Q_ _A_Pre_Proposal_Conference_Agenda_(NM).pdf

PRE-PROPOSAL CONFERENCE AGENDA

Multiple Award IDIQ Construction & Repair/Alterations

For the State of New Mexico GSA, PBS, Greater Southwest Region 7

Solicitation GS-07P-13-HH-D-0027 Tuesday – September 24, 2013, 1:00 PM CST

The new deadline for questions is October 25, 2013. Please send your questions to

Isaac.Karto@gsa.gov. The deadline for proposals is extended to November 7, 2013.

Minutes of the meeting are in red by the corresponding agenda item: Meeting was conducted by Isaac Karto, Contract Specialist, with assistance from, Zach Rich, Contracting Officer and Santos Castillo, GSA General Engineer/Project Manager.

1. Greetings and Introductions: The main purpose of the meeting is to offer you all an opportunity to ask questions or request clarifications. I will go over the main points on the solicitation package, give some pointers on how to prepare your proposals. There will still be an opportunity to submit questions in writing, but this is another chance to clarify any questions on the solicitation package. This is a set-aside for Small Business. There are instructions in the Solicitation package on partnering agreements, if someone wants to partner with a Small Business.

A. No oral statements made shall change the solicitation – all changes will be documented in a written amendment posted to Fed Biz Opps (FBO).

B. Sign in

1) In person attendees must sign the sign-in sheet. This will be posted in the FBO along with the amendment. See end of this document for copies of the sign-in sheet.

2) Other attendees must email their contact info. (name, organization, phone number, solicitation number, and email) to Isaac.karto@gsa.gov

C. Minutes and questions & answers will be issued in an amendment to the solicitation.

D. Submit all questions in writing to the Contract Specialist (Isaac.Karto@gsa.gov), whose information is on the FBO.

2. Solicitation Package Review

A. Period of Performance and deadlines for questions / proposals (cover page). This is a multiple award Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity contract for general construction, repair and alterations, with one base year and four (4) one year options. So if all options are exercised this will be a five (5) year contract. The deadline for questions is

October 25, 2013. Please send your questions to Isaac Karto. The deadline for proposals is November 7, 2013. There are a lot of detail instructions on the solicitation on how to submit your proposals, please read those carefully, but we’ll be going over those today as well. Proposals should be submitted as hard copies. The only thing that we need submitted electronically is the Line Item pricing. This needs to be submitted as an Excel spreadsheet on a flash/jump drive that we can put into our computer and download.

There is a copy of the spreadsheet in the FBO with the solicitation.

B. Initial for amendments (SF 1442 pg. 2). Make sure you initial and date acknowledgment of amendments for this solicitation on the second page of the SF 1442.

Also need to sign the front page of the SF 1442 and send it back with the proposal.

C. Line Items and Other than Normal Working Hours (OTNWH) factor (Pricing Form).

The Line items prices should be fully loaded prices. The only thing that should not be included in those prices is bonding. Bonding will be a separate line item price that you will include at the task order level. The line item prices should include profit, overhead, and any other fees you will incur. The line items are for work to be performed during normal working hours.

Really look at the line items that you are going through because there are a lot that are add-ons to other line items that are there, so make sure you read and understand what that line item is. For example: a cutaway in a door - you are not supplying the door, you are just supplying the cutaway. Really read the line item and make sure you understand what the line item is asking for. The last line item price is a factor for other than normal working hours (not overtime but shift). The factor is for instances when we ask you to do work outside the normal working hours.

What factor do we need to apply to the line items for such work so that we cover for any additional costs?

This should be completed as a percentage factor. Please make sure the prices you submit are clear, there are no typos, added zeros, and make sure that the hard copy you give us matches the Excel electronic spreadsheet you submit.

D. Description of services to be provided (I.A. – COR). This is a construction IDIQ. The majority of what the contract will cover is R&A (repairs and alterations), carpet, paint, build out, gypsum, electrical, a little bit of mechanical (not a whole lot), the majority of the items are things that when you walk into a room, if you see it, touch it, then it’s what will be involved. There is a small portion of case work. That is what is on the line items. The sample hypothetical scope of work that is included will give you a good indication of the type of work that is typical under this contract.

E. MOL and base year minimum guarantee (I.A.). The maximum order limitation (MOL) will be $2 Million per each contract per year, we anticipate making up to 5 awards, but we reserve the right to make fewer than that, but our optimum would be 3, but we could go up to 5. Task order limitation is $500,000. Minimum guarantee is $2,000 for the base year only. So if during the base year you don’t receive a task order, you are guaranteed the $2,000. We are hoping to use all our IDIQ contractors.

