Q A 2.doc

Questions and Answers

FA9451-09-R-0003

1. Given the highly specific standards for key personnel and resume requirements, it would seem that a due date of December 10 would be anti-competitive and biased towards the incumbent. In order to formalize our teaming partner selection and agreements, define position descriptions and locate fully qualified candidates, etc., we are requesting that the government consider extending the due date a minimum of three additional weeks.

Response: See Amendment 1; proposal due date is 10 December 2009.

2. SCHEMA SOW B.4.1.7 on page 6 states, “The contractor shall possess, or maintain, a local office not further than 30 miles from Kirtland AFB, NM.”

a. What are the square footage requirements of the office?

b. Is the local office to be a secure/cleared facility and if so, to what level?

c. Is a SCIF part of the requirements, e.g. SIPRNET, PRP, ISO/TS, or other standards?

Response: Square footage should be adequate to accomplish the stated work. Local contractor office does not have to be a secured facility; secure facilities are provided at Kirtland AFB.

3. Section L instructions for Volume II specific content, paragraph 2(c) Management, subparagraph 2 on page L-11, Key Personnel requirements, appear to heavily favor the incumbent in that the phrase “20 or more years experience desired” is restrictive and well outside the scope of comparable positions. This is a very important detail, because the same paragraph states, “Unqualified key personnel may adversely influence the offeror's proposal.”

In our ongoing pricing determinations using industry recognized compensation surveys, as well as the development of accurate position descriptions; we rarely see a requirement for the most senior personnel in a category higher than 12-15 years of experience. One reason is that because technology in general undergoes a dramatic change every ten years or so, total experience does not necessarily translate to an accurate assessment of technical experience. Accordingly, in conjunction with a possible clarification of exactly what constitutes the disqualification of key personnel, we would ask that the government consider the following:

a. Allow the substitution of years of experience in lieu of an advanced degree.

b. Change the number of years in the requirement to “12 or more years experience desired.”

Response: See Amendment 1; key personnel with desired experience will rank higher than personnel with varying lesser degrees of experience or education.

4. Per the referenced Section L paragraph concerning key personnel: Following President Obama's Executive Order 13495, emerging Department of Labor standards require contractors to offer the right of first refusal to employees under the predecessor contract whose employment will be terminated as a result of the new service contract. In that context, why is this offering requiring resumes? Under the circumstances, please provide the incumbent staffing roster for the SatAC work currently being performed.

Response: Executive Order 13495 is applicable to service contracts as defined within the order in Section 2(a) as: "Service contract" or "contract" means any contract or subcontract for services entered into by the Federal Government or its contractors that is covered by the Service Contract Act of 1965, as amended, 41 U.S.C. 351 et seq., and its implementing regulations. The Service Contract Act of 1965 does not apply to this solicitation or resulting contract.

5. Page L-9, paragraph 1(c) states, “The Mission Capability proposal volume shall consist of individual proposals for the Basic Contract Statement of Work (SOW) and each of the Task Order Statements of Work.” Our interpretation is we will create three separate proposals, each one limited to a total of 45 pages each per “Page Limits for Volume II” (plus resumes and glossary) on page L-13. We will include all three proposals in Volume II, separated by tabs. Is that interpretation correct?

Response: Individual technical approaches are required for each SOW; combined total number of pages for all three technical proposals is 15. All documentation required by Volume II is limited to 45 pages.

6. Attachment L-1, Cross-Reference Matrix, lists all paragraphs of each Statement of Work for offerors to address. Some of those paragraphs require only a blanket statement of acknowledgement – for example, we acknowledge the core work hours stipulated in paragraph B1.4.6. Will the government allow us to make a blanket statement of acceptance of all stipulations in the SOW at the beginning of our SOW response, and reference that statement in our completion of the applicable rows in Attachment L-1?

Response: Blanket statements are not acceptable.

7. Section L instructions for Volume II specific content, paragraph 2(c) Management, subparagraph 2(a) lists requirements for key resumes. Item 2(a).vii on page L-12 stipulates a Letter of Intent to be included under certain conditions. Will the government allow an image of a signed letter of intent to be included in addition to the two-page limit for resumes, instead of as part of the two-page limit?

Response: Refer to Section L, page L-13, Volume II, paragraph 3, subparagraph 4.

