to use both the information provided in the offeror’s Past Performance proposal and information obtained from other sources, such as: the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS), Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS), Electronic Subcontract Reporting System (eSRS), or other databases; interviews with Program Managers (PM), Contracting Officers (CO), and Fee Determining Officials; Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), and commercial sources. Past Performance Information (PPI) includes all information obtained during this process.

(1) RECENCY ASSESSMENT. An assessment of the past performance information will be made to determine if it is recent. To be recent, the effort must be ongoing or must have been performed during the past three years from the date of issuance of this solicitation. On-going actions will be considered as recent so long as the effort has been performed for at least six months. Past performance information that fails this condition will not be evaluated.

(2) RELEVANCY ASSESSMENT. A relevancy determination will be made based upon the definitions below. In determining relevancy for each mission area identified, consideration will be given to the effort, or portion of the effort, being proposed by the offeror, teaming partner, or subcontractor whose contract is being reviewed and evaluated. The Government is not bound by the offeror’s opinion of relevancy.

(a) The degrees of relevancy for each past performance reference will be evaluated IAW with definitions in Attachment 3 – Relevancy matrix.

(b) PPI references will be evaluated individually for relevancy in each mission area.

(3) PERFORMANCE QUALITY ASSESSMENT.

(a) The Government will consider the performance quality of recent, relevant efforts. The performance quality of the work performed will be assessed for the recent and relevant PPI evaluated above. The Government will assign one of the following performance quality ratings to each recent and relevant referenced contracts provided as PPI:

EXCEPTIONAL (E) - During the contract period, contractor performance is meeting (or met) all contract requirements and consistently exceeding (or exceeded) many. Very few, if any, minor problems encountered. Contractor took immediate and effective corrective action.

VERY GOOD (VG) - During the contract period, contractor is meeting (or met) all contract requirements with some exceeded to the Government’s (Customer’s) benefit. The contractual performance was accomplished with few minor problems for which corrective actions taken by the contractor were effective.

SATISFACTORY (S) - During the contract period, contractor performance is meeting (or met) all contract requirements. For any problems encountered, contractor took effective corrective action.

MARGINAL (M) - During the contract period, contractor performance is not meeting (or did not meet) some contract requirements. For any problems encountered, corrective action appeared only marginally effective, not effective, or not fully implemented. Customer involvement was required.

UNSATISFACTORY (U) - During the contract period, contractor performance is failing (or failed) to meet most contract requirements. Serious problems encountered. Corrective actions were either ineffective or non-existent. Extensive Customer oversight and involvement was required.

NOT APPLICABLE (NA) - Unable to provide a rating. Contract did not include performance for this aspect. Do not know.

(b) The quality assessment may result in positive or adverse findings. Adverse is defined as past performance information that supports a less than satisfactory rating on any evaluation element or any unfavorable comment(s) received from sources without a formal rating system for which the offeror has not had a chance to respond. For adverse information identified, the evaluation will consider the number and severity of the problem(s), mitigating circumstances, and the effectiveness of corrective actions that have resulted in sustained improvements. Process changes will only be considered when objectively measurable improvements in performance have been demonstrated.

(c) PERFORMANCE CONFIDENCE ASSESSMENT.

i. As a result of the relevancy and quality assessments of the recent contracts evaluated, offerors will receive an integrated performance confidence assessment rating. In evaluating confidence, Integrated Network Operations and Security Center (I-NOSC) is the most important area, followed by Enterprise Service Unit (ESU), Operations and Mission Area Support and Air Force Information Networks(AFIN) being approximately equal and Mission Assurance Center (AMAC) being the least important. Offerors without a record of recent/relevant past performance or for whom PPI is not available or is so sparse that no meaningful confidence assessment rating can be reasonably assigned will not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance and, as a result, will receive an "Unknown Confidence" rating for the Past Performance factor.

ii. More recent and relevant performance may have a greater impact on the Performance Confidence Assessment than less recent or relevant effort. Likewise, a more relevant past performance record may receive a higher confidence rating and be considered more favorably than a less relevant record of favorable performance.

iii. Performance Confidence Assessment Rating terms as defined in DoD Source Selection Procedures, Table -5 Performance Confidence Assessments, excerpted below:

SUBSTANTIAL CONFIDENCE - Based on the offeror’s recent/relevant performance record, the Government has a high expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

SATISFACTORY CONFIDENCE - Based on the offeror’s recent/relevant performance record, the Government has a reasonable expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

LIMITED CONFIDENCE - Based on the offeror’s recent/relevant performance record, the Government has a low expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

NO CONFIDENCE - Based on the offeror’s recent/relevant performance record, the Government has no expectation that the offeror will be able to successfully perform the required effort.