F. List of documents included with solicitation (I.B.). There is a list of documents that were included in the solicitation, there is a section (V.D.) for representations and certifications (reps and certs) that you need to fill out. The Standard Form (SF) 1442 that’s the one we discussed earlier regarding signatures. The Agreement and the solicitation package will become your contract. The hypothetical scope of work will be discussed in detail later, but you are required to give us a quote for this hypothetical project. The technical specifications is a separate attachment in FedBizOpps, it gives more details about the line items. The line items and the pricing form were discussed earlier.

G. Proposal Contents (II.A.). The section on proposal contents gives you a lot of details on what we are looking for in your proposal. Proposals should be in two volumes: price proposal and technical proposal. Price proposal will be your SF 1442, the line item prices, your pricing for the hypothetical project, reps and certs; and if you are going to be proposing as joint venture, all the information that needs to be submitted is described in this section. Again, two volumes in hard copy and the line item pricing in Excel on a flash drive.

H. Technical Proposal / non-price Evaluation Factors (II.D.). The technical proposal factors and what you need to address: management plan, experience, past performance, quality and accuracy of hypothetical proposal, qualifications and experience of key personnel and evidence of local office. These are listed in order of importance.

EXPERIENCE: Provide samples of five projects successfully completed in the past five years, and within this zone, or within a 50-mile radius of this zone.

PAST PERFORMANCE: List five (5) construction projects that your firm has successfully completed over the last 5 years from the date of issuance of this solicitation, and within this zone, or within a 50-mile radius of this zone. All 5 projects must, at a minimum, contain these items listed.

I. Minimum and Maximum order limitations (V.B. page 23). Minimum order you may receive is $2,000. There may be jobs below that which will be sent to you, you may or may not accept those; however, we need to be notified of refusal in a timely manner. Most of the task orders will be between $2,000 and $500,000.

J. TO Procedures (V.B.). Task orders will be signed by a Contracting Officer; do not take directions to proceed with work from the Contracting Officer Representative (COR) without a written and signed task order or modification. Anything over $150,000 will have to be competed among the awardees in the zone. If task order is below $150,000 and at least 85% line item work, we will look at your line item prices for those included in the order, and the order will be awarded to whoever has the lowest line item price for the 85% of the work. Anything below $150,000 and less than 85% line item work will be competed among the awardees for the zone.

K. Carpet only TOs (V.B.). The Services Contract Act was included in this solicitation to have the ability to issue task orders for carpet only. These orders will be competed among the awardees of the zone regardless of the dollar value. Even though this is a rare occurrence, we wanted to have the ability to issue these orders if the need arises. These are not line items so you don’t have to quote those out front.

Question: when you say carpet only, is that furnished and installed? Yes, it is furnished and installed and probably removing the old, it will be a turnkey type of project. These will be by competition only. A request for quote will be sent to all the IDIQ holders in the zone.

What we did here was to include the Service Contract Act because it’s technically a service if you are doing carpet only task orders. In the past, we have been precluded from using our construction IDIQs because we didn’t have the Service Contract Act included in those contracts. When we send you the RFQ, you have the option not to quote on these task orders.

L. Security Requirements (V.B.). We are expecting the awardees’ key personnel appointed to these contracts to obtain and retain security clearances for the duration of the contract. If employees leave contractor’s employment, the CO should be notified immediately and security badges for those employees need to be returned to the CO.

M. Method of Award – Discussions (VI.A.). This section breaks down the importance of the technical factors for evaluation purposes. The non-price factors when combined are significantly more important than price. We intend to evaluate proposals and make awards without discussions, so make sure you give us your best prices and technical proposals up front; but we do reserve the right, as always, to negotiate if we decide we need to; and go back to those firms highly rated to negotiate and discuss.

N. Unbalanced Pricing (VI.D.). We are going to evaluate the overall, total price; but we are also going to look at each line item price. If they are unbalanced we can’t make an award; so make sure you are not trying to price some things higher and/or lower in order to make your overall price a set number. Your prices need to be balanced, they need to make sense, and they need to be reasonable.

O. Hypothetical SOW – will be evaluated for both price and technical. Make sure you review the hypothetical statement of work; this is a template of what a RFQ, if you’re an awardee, might look like. So we are going to use this as part of the technical and part of the pricing evaluations to see how you would do in that case. So if you have any questions or need any clarification, please don’t hesitate to ask. We are looking for your ability to read the scope and give us a quote; so if there is anything that we need to clarify by all means let us know. See the Bid Summary for how the quote has to be submitted (by divisions).

P. Waste Diversion (on Bid Summary for Hypothetical SOW). An estimate for the waste diversion factor (last line on the bid summary for the hypothetical) needs to be submitted. As part of GSA’s Sustainability initiative, GSA wants to partner with our contractors to combine our efforts to recycle, divert and re-use as much as possible.

