Industry Day Transcript - TABSS.pdf

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00:01 - 00:28 [Background Noise]

00:29 - 01:06 [Linda Dearing, Chief of Contracting Office (Acting) - U.S. Coast Guard]

[Slide 4 - OPENING REMARKS, 00:29 - 01:06] Good morning... as Tanya said, I'm Linda Dearing from the Office of Contract Operations at Headquarters at U.S. Coast Guard. Our office is responsible for the award of this contract. I'd like to welcome you all this morning. We appreciate your participation in this and we're appreciative that you are interested in this procurement. We have a lot to cover today and we have a very short window to do that, so I am going to turn it over to Mike Smith, who is the Director of Strategic Sourcing at DHS Headquarters.

01:07 - 01:25 [Background Noise and Whispers]

01:16 - 06:37 [Michael B. Smith, Director - OCPO, OSS, Strategic Sourcing Program Office]

[Slide 5 - DHS VISION FOR TABSS, 01:16 - 02:16] First of all, I'd like to echo Linda's welcome. I am so glad to see so many folks are here. Again, my name is Mike Smith and I am the Director of DHS Strategic Sourcing. I wanted to just try to dispel a couple of rumors that I’ve heard out there in the industry and encourage you to ask questions if you hear rumors or if you have something you don't understand... I highly encourage you to ask questions about that. The first rumor I wanted to dispel is that I want to assure you that this is a DHS-wide acquisition. The Department of Homeland Security, its headquarters, and all of its components will be utilizing this TABSS vehicle.

[Slide 6 - DHS Vision for TABSS, 02:17 - 04:39] TABSS was designed primarily to replace several U.S. Coast Guard contracts but it was also designed to replace three department-wide BPAs that have been highly utilized throughout the Department. Those three BPAs align very well with the three domains areas as Program Management Support, Financial Support, and Acquisition Support. So over the course of those BPAs that you may be familiar with, they expire in May, June timeframe of 2011. We had to find a mechanism to continue those services on. So this TABSS vehicle was designed both in intent and in design to accommodate that as well.

There, let me see... There are also some questions regarding the TABSS relationship to the PACTS vehicle. We see TABSS as being specialized services that would be utilized in conjunction with conducting acquisitions throughout the Department. There should be minimal overlap with TABSS and PACTS. If it’s a small business set-aside, it would behoove the components to look at those vehicles and see if those vehicles meet their opportunities. But by the same token, the TABSS vehicle provides, [tongue tied]... excuse me - it’s easy for me to say - [chuckle] - provides significant small business opportunities as well both in areas of 8(a) and Service-Disabled Veteran-owned businesses.

The next rumor... is that and this one is true. We have looked at the financial management arena. And there are some thoughts on limiting the scope within that arena. That financial management as we see it for TABSS is primarily focused on acquisition support. Those financial requirements were designed in implementing an acquisition. So the CFO type functions that may have been fulfilled through the existing financial management BPA we'll have to develop another vehicle to meet those types of requirements.

More on that later, we won't be discussing that here today.

[Slide 7 - Chief Procurement Office Organization Buying Activities in DHS, 04:42 - 05:20] Just as an overview, I don't know how familiar everybody is with the Department of Homeland Security, but just quickly we wanted to emphasize that the yellow tabs along the bottom there, I don't know how well you can see that from your seat, are all the different components with buying activities that would be eligible for utilizing this particular contract. My organization, the Office of Strategic Sourcing, sits within the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer and we're responsible for coordinating and directing the Department-wide contracting efforts but from a planning perspective primarily.

[Slide 8 - Contract/TO Management, 05:33 - 06:37] O.k., the other item, I wanted to discuss with you is that...This is a centrally managed, decentrally executed contract. Each component would be responsible for conducting their own task order competitions within this vehicle after award. They will also have their own contracting officer for that task order. They will have their own COTRs for those task orders. They'll implement their own invoicing processes. They'll handle their own items from invoicing to any of those issues that come up within the execution of the task order. Those issues will be handled by that task order contracting officer or that task order contracting officer's technical representative. At the contract level, the U.S. Coast Guard is the Executive Agent and will be handling the contract level activities, not the task order level activities.