8. Section L instructions for Volume II specific content, paragraph 2(c) Management, subparagraph 3 on page L-12 lists requirements for reporting Security Clearances in the proposal response, and references a spreadsheet format for reporting clearance data. Does the government anticipate a separate Excel spreadsheet for this purpose to be included with the electronic version of the proposal response, or is an embedded spreadsheet or, more likely, Word table within the Word document, an acceptable format?

Response: Embedded documents are acceptable for reporting security clearance data.

9. Questions Regarding Current Work

a. Is there an incumbent? If so, who is it, and how many FTE’s are performing SatAC or related work? Response: The incumbent is Metatech Corporation. Each offeror should develop their own approach to meeting the Government’s needs.

b. How many Senior Scientists are currently engaged in support of SatAC or related work? Response: Each offeror should develop their own approach to meeting the Government’s needs.

c. How many Senior Engineers are currently engaged in support of SatAC or related work? Response: Each offeror should develop their own approach to meeting the Government’s needs.

d. What is the highest level of contractor staff during the last two years? Response: Each offeror should develop their own approach to meeting the Government’s needs.

e. What is the current level of contractor staff for this year? Response: Each offeror should develop their own approach to meeting the Government’s needs.

f. How many Task Orders (TO) are typically worked per year, on average? Response: Number varies based on performance periods.

g. What is the average duration of a typical TO? Response: 18 to 24 months.

h. How many open TO’s are there? Response: Not applicable.

i. Will current TOs be completed before start of the SCHEMA contract, or will some carry over? Response: Current contractor will work until efforts complete.

j. By percentage, how much SCHEMA work will be performed at each:

· Kirtland AFB - Response: approx 70%

· The contractor’s site - Response: approx 25%

· Third party sites – Response: approx 5%

10. Our assumption is that all questions received concerning the AFRL SCHEMA solicitation by the Air Force (AF) will be reviewed and responded to by posting the questions and answers to FedBizOps. Is this assumption correct?

Response: Yes.

11. The solicitation does not indicate a deadline for when questions regarding the procurement are due. Will an amendment be released indicating when they are due?

Recommendation: Please consider issuing an amendment indicating the deadline for the AF receiving questions is 20 NOV 09 at 12:00 local time.

Rationale: A 20 NOV 09 due date provides adequate time for questions to be answered such that responses can be posted prior to the Thanksgiving holiday thus allowing offerors adequate time to incorporate the responses into their proposals.

Response: Please submit questions by 23 Nov 09 to allow adequate time for incorporation of responses into proposals.

12. Reference Section L, Page 10 of 17, paragraph (c) Management and Section M in the solicitation. It appears that Section L requires specific information that is not included in the Section M evaluation criteria. Specifically, Section L requires a response to “management’ functions including:

1) Organizational Structure,

2) Key Personnel,

3) Security Clearances,

4) Initial Staffing,

5) Personnel End Strength,

6) Staffing Vacancy – Filling,

7) Management Control Systems, and

8) Configuration Management.

Section M EVALUATION FACTORS indicates the “following evaluation will be used to evaluate each proposal ....”

Factor 1: Mission Capability

Subfactor 1: Technical Approach

Subfactor 2: Corporate Experience

Subfactor 3: Key Personnel

Are we to assume that the following functions specified in Section L but not in M will not be evaluated?

1) Organizational Structure,

2) This requirement is in M

3) Security Clearances,

4) Initial Staffing,

5) Personnel End Strength,

6) Staffing Vacancy – Filling,

7) Management Control Systems, and

8) Configuration Management.

If the above items are to be evaluated, where in Section M are they addressed and how do they fit in the evaluation factors specified in Section M?

Response: See Amendment 1.

13. Respectfully request an opportunity for one-on-one discussions regarding the procurement. There are several items regarding the solicitation we would like to better understand, not having a draft RFP or an opportunity for discussions prior to release of the solicitation provides a significant advantage to the incumbent contractor. Will the AF please consider conducting one-on-one discussions?

Response: One-on-one discussions will not be conducted.

14. The solicitation does not include a schedule of:

1) Procurement activities (anticipated competitive range determination, notification of contract award, and contract start), or

2) Task Order start schedules.

Recommendation: Please amend the solicitation and provide an anticipated/scheduled milestones for the procurement and the two task orders.

Rationale: This information allows contactors to provide more accurate and competitive cost proposals tailored specifically to the scheduled activities.