This requirement to track materials that have been recycled, diverted and re-used will be included in the base IDIQs as well as at the task order level (whether line item or lump sum). This waste diversion should be cost neutral to both the contractor and

GSA. In the hypothetical, based on your experience, estimate what can be recycled, diverted or re-used; and how you would go about doing this.

Q. Historical workload distribution map. The map is for informational purposes only.

This is from historical data, the darker the green; the more dollars were spent in that area. Another reason we supplied this is because we are not going to allow a charge or fee for mobilization; so if you get a line item task order anywhere within the zone, we expect you to perform for the line item prices. Outside the line items and over

$150,000, you will be providing a quote, so you could in fact add your costs as you normally would.

R. List of Parishes included in this zone and the wage rates in the state.

S. Biobased Products (52.223-2). Green requirements are getting bigger and more important, so please be sure you are aware of this one.

3. Tips for preparing a proposal

A. Read the entire solicitation and amendments. Acknowledge the amendments on your

SF 1442.

B. Do not hesitate to ask questions. The new deadline for questions is October 25, 2013.

C. Ensure your proposal contains all items requested in the solicitation, and fully addresses the submittal requirements for each evaluation factor.

D. Never assume we know about your company or your performance.

Questions & Answers

1) Please clarify whether the electronic version of the pricing spreadsheet should be submitted on a CD (as noted on page 2 of Amendment 1) or if it should be submitted on a “pin drive” as described on page 15 of the pdf. As a corollary, if the government desires a “pin drive” please clarify whether that is equivalent to a USB Flash Drive.

The pricing spreadsheet should be submitted on a USB flash/jump drive.

2) Please clarify what is required to prove a “bona fide” office location within the “zone.” As this is not an 8(a) procurement, offerors may not be participants in the 8(a) program and may not have had to have their office locations reviewed and determined to be “bona fide” by the SBA. The SBA holds that the best evidence of regular maintenance of an office location is documentation that third parties routinely transact business with an 8(a) participant at the office location. What sort of documentation does the government require for this solicitation?

For the purposes of this solicitation, an office based out of a private residence or out of office space assigned under a separate contract (i.e. Government furnished office space) is not considered to be a bona fide office. To achieve a satisfactory or higher rating in this factor you must submit evidence of an office in the zone or within a 50-mile radius of the zone. If your firm’s main address in SAM is not located within the zone, or within a 50-mile radius of the zone but you do have a “bona fide office” within that area, please give the address and a brief description of the office (i.e. size, purpose, number of employees at location, months / years at that location, etc.).

3) Please clarify whether the term “zone” when used in conjunction with the term “bona fide office” refers to the boundaries of GSA Region 7 or the state of New Mexico.

The term “zone” in this solicitation refers the entire State of New Mexico.

4: The description of some of the line items, for example, the areas regarding the demo - the line item is very clear that it is a combined labor and material figure that you are looking for but when you flip over, some of the other items, for example, electrical fixtures, plumbing fixtures, the way the line is written, it reads to me like you are asking for material only. Am I understanding what you just said – that every single line item on these sheets is supposed to be total material labor profit overhead?

Line items under “DIV 1- General Conditions” (the first 11 line items) should include labor, profit and overhead. The remaining line items should include labor, materials (if applicable), profit and overhead.

5: So where it says “fixture, sink, kitchen style, stainless steel single bowl priced per each,” you are asking for that item installed?

Correct, the line item should include price for installation.

6: So that would include the plumbing underneath, the trap, everything that needs to go with it to be properly installed including all the labor and the miscellaneous, etc?

Yes, that is correct.

What is the response time for starting work? The response time to begin performance will be on a task order by task order basis. If the contractor is not going to accept a task order, it is required to notify the task order Contracting Officer within 3 days of receipt of the order.

7: In emergency situations, what is the response time? In such situations, the contracting officer may give a verbal notice to proceed for the contractor to act accordingly. The main purpose of these contracts is not emergency contractor support. We have O&M contracts in place which more appropriately serve this purpose. The main purpose of these IDIQs is to provide a means to accomplish non-emergency, general construction, and alteration services via individual Task Orders (TO). Each TO will have a period of performance

(POP) and the contractor is encouraged to provide feedback on that schedule / POP prior to award of a TO.

8: If we are an Albuquerque-based contractor, do you want our line items to reflect our cost if we are doing a job in Las Cruces, which includes the travel and the lodging of getting our key people there? Do you want to see that as opposed to giving the task order for Las Cruces to a firm located in Las Cruces or nearby in El Paso?

We are not going to have separate line item pricing for different areas within the zone.

Contractors are to provide prices for the entire state of New Mexico. There will not be different line items pricing for contractors in Las Cruces and Albuquerque.