At this point, I am going to turn it over to Wendy Chaves... She is going to discuss the TABSS vision from a technical perspective.

06:38 - 06:45 [Background Noise and Whispers]

06:46 - 11:02 [Wendy Chaves, TABSS Project Manager]

[Slide 9 - USCG VISION FOR TABSS, 06:46 - 06:55] Hi, I am Wendy Chaves, I am the PM [Project Manager] for this solicitation and I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about how we're going to implement this vehicle in the Coast Guard.

"Next Slide Please" - [Slide 10 - USCG Program Perspective - Part 1, 06:56 - 07:48] The Statement of Work was intentionally written very broad. We needed to cover all of our current and future acquisition services needs. If you, for example, are performing acquisition related services now and you don't feel they are covered by the Statement of Work the way it is written, we'd definitely like to hear about that. One thing it’s not intended to cover, and Mike mentioned this in his remarks, is we have in our Assistant Commandant Resources Office a number of BPAs doing financial services. This vehicle is not intended to replace those vehicles and what are traditional CFO functions are primarily in domain two - those will be acquisition related services only.

"Next Slide Please" - [Slide 11 - USCG Program Perspective - Part 2, 07:49 - 09:13] O.k. we intend to implement this vehicle in a strategic fashion. Right now we've got a number of task orders that are yet one man-year here, two-man years there, and we'd like to combine requirements where it makes sense. The goal is to reduce the workload. The more task orders we have, the more invoices we have, the more COTRs we have. It’s a big effort not just for us, but for industry every time we need to recompete a one man-year task. We are trying to get away from that. Any of the incumbent work, as it comes up for recompete or options, that’s the time we're going to look at rolling it into this vehicle.

We're not going to do a transition all at one time. We don't have the resources to do that. One of the benefits we also see out of this vehicle is contract level reporting and reviews. Right now our task orders are awarded individually and there is no central reporting and we would like to improve that and get higher visibility and accountability into where our money is going and what we are buying and how much it costs.

"So Next Slide Please" [Slide 12 - USCG Program Perspective: USCG Acquisition Directorate, 09:14 - 10:25] Another eye chart for you. This is the Acquisition Directorate, just to give you an idea of who the primary users of the different domains will be. Domain 3 contracts will be over on the left side of the screen here [walking] [pointing] right here – will be the primary user of Domain 3. Domain 2, which is the Business, Financial Management Services, those will primarily be used by CG-928 in the center of the screen.

Now it’s not to say that they are the only users but those will be the primary customers of those domains.

Domain 1, which is the largest, the rest of CG-92 and 93 will probably be the users for that domain. In the red boxes, you'll notice that we do have some relationships with our technical authorities and our sponsor.

And we do have a few acquisition related tasks that are in those offices that would also be covered by this vehicle.

"So Next Slide Please" [Slide 13 - USCG Program Perspective: More Information, 10:26 - 11:02] For those of you who are not that familiar with our Coast Guard acquisitions, including the systems, the assets that we are buying, and the type of work that we are doing, I'd like to refer you to our website.

There is a lot of information on there. There are fact sheets on all of our programs and I would highly encourage you to look at the information on our website.

So that's all I was going to cover this morning. Tony Bell is going to talk to you about the small business perspective. I'll turn it over to him.

11:03 - 11:11 [Background Noise and Walking]

11:12 - 14:56 [Tony Bell for Kevin Boshears, Director DHS Office of Small Disadvantage Business Utilization]

[Slide 14 - SMALL BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE, 11:12 - 11:33] Thank you Wendy. As you know, that I am not Kevin Boshears. I am Tony Bell. I just [laughter] play Kevin from time to time. [laughter]. I am not going to be before you long. I am going to be very short. As a matter of fact, it’s going to be my version of the three b's, be brief, be clear. Some may think that’s an oxymoron, but really I will be gone.