UNKNOWN CONFIDENCE - No recent/relevant performance record is available or the offeror’s performance record is so sparse that no meaningful confidence assessment rating can be reasonably assigned.

5. Factor 3 PRICE EVALUATION. The Government will rank all offers by Total Evaluated Price (TEP), including all option prices. Offerors whose TEP is unreasonable (in accordance with FAR 15.404 and FAR 31.201-3), unbalanced (IAW FAR 15.404-1), or unaffordable (not within any budgetary information included in the solicitation) may not be considered for award.

a. Offerors’ price proposals will be evaluated, using one or more of the price analysis techniques defined in FAR 15.404, in order to determine fair and reasonableness. The price evaluation will document reasonableness, completeness, balance, and affordability of the proposed total evaluated price as follows:

(1) Reasonableness. Each proposal will be evaluated to determine whether the proposed prices are reasonable. For a price to be reasonable, it must represent a price to the Government that a prudent person would pay in the conduct of competitive business. Normally, price reasonableness is established through adequate price competition, but may also be determined through other price analysis techniques as described in FAR 15.404.

(2) Completeness. Each proposal will be evaluated to determine whether all pricing information required by the solicitation has been submitted

(3) Balance. In addition, prices will be reviewed for unbalanced offers IAW FAR 15.4041.

(4) Affordability. The Government will evaluate the affordability of each offeror’s price proposal by comparing the TEP to the budgetary information.

IAFNOS Budget Estimate (Includes all CLINs with the exception of the 5000 CLIN series):

Total $254.8M

(5) Apparent Mathematical Errors. The proposal will be evaluated to ensure if a discrepancy exists between the information contained on the disk and the printed copy, the printed copy will prevail.

(6) Labor Rate Listing – The Labor Rate Listing will be evaluated for completeness.

b. Downward Pricing Initiatives Processes. The proposal requirement will be met when the offeror describes processes that result in contract price reductions each year demonstrating downward pricing which shall be substantiated in their pricing proposal submissions. Offers which do not result in a reduction in price each year over the life of the contract will be ineligible for award. If the contractor’s efficiency is technical in nature, it shall be documented in the technical proposal.

c. The TEP will be derived by multiplying the estimated quantity times the unit price for the CLINs. The proposed price will be evaluated as follows:

(1) CLIN 0001: Transition Period (Firm Fixed Price (FFP)) is evaluated in the TEP.

(2) CLINs X002 – X012: Labor (FFP) are evaluated in the TEP.

(3) CLINs X013: Travel/ Other Direct Costs (ODCs) (Cost Reimbursable (CR)) with a quantity of 1. This amount is designated by the Government and is evaluated in the TEP. CLINs X013 amounts are established by the Government and shall not be altered by the offeror.

(4) CLINs X014 - DATA (Not Separately Priced (NSP)).

(5) CLINs 5002-5012 Option to Extend Services will be evaluated using existing proposed unit prices for Option Period 4. The pricing table will automatically calculate the extended CLIN price for CLINs 5002 – 5012 based on 100% of the monthly amount entered for each CLIN in Option Period 4. CLIN 5013 amounts are established by the Government and shall not be altered by the offeror. This is included in the TEP for evaluation purposes only and will be used only if an extension of services is necessary at end of established period of performance IAW FAR 52.217-8.

d. Professional Compensation Plan – This requirement is met when the offeror’s price proposal provides a total compensation plan setting forth salaries and fringe benefits proposed for the professional employees who will work under the contract IAW FAR 52.222-46 -- Evaluation of Compensation for Professional Employees (Feb 1993).