Response: Anticipated IDIQ contract award in May 2010; Task Order 0001 and Task Order 0002 anticipated award in May 2010.

15. The solicitation requires contractors to populate and develop databases, library information (e.g. Overarching Statement of Work (SOW) paragraphs 4.2.1.1 and 4.2.2.3; Task Order 0001 Vulnerability SOW paragraphs 2.0, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4, 3.12, 3.16, 1.18, 3.21; Task Order 0002 Space Superiority Concepts, Architecture and Operations Studies SOS paragraphs 3.2, 3.4, 3.5.1.3) and non-commercial SatAC models but does not provide offerors with a means of reviewing this information. Will the AF please make this database, library information, and the models available for review?

Response: The AF cannot make these items available for review due to the classification nature of these items. Refer to Section I, AFMCFARS 5352.245-9004 for list of software products to be used.

16. The Key Personnel requirements, listed in Section L, appear to heavily favor the incumbent. For example, as a small business in the community we have no one on our current payroll with more than 20 years experience in such specific technical fields as narrowly defined in the RFP. Since the qualification of the key personnel is one of the primary decision factors for award, we believe that any incumbent who may have had employees working on the contract for many years has a decided advantage over a small business who hopes to participate in the contract.

In addition, it is noted that most of the incumbents will transition to the successful offeror. If we are successful in the competition, we are convinced that we would be able to retain the technical talent that has been supporting the effort. Therefore, we believe that requiring resumes with this much extensive on- the- job experience serves little purpose but to unduly restrict the ability of a non-incumbent to fairly compete for the services under the solicitation.

We are asking that the education and specific experience requirements be modified to allow more non-incumbent providers to be given a fair opportunity to compete for this work.

Response: Refer to Amendment 1.

17. Because we, a small business, have been given a chance to participate on a very good team, we are also asking that the due date for the proposal be extended by approximately one month in order that we may locate fully qualified personnel, develop our cost and pricing strategy and prepare our sections of the proposal.

Response: Refer to Amendment 1 and question #1.

18. We request clarification in regards to Section L, PRS-001, paragraph 4.0 states that “A written proposal will be required for the overarching SOW and each Task Order SOW.” Is it correct to assume that these proposals are to be contained within a single Volume II, Mission Capability, with the format and page limitation of the “Volume II, Mission Capability Proposal” defined in the Section L instructions (approximately 45 pages + those uncounted)(i.e., not a separate Volume II for each of the three SOWs)?

Response: All proposals are to be in a single Volume II Mission Capability submittal. Refer to question # 5 for page limitations.

19. Reference Solicitation Section L, page L-9, Volume II – Mission Capability Proposal. Our assumption is that the requirement for the Technical Approach is to provide a separate proposal for the 1) Overarching SOW, 2) Task Order 0001, and Task Order 0002 and that each of these proposals is limited to 15 pages and must contain the information specified in the solicitation. The rational for the assumption is based on:

a. In Section L, the title of Volume II is Mission Capability Proposal (singular)

b. Within the Section L requirements for this volume, Section 1(c ) indicates The Mission Capability proposal volume shall consist of individual proposals (plural) for the Basic Contract Statement of Work (SOW) and for each of the Task Order Statements of Work identified below:”

Is the assumption that offerors are limited to 15 pages to address each SOW for a total of 45 pages a correct assumption?

Response: No; refer to question #5 and question #18.

20. It isn’t clear what the SCHEMA contractor’s responsibilities specific to hardware and software procurement, operations and maintenance and other support will be. This is critical information to accurately provide the data required for HARDWARE DELIVERABLES, CLIN 0004. It isn’t clear if there are other contracts that support the AFRL (e.g. desktop support, procurement, information assurance, certification and accreditation). Please clarify.

Response: Refer to Task Order 0001 SOW, Paragraph 3.8, as an example.

21. Reference Solicitation Section B. The solicitation does not indicate the contract overall period of performance nor does it indicate if it is for one continuous period or if there is a base period with option years.

Recommendation: Amend Section B to reflect the contract period of performance including option years with start/stop dates for each period of performance.

Rationale: This approach provides for the AF to more accurately assess contractors’ approach to pricing including escalation.