" Next Slide" [Slide 15 - OSDBU Perspective - Part 1, 11:34 - 12:49] O.k., here we go. In continuing with our mission and dedication to the small business community, what we are doing here on TABSS is no exception. As you can see, we are having small business set-asides in these categories that you see. The 8(a), Service-Disabled Veteran, and the Small Business, and in terms for business who are not able to prime or not in position to prime, we are looking at having a very robust and meaningful and challenging subcontracting goals in this acquisition. Then for our large business partners, as always, the mentor protégé relationship, which there will be additional evaluation credit for that. Anybody who really wants to get into the mentor protégé program, I encourage you to really act quickly and contact the DHS Mentor Protégé Program Manager, her name is Angela Williams. Her information can be found on the DHS Small Business website at DHS.gov/OpenforBusiness. Open for business is all one word. I believe there is still time to get a mentor protégé agreement signed and executed in time for TABSS.

"Next Slide Please" [Slide 16 - OSDBU Perspective - Part 2, 12:50 - 13:46] One of the things that we're doing on TABSS is we're having multiple awards -- Multiple awards for each of the small business categories and each of the small business tracks. Those of you who have read the draft RFP, you will notice in Section L.11, that’s where we identify the anticipated number of small business awards—again, anticipated. The Government, especially DHS, reserves the right to award fewer than what is listed in the draft. So just be mindful of that. In the second bullet, basically what we're saying is, whatever swim lane you're in, whatever domain category you're in, that’s the one you have to play in for the duration of the contract.

"Next Slide Please" [Slide 17 - OSDBU Perspective - Teaming Part 1, 13:47 - 14:26] One of the things that that we like to emphasize is the whole teaming environment. This contract is DHS-wide and we really expect the crème de la crème to propose on this. I think that one way to achieve that is as you go out here and develop some synergies with some of the best in class performing companies out here because this is going to be very competitive. So we really highly encourage you to really consider for small business and even our large business partners the teaming landscape.

"And Last Slide Next Please" [Slide 18 - OSDBU Perspective - Teaming Part 2, 14:27 - 14:56] I guess the first line really kind of sums it up that when you team on an acquisition of this nature, you're much more competitive just through the synergies of the sum of the parts. So we really encourage you to look at that and with that, as I said, I will be brief and that’s all I have. And I will say good luck to everybody.

14:57 - 15:14 [Background Noise and Walking]

15:15 - 1:38:20 [Lance Nyman, Contracting Officer, United States Coast Guard]

[Slide 19, Lance Nyman, Contracting Officer, United States Coast Guard, 15:15 - 16:39] O.k. well as you've probably surmised by now, my name is Lance Nyman. I work for the Coast Guard and I am going to be the contracting officer on this effort. My colleagues have given you kind of a more organizational level view of the procurement, the acquisition, what our goals are - you know, kind of the end state of what we want to end of with. I'm going to walk you through a little more detail - some of the specifics. So we are going to cover three of the major areas. The first is going to be an overview of the contractual framework - you know, what we are actually doing with the contract and what we're actually going to do with the task orders. The second is going to be kind of a walk-through of the solicitation. Just the high points; we're not going to go page by page, we don't have time to do that. Although my colleagues have left me with a little extra time here [laughter], I guess I have to pick up the slack - is that what you're telling me? Then we are going to go over some questions and answers. As you know we submitted this draft - emphasize that - this draft solicitation a week or two ago. We gave you some time to do some Q&A. I think we also gave out some cards so we can have some more questions and answers. I don't know if we are going to have time to get to on that. But we are going to basically do the best we can on answering the questions.