9: Since you are asking for one original and 3 copies of the proposals, do you want 3 flash drives too? No, only one flash drive is required and the only thing we want on the flash drive is the Excel spreadsheet with your line item pricing.

10: Explain the requirements for factor 5, qualifications and experience of key personnel.

You are to submit evidence of experience on 3 projects for each person considered key personnel for this contract (a project may count as experience for multiple key personnel if they each played a key role). You may use the same projects being submitted under experience and past performance as long as the key personnel played a role in those projects. Also, your key personnel may have gained experience while employed in other firms outside the zone, those sample projects are allowed for submission under this factor.

11: How heavily does the key personnel experience relate to the general past performance? The technical factors are listed in order of importance. Also, reference section VI.A Evaluation of Offers, in the solicitation for further explanation of the importance of each technical factor.

12: If we have a teaming agreement, can we use our partner’s experience and their office to satisfy evidence of local office? Yes. You must provide the appropriate evidence and an explanation of that teaming agreement with your proposal.

13: How would you validate the evidence of local office and how long do we have to be in business at that office? For the purposes of this solicitation, an office based out of a private residence or out of office space assigned under a separate contract (i.e.

Government furnished office space) is not considered to be a bona fide office. To achieve a satisfactory or higher rating in this factor you must submit evidence of an office in the zone or within a 50-mile radius of the zone. If your firm’s main address in SAM is not located within the zone, or within a 50-mile radius of the zone but you do have a “bona fide office” within that area, please give the address and a brief description of the office (i.e.

size, purpose, number of employees at location, months / years at that location, etc).

14: How long do we need to hold our prices? Prices should be good for 120 days after receipt of proposals. This will be corrected on the SF1442.

15: Is waste diversion mandatory in this contract? Right now, we only have two companies that will do reclamation, in most cases; it costs the contractor money to do recycling. We will ask you to give us your best effort in recycling, donating, reclaiming and or diverting as much material from our landfills as possible. Reporting any diversion that takes place is a requirement for the hypothetical SOW in this solicitation, and will be a requirement at the Task

Order level. This reporting should be for items that are already diverted (i.e. Copper), and/or can start being diverted at no cost to the contractor or GSA (we encourage that if at all possible).

16. Will a dedicated superintendent be required on each project? ? A point of contact will need to be on site for each project. A superintendent can have multiple projects assigned to them.

17. Will the project manager for each task order be required on site full time? A point of contact will need to be on site for each project.

18. On page 18, the solicitation requires a submittal log for the hypothetical proposal submission requirement. What is the submittal log? Please refer to Hypothetical SOW, submittal requirements are listed.

19. On page 19, the solicitation asks offerors to identify at least three projects for past performance that we completed “within this zone or within a 50-mile radius of this zone.” What is the definition of “the zone”? Please see the answer to number 3.

20. On page 20, the solicitation asks offerors to identify key personnel, including an on-site superintendent and a construction supervisor. What is the difference between an on-site superintendent and a construction supervisor? They may be one and the same in your proposal.

21. On page 20, the solicitation asks offerors to identify key personnel, including inspection and testing agents. What type of testing do you anticipate being performed under the contract? Please refer to specs on testing requirements.

22. What is IDP? We think it's "Intrusion Detection & Prevention," but want to be sure. The acronym “IDP” was removed and replaced in the latest solicitation.

23. Does "cabling" mean data cable or does it mean any type of electrical/electronic cabling?

Cabling may be any electrical/electronic cabling.

24. Do we have to submit a name for every job listed? [Project Manager/Coordinator, On-Site Superintendent, Construction Supervisor and Inspection & Testing Agent] Yes intent is to determine the level of experience of each person mentioned.

25. If so, do they have to be a different person for each job or can we submit the same person for multiple jobs? The same person can be listed for multiple jobs.

26. How many projects do we submit for this section? The language is confusing. It reads like we submit three projects and the Key Personnel must be listed on all three. ["List 3 similar projects on which key personnel have successfully completed in the last 5 years from the date of issuance of this solicitation. All 3 projects must be submitted in the format listed below (each key personnel member must be listed on at least 3 projects, one project can reference multiple members of the key personnel.")] Each key person should have at least 3 projects they worked on that meets standard. The projects may have multiple individuals from your firm that worked on them, but all Key Personnel don’t have to be listed on all three projects.

27. In the Experience section, we're asked for "5 projects successfully completed" and in the

Past Performance section, we're asked to "List 5 construction projects that your firm has successfully completed." Do they have to be the same projects in both sections, or can we list

5 different projects in each section? They can be the same projects or different projects, as long as they meet the requirements under each factor.

28. Is there a reason that the Past Performance asks for "construction" projects versus just

"projects" in the Experience section? This contract is for general construction; therefore, we want past performance on construction projects.