Responses to Questions.doc

July 26, 2011

Reference: Questions in Response to Solicitation FDA-SOL-11-1085941, FDA Center Submission Tracking and Reporting (CSTAR)

To: Prospective Offerors

The following questions and answers are considered to be Amendment 2 to the referenced solicitation and are addressed below:

The closing date for this solicitation remains Monday, August 8, 2011 at 10:00 am Eastern Time.

Q.1. In Section 3, Relevant Experience (Page 36 of 56) it reads: The Offeror shall provide information about three (3) project that are most similar to this effort in terms of type, scope, complexity and use. The offeror shall describe its current and past experience, identifying other organizations in which it has performed similar task, including the degree of its involvement (at least 2 out of the 3 projects the offeror must be the prime), the size of the clients’ organization, demonstrate the ability to overcome risks encountered and mitigation steps taken for these projects, and other information to describe its expertise and performance in the subject areas, highlighting the organization’s demonstrated successes.

Referring to the phrase, "at least 2 out of 3 projects the offeror must be the prime", does this mean that the 8(a) prime has to have 2 past performance references that are DIRECT prime contracts to the government? Or, can this 2 of 3 "prime" criteria be met via teaming agreements? This speaks to the definition of the term "offeror".

A1. The Offeror shall provide at least 2 projects that they were/are the prime contractor. If the Offeror received an award through the 8(a) program in accordance with FAR Subpart 19.8, Contracting with the Small Business Administration (The 8(a) Program) this will count as a prime contract. These references can either be from Federal, State, or Local Government; or Commercial.

Q.2. Does the term "offeror" mean the entire team that the 8(a) prime has assembled?

A.2 The term “offeror” means the 8(a) contractor who is submitting the proposal and performing as the prime contractor.

Q.3. In Section 3, Relevant Experience (Page 36 of 56), #12 in list, it reads: If a subcontract is being used as a past performance reference, contact information for the prime contractor, not the customer, should be included.

In a subcontracting past performance reference, does the government insist on having past performance reference from the prime? Does the use of a subcontract past performance reference from those most familiar with the work done satisfy the past performance criteria?

A.3 Page 36 of 56, item #12 is hereby deleted. If the Offeror uses a subcontract as a past performance reference, as stated in section 31, the questionnaires should be sent to the individual most knowledgeable about the offeror’s performance on the identified order or program.

Q.4. Who is the incumbent contractor for this contract?

A.4 Dynanet Corporation Q.5. Because of the large number of documents released as a part of this solicitation, would the FDA allow a two week extension to the due date?

A.5 The Government does not intend to extend the proposal deadline at this time.

Q.6. In Attachment 2, items 5 and 6 under Task 1 (Project Management Support) refer to the Project Management Plan and Management Plan respectively. These documents are also identified as separate deliverables on page 13. However, the Management Plan contents seem to match the EPLC Project Management Plan template. If these are different artifacts, please provide the template for the Management Plan (the Project Management Plan template was attached to the solicitation twice).

A.6 The Management Plan is a concatenation of the Project Management Plan with additional management components, such as Earned Value Management (EVM), Performance Metrics, and Technical Metrics. There is no separate template; it is expected that this information will be added into the EPLC Project Management Plan.

Q.7. In Attachment 9, the descriptions for the Application Engineer and Application Programmer labor categories appear to be the same. The descriptions for Principal System Architect and Senior Systems Architect are also the same. Are there any differences between these sets of labor categories other than seniority?

A.7 Aside from the seniority, the qualifications for the labor categories are the same. Please see “Attachment 3 - CSTAR Task Order 2 SOW” and “Attachment 4 - CSTAR Task Order 3 SOW” for the differences between the responsibilities of the key personnel associated with those tasks.

Q.8 Section 21.3 of the SF1449 Continuation states “The contractor shall be required to submit a physical security plan with their proposal.” but this plan is not referenced in Section 27. Can this plan be provided after contract award? If it must accompany the proposal, is it a standalone document or part of the technical proposal?

A.8 The Physical Security Plan is not required to be submitted with the Offeror’s proposal.