Alright.....[pause] 16:40 - 16:48

[Slide 20, Overview - Part 1, 16:49 - 21:04] So first, the IDIQ contract. What is an IDIQ contract? Basically, in an IDIQ contract, you have a minimum quantity that the Government has to order and the quantity can be dollars. And you have a maximum that the Government is able to order up to within a given period of time. For this specific contract, the minimum is a small although not immaterial dollar amount. That dollar amount is to provide consideration for you if you were to be awarded a contract. Basically, you come to the kick-off meeting, we set program expectations, we talk about how things are going to work and that’s your minimum. O.k., so from there on out, it’s competition. That’s really the keystone of this contract. As I said, you've got a min and a max and you got a wide range of values within there that you can end up actually winning, subject to competition. O.k. so the next bullet there, terms and conditions. So what does an IDIQ do? It gives you a baseline set of terms and conditions for every order that’s issued under the contract. Now every order is going to have specifics that we couldn’t possibly know at the contract level. For example, delivery dates, delivery times, the specific requirements, you know, the specific office that’s going to be ordering and needs the work. So basically when you issue an order, it contains all of the overarching clauses and the terms and conditions of the IDIQ contract automatically in addition to those specifics set out in the task order. Obviously, there may be sometimes when you have to have, you know, exceptions to the contract level requirements. If so, that will be stated in the task order. The task order takes precedence; more specific always takes precedence over less specific. O.k. then our third bullet here - pricing. O.k. so in this case, you know, the pricing is not as simple as in a classic IDIQ contract where you just have a list of end items and you buy however many you end up needing. Here our pricing is going to be in the form of labor rates. O.k and overhead rates. The pricing for individual task orders is going to be determined on the basis of competition at the task order level. Alright so, the multiple award concept - this is really the keystone of what we are doing here. You know, we are going to have a competition to establish the IDIQ and orders. We're going to pick the best of the best out of every domain, out of every track, and you know when we get to the task order level, we are going to issue the task order along the appropriate track. And there will be another competition for every task order issued under this contract. Of course, you'll know, so that means you'll have to submit a proposal for each task order. The task order contracting...[transition to slide 21] We are not done with that one yet. Backup [back to slide 20] Thanks.

We are going to have, a task order - for every task order, we are going to have evaluation factors which the task order contracting officer is going to evaluate similar to any other order. The solicitation for the task order will specify which track within a domain that the task order solicitation is against. The task order contracting officer will determine the appropriate track. That will be based on the history of the requirement and an analysis of the nature of the requirement itself - as to what is the appropriate domain and what is the appropriate kind of business level within that domain.

"Alright Next Slide" [Slide 21, Overview - Part 2, 21:05 - 23:00] Alright - potential users. Who can use this contract? Well, this contract is, as Mike said, open to all DHS components. So basically any warranted contracting officer within DHS will have the ability to issue an order under this vehicle. It’s not going to be me, I might have a handful [laughter]. But I’m not going to be able to issue every order under here. You'll have a COTR for each order. This can be any certified COTR within the Department of Homeland Security. We will have contract level awards - obviously, I am the contracting officer for that and for any administration that needs to occur at the contract level. For any administration that occurs at task order level - again, that will be handled by the task order contracting officer. O.k. so, the next thing I'm going to do is talk a little bit about the draft solicitation - obviously we're still at the contract level here. I'm going to make a little disclaimer here and say that for this draft solicitation, we're taking into account the industry comments. Obviously, some areas are more set than others. I'm going to try to point out the areas where there were a lot of questions. And there are probably going to be some changes accordingly to the solicitation because of that. Again, we are not going to do a page by page walk-through. We really don't have time. We're going to hit the highlights and things that are maybe a little confusing.

"So Can We Go To The Next Slide Please" [Slide 22, Review of Draft Solicitation - Section B, Overview, 23:01 - 24:09] O.k. so these, you know are our famous domains and tracks. We have three domains. Domain one (1) is basically Program Management, Engineering and Technology. Domain two (2) is Business Management, Financial Management, and Audit Support. Domain three (3) is Contract Management. Each of the first two (2) domains have three tracks, as you can see. The third domain has one track only. The way we developed these domains and tracks was based on two things - one we kind of went through and looked at the contract history across the Coast Guard and across DHS. So we looked at literally hundreds, if not thousands, of contracts that we have right now for acquisition support. The second things was we kind of analyzed and looked strategically as an organization where we are now and where we want to go. This was the construct that we developed.