Response: Refer to CLINs 0001 and 0002 and to Section I, FAR 52.216-18

22. In Section L, L035 – Instructions for Recommended Summary Format, subparagraph (c), it indicates that Offeror shall provide supporting documentation by Government Fiscal Year, and that direct labor hours, with their applicable rates must be broken out by Government Fiscal Year. In Section L, PRS-L001 Instructions to Offerors, Volume III – Task Order Cost Proposals, subparagraph 2.b. Indirect Cost Rates and/or Factors, and in Table 1 – Cost Element Summary, it indicates pricing on an Offeror Fiscal Year basis.

Should Offerors price this effort on a Government Fiscal Year (GFY) basis, or on Offeror’s Fiscal Year (OFY) basis?

Response: See Amendment 1; offerors should price everything by OFY.

23. We assume that pricing is required only for the two sample Task Orders, and pricing is not required for the overall Contract CLINS 0001, 0002, 0003, and 0004. Since the overall Contract is Indefinite Quantity it is unknown what the anticipated Tasking would be in order to accurately price the contract at the overall CLIN Level. Is this a correct assumption?”

Response: Only Task Order pricing is required.

24. Section L, Volume II – Mission Capability Proposal, paragraph 2(c) Management, subparagraph 2, Key Personnel requirements, page L-11

The specific standards for key personnel and associated resume requirements seem to favor the incumbent. The December 10 due date does not allow for the proper amount of time to locate fully qualified candidates and complete teaming agreements. We request that the government extend the due date to facilitate competitive bidding.

Response: Refer to Amendment 1 and question #1

25. Section L, Volume II – Mission Capability Proposal, paragraph 2(c) Management, subparagraph 2, Key Personnel requirements, page L-11

The requirement for “20 or more years experience desired” seems to heavily favor the incumbent contractor or specific personnel thereby restricting competition. Similar procurements have the requirement for the most senior personnel in a category at the 10-15 years of experience range. We ask that the government consider allowing the substitution of years of experience with an advanced degree and change the number of years in the requirement to read “10 or more years experience desired.”

Response: See question #3

26. Section L, Volume II – Mission Capability Proposal, paragraph 2(c) Management, subparagraph 2, Key Personnel requirements, page L-11

This paragraph states, “Unqualified key personnel may adversely influence the offeror's proposal.” With changing technology, total experience does not necessarily translate to an accurate assessment of technical experience. With the possible clarification on required years of experience, what comprises the disqualification of key personnel?

Response: Refer to question #3

27. I would like to confirm that the response date is now 27 Nov (release date plus 15 calendar days) since the response date in the general information panel indicates 4/7/09.

Response: Refer to RFP, Standard Form 33, Block 9

28. When can we submit/submit by date for our Statement of Capabilities for the SCHEMA program?

Response: Sources Sought Synopsis was posted to FedBizOpps on 23 March 2009 with Statement of Capabilities due by 7 April 2009. This action is closed.

29. We are unable to prepare a responsive proposal due to the contradictions between the Section L instructions and government Attachment L-1, Cross Reference Matrix, as well as statements within the Section L instructions. First, our interpretation of the government requirement for three separate proposals is contradicted by the layout of Attachment L-1, which blends the IDIQ and Task Order SOWs and therefore stipulates a blended technical response. Also, within the RFP only paragraph Vol II-2.a.1 on page L-10 suggests separate technical responses (15-page limit each) regarding the basic IDIQ SOW and each TO SOW. Whether the remaining Section L paragraphs are to be addressed in separate or combined sections is unclear. For example, should “Corporate Experience” be comprised of one 10-page section listing all experience relating to the overall SCHEMA contract requirements, or three 10-page sections listing both overarching and task order-specific experience, which indicates some obvious overlap between the three versions? Note, Section M lists evaluation Subfactor 2 on page M-3 as Corporate Experience, which will be “rated on how closely it relates to the efforts required to achieve the IDIQ SOW and each task order.” That statement appears to be immediately contradicted by the next sentence: “This subfactor will be evaluated only on the IDIQ SOW overall approach.”

We are asking the government to clarify not only whether the expected response is for three individual proposals, but to provide updated instructions regarding expected sections and page counts within each proposal relative to the discrepancies listed in the above clarification.

A final minor item is that the Section L page numbers provided in Attachment L-1 are incorrect. However, that discrepancy is not preventing us from producing our response.

Response: Refer to question #5 for clarification of technical proposal requirements. See Amendment 1 for Section M. See Amendment 1, Attachment L-1(Revision 1).