Attachment 3 SECTION M_EVALUATION FACTORS FOR AWARD.pdf

EVALUATION CRITERIA

(a) Basis for Award

The Government will award a contract to the responsible quoter whose quote, conforming to the solicitation, is determined to be the most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered (best value).

(b) Evaluation Process

The evaluation will be conducted in two steps.

Step 1 – Evaluation of Technical Capability (Pass/Fail)

The Government will first evaluate each quote's Technical Capability (Go/No-Go) requirements listed in Section L. A quote will receive a "Pass" for meeting or exceeding all requirements stated in the Technical Capability (Go/No-Go) Requirement and move into Step 2 – Best Value Evaluation. A quote will receive a “Fail” for not meeting one or more of the requirements stated in the Technical Capability (Go/No-Go) and will not move onto Step 2 – Best Value Evaluation.

Step 2 – Best Value Evaluation

Only quotes that receive a "Pass" rating in Step 1 will be further evaluated. To determine the best value, the Government will perform a comparative analysis of the “Pass” rating quotes against one another. This tradeoff process will assess the relative strengths, weaknesses, and risks of each quote to determine which is the most advantageous to the Government.

The following factors will be used in this analysis, listed in descending order of importance:

1. Factor 1: Technical Approach

2. Factor 2: Past Performance

3. Factor 3: Price

Factors 1 and 2, when combined, are significantly more important than Price.

• Factor 1 (Technical Approach): The Government will evaluate the degree to which the quoter’s proposed technical approach provides value and benefit to the Government. The evaluation will focus on the quality and thoroughness of the quoter's approach to system reliability/redundancy, network performance, support/administration, data center location, and implementation, as described in Section L. Quotes demonstrating a superior technical approach that significantly reduces performance risk or enhances capability, such as by providing access to equivalent or superior GPUs than the ones outlined in Section L, will receive a higher rating.

• Factor 2 (Past Performance): The Government will evaluate the relevance and quality of the quoter’s recent past performance on similar contracts. The Government may contact the references provided and may also use other sources of information.

• Factor 3 (Price): The total evaluated price will be calculated based on the Government’s estimated usage of 50 GPUs operating 24/7 for the full 10-month term (base plus option).

The price will be evaluated for fairness and reasonableness.

The Government reserves the right to award to a quoter with a higher-rated technical quote and a higher price if the Government determines that the technical superiority provides a benefit that is worth the additional cost. The Government may award without discussions.