"Next Slide Please [clear throat]" [Slide 23, Review of Draft Solicitation - Section B, Part 1, 24:10 - 26:52] Like I said we're going to hit the highlights here. We had a number of questions about this, the NAICS code. What is the NAICS code? O.k. well this is NAICS code 541611, Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services. Alright so, you know we had some questions on this. There are some other ones that you can make an argument for but at the end of the day when you look at the totality of the requirements, where the majority of the work falls - this is the best fit. The size standard -obviously $7 million. And this is applicable to the entire acquisition - all seven (7) tracks. We had a few questions about that. So yes, it does apply to the entire acquisition. You have one NAICS code per procurement. This is generally how it works. O.k. our next items down here are labor rates and our overhead rates. O.k. so here's something that sometimes there is some confusion on. The rates that we are going to have in the contract for both labor and overhead are ceiling rates. So that's the first thing. So assuming you have a given individual at a given labor category, their qualifications are appropriate for that labor category - you can respond with that person against the task order solicitation up to the rate included in the contract. Now again, we're doing a competition for every task order. So if you feel that having a lower price would increase your competitiveness, then you can offer a lower price for that individual in response to a given task order solicitation. Alright so, for the second bullet is, - we've tried to look at our history and we've tried to do the best we can, to get every labor category we think we are going to need. But acquisition - capital "A" -- is a big field. There are a lot of things that are required from the time, you know, you initiate your program to the time you dispose your final assets. Alright so, we might not have, you know, spelled out in the contract every labor category that we are going to need.

That's why we put in this last bullet if we need it for a given task order - you can propose additional labor categories if it’s appropriate given the nature of the requirement for that task order.

"Next Slide Please" [Slide 24, Review of Draft Solicitation - Section B, Part 2, 26:53 - 27:52] O.k. contract type. So we talked about how this is an IDIQ contract, right. We’re going to award the contract and we are going to have Firm-Fixed Price and Time and Material CLINs. O.k. so why would we do that? Because like I said, we have a lot of requirements, there's a broad range and we have our contract history - some of the contracts we have now are Time and Materials. They need to be Time and Materials given the nature of the requirement. Most of them are Firm-Fixed Price - obviously that's the preference. But the contract level award on this acquisition will include both Firm-Fixed Price and Time and Materials CLINs. This allows the task order contracting officer to determine the appropriate type of task order that they need to issue given their requirements.

"And then obviously I just hit the second bullet - So we can go to the next slide" [Slide 25, Review of Draft Solicitation - Sections F and H - Part 1, 27:53 - 30:53] Alright here we go. Draft Solicitation Sections F and H. Section F is obviously the period of performance.

So here is an area that sometimes there can be some confusion with. So we have a contract level period of performance and we have a task order level period of performance. The contract level the period of performance is the period in which a task order can be issued. In this case, we are going to have five (5) years from the date of award of the contract. This is going to be the period of performance of the contract. O.k. so what that means is that anytime in there - we can issue a task order. So that means on the fourth year, on the 364th day, we could issue a task order for up to one (1) year because as you see on the next bullet, you cannot have a task order that exceeds one (1) year past the period of performance of the contract vehicle. So then obviously, under each individual task order, the period of performance can vary subject to the individual order maximum and minimum limitation that are contained in I think Section I. So you can have a task order for a day, for a month, for a year - you can have options on the task order - all that is permissible at the task order level for this acquisition. O.k. so that's Section F. Section H, these are obviously the special clauses right, kind of the customized clauses. So I've picked out a few that are maybe a little more unusual than others, or a little more contentious to make people scratch their heads. O.k. so H-9, here's the Rolling Admission contract clause. So the thought behind this is that we have given you the estimates. We are expecting a lot of through put to go thru this vehicle.

We are going to lean on this thing heavily for our acquisition support. So, we need to make sure we are getting the high quality services under this vehicle and we need to make sure we are getting an appropriate level of competition on our task orders. So the point of this clause is that if those two things are not occurring and we are not getting quality, we are not getting competition, then we would reserve the right to open up the competition to additional awardees. Now I am going to stress that this is not our plan. Of course, we are planning for success. We are going to do a great job and pick great contractors and they're going to perform exceptionally well and it’s going to be competitive. But, like I said, we have this just in case - you always have to have a backup plan.

"So we can go to the next slide" [Slide 26, Review of Draft Solicitation - Sections F and H - Part 2, 30:54 - 33:00] Savings clause. O.k. so there are two parts to the savings clause. The first part applies to every task order issued under the contract within a given calendar year. Now, as you can see, I have the dollar values here in the parentheses - we're talking high dollars. So if you get awarded a large number of dollars in a year, you're going to reach some economies of scale. O.k. so what the Government is saying here is you've done well, you know you've won these task order competitions - that's great. But you know, you’re seeing some economies of scale - we want to be part of that. We want to partner with you on that aspect of it. So this is part of that, just sharing the benefits. O.k. The second bullet down here doesn't apply to every task order. In fact, I am not sure how many task orders it will apply to; probably a relatively small number. What this is saying is for repetitive recurring requirements, where you have kind of a well defined set of deliverables and there are a number of different processes, you could follow to get to those deliverables. The main thing is that you end up with the deliverables, right. What we are trying to do here is unleash the creativity, unleash the black belts, unleash the lean six sigma concepts. And you know, private industry will partner with you to figure out a better way to do things and you can get your year over year reductions - and again, we're just sharing in that benefit. These requirements will be identified at the task order level if the contracting officer determines that it is the appropriate type of requirement. Then we can look at actually utilizing this clause, actually calling it out in the task order solicitation.

"Next Slide Please" [Slide 27, Review of Draft Solicitation - Sections F and H - Part 3, 33:01 - 35:59] Alright key personnel. There are two big things here. Number one (1), we want to ensure equity for task order awards. What we don't want to have happen is that we award a task order based on some fantastic experience of key personnel and then we get to the task order performance phase and we get switched out of this fantastic person with all this experience for someone with much less experience. So that's an equity thing among contractors who are competing for that award. If you had that person with less experience in your proposal, well you might not have gotten that award. By the way, you're also really making more profit than you should because you're paying that less experienced person less money than that person you proposed at an accordingly a higher rate. So that's kind of the first big aspect of it. The second aspect of it is continuity, which is what that first bullet talks to. We want to have the key personnel remain constant for the first six (6) months unless there are some really extenuating circumstances.

These would be things like the person can't perform work anymore because of an injury or something on that level. That's spelled out in the solicitation. Another point to make is that key personnel are going to be specified at the task order level. I don't think we're going to specify this at the contract level. O.k. and so then, that's the first part of it. The second part of it is once we get to the performance of the contract -alright, sometimes we have to replace personnel. Sometimes those personnel are going to be key.

Sometimes they are not going to be key. So, key personnel replacements - this is a little easier. The key personnel replacement has to meet or exceed the qualifications of the person being replaced. O.k. and this is something when we have a key personnel replacement, this person has to be submitted by the contractor. You've got to say what are the qualifications of the old person and the new person, basically.

The contracting officer has to approve that change before it is official. Alright so, that's the first part. For personnel who are not key personnel, they are going to have to meet or exceed the qualifications for the labor category against which they are proposed. As we'll talk in a little more depth later, we're not going to, at this point, set out and have the Government try to pick which qualifications corresponds to which labor category. We are going to have the contractors propose those qualifications and that'll be considered as a part of the competition as will your key personnel qualifications.

"We Can Go To The Next Slide Please" [Slide 28, Review of Draft Solicitation - Sections I and L - Part 1, 36:00 - 38:13] O.k. contract clauses. This is Section I obviously. So this is just kind of a heads up. Certain clauses only apply to certain CLINs or certain tracks and we've noted that in the solicitation accordingly. So for example, you might, you might be a small business and there is a requirement in the contract that requires a subcontracting plan - that subcontracting plan is only required for large businesses. O.k. so we specify that accordingly. The same thing, you might have a Firm-Fixed Price task order - we have a you know, a Part 12 clause that talks about time and material. If you are doing a Firm-Fixed Price task order, the CLIN that Firm-Fixed Price is under, that clause is not applicable to that CLIN. That clause is only applicable to the Time and Materials CLIN. So we have tried to be very clear about which clauses apply to which CLINs and which tracks. Alright, this is another thing, Service Contract Act. So in our research we found that most of our acquisition support occurs in the D.C. area. I mean because that’s what we do in D.C. right - we spend money that’s our big, I mean that’s like our major industry is spending money here. The lion's share of the support based on our history occurs in the D.C. area. Accordingly we've included the Wage Determination for this National Capital Region - so that's like D.C., Maryland, and Northern Virginia. If you have any task order under this contract that the Service Contract Act is applicable to and it occurs within the D.C. area, there won't need to be a separate Wage Determination. If you have a task order on the other hand, where the place of performance is other than the National Capital Region and the task order is subject to the Service Contract Act, then that task order will need to include a Wage Determination for the appropriate geographical area. Alright, that's all for that one.

"Can We Go To The Next Slide" [Slide 29, Review of Draft Solicitation - Sections I and L - Part 2a, 38:14 - 41:41] O.k. proposal submission. Alright so, the point of this is not to make it difficult for contractors to submit proposals. It is to make it manageable for the Government to evaluate these proposals. I suspect that we're going to have hundreds of proposals against this contract vehicle. We are going to have many evaluators. Those evaluators are going to come from all across DHS. We are going to have a limited amount of time. We are going to have a lot of things to go through. So we need really, really for them to be consistent and to be just manageable from a process standard point and an instruction and personnel management standpoint. We really need to have these proposals be the same. O.k. so the first bullet, we'll get into this a little more later, but you can as a prime submit one proposal per domain. So for example, you're a small business and you're in domain 1, the program management domain. You could submit against the small business track or you could submit against the unrestricted track because that's unrestricted, but one per domain. Proposal submission consists of two (2) CDs, one (1) for each volume.

Right so volume one (1) is the management approach and the experience; that's generally what we call your technical proposal. And the other volume, volume two (2), is everything else - your price spreadsheets, your past performance, your Reps and Certs, your subcontracting plan, and all your other RFP documents go in that second volume. We spelled out all of the sections and subsections within section L of the RFP. Basically, just do a separate file for each section. Again, this is a management thing so we can kind of manage the data flow, get the right evaluators the right information. Again in Section L, we spelled out in detail the kind of page numbering format we want each section within each volume numbered. Again so we can reference and can talk to each other and we're speaking the same language. We have different page limits for each section and each subsection. Please pay attention to those because information that we see that is not in the right volume or that's in extra pages, we can't look at. That’s a equity thing again among contractors – it’s not fair to let one contractor have extra space to explain their proposal than another contractor. So if you talk about your management approach somewhere in the pricing spreadsheet, we can't look at that management approach that's in the pricing spreadsheet. If you have, say, the management approach - the page limit is ten (10) and you give us thirteen (13) pages, well we're going to read the first ten (10) pages and that's what we going to consider as your management approach. We can't look at the other three (3) again from a fairness perspective.

"O.k. Next Slide Please "[Slide 30, Review of Draft Solicitation - Sections I and L - Part 2b, 41:42 - 44:50] Proposal contents. Alright so, this first bullet is the "as-is" state. But this is the part that I talked about that's probably going to make or under-go the most changes. Right now in our pricing spreadsheets, we've basically tried to lay out all the labor categories we need and just assume one (1) man-year per labor category split evenly between on-site and off-site. When we were doing our internal scrub, we kind of decided “well that's probably not very realistic.” So we're doing more analysis - we're going back to look at the history and we're going to have a more realistic spread that's more representative of the type of hours we need. For example, we may need more engineering hours then program management hours.

So it doesn't make sense to have those weighted equally. Right, so we've got to go back and do that. In all likelihood, once we do that, that'll probably change the requirement to have sufficient resumes - there were a lot of questions on that. Right, what “sufficient resumes” means is to cover all hours - we're probably going to have to look at that again but again, this is how it is now. So the next bullet we're talking about is the non-compliance matrix. So this is basically a way for you to communicate to us any areas where you don't agree with the RFP and where you don't feel that you'll be bound by its provisions.

This is a way to flush that out and talk about it in a little more detail. That's a little bit unique - I've seen that on other procurements before but it’s not a standard practice. O.k. past performance. So the way that past performance will work is that you've got two (2) attachments to the solicitation that talk about past performance. The first attachment, attachment 4, gives you the opportunity to describe between three (3) and five (5) contracts that you've worked on previously - your role, the type of work you did, points of contact, dollar values, etc. O.k. so that's included in your proposal. The second attachment is you send basically an evaluation questionnaire to your point of contact at that company or that agency or that command corresponding to each of those three (3) to five (5) past performance instances that you described. You have them fill out the evaluation and send it directly to the Government at the email address. This is our email address for this acquisition. So they don't ever send it to you; they send it to directly to us.

[Slide 31, Review of Draft Solicitation - Sections I and L - Part 2c, 44:51 - 51:34] O.k. so the pricing spreadsheet; like I talked about, the number of labor hours within there is probably going to change among the labor categories. But the basic mechanics of filling that out from the contractor’s perspective is not going to change. We're still going to have on-site and off-site labor rates.

We're still going to have an ODC and travel mark-up, so you're going to fill those in. We've got an estimated amount of travel dollars and an estimated ODC dollar amount. So we're going to take the government estimated labor hours, the government estimated ODCs, and travel, and sum those up based on the spreadsheet and based on the figures that you fill in for each of those discreet values.

That's going to give us our kind of apples-to-apples price comparison among the contractors and you won't have to do any of those calculations. All that - as you have probably seen from the draft - will be set up for you. You just have to fill in those discreet values. Now the H-10 Discounts which we talked about earlier, that's the savings clause for the accumulative savings and year over year recurring discounts.

That's going to be handled a little differently. We're going to look at that with a more qualitative perspective and kind of evaluate that based on the benefits to the Government that we can possibly see.

So then the other part of the price proposal is something that we hinted on earlier; basically we're looking for a cross walk between the Government's labor categories and the contractor’s labor categories and what you're proposing against our labor categories. So for example, I think we have say, a senior engineer, an engineer and a junior engineer - well you may have maybe five (5) categories of an engineer or seven (7), I don't know - it's different for everyone, so you've got to decide where in there you draw the line, cross-walk to our labor categories, and provide us your descriptions and your rate accordingly for each of those labor categories. O.k. so that's that one. The next is the domain and track conditions. This is L.3 in the solicitation. So the main point of this one is to ensure that we're not having any OCI [Organizational Conflict of Interest], first of all. We are trying to prevent any kind of structural OCI. And the second - that's an Organizational Conflict of Interest - and the second is to make sure that the proposals again are manageable and that we can evaluate on a fair basis. So the first restriction definitely relates to the OCI piece of that. So for domain 3, which is the Contract Admin Support Domain, if you're in that domain, either as a prime or sub, you can't be in any of the other two domains. Because if you're performing work in that domain, you would very possibly be privy to information that could help you win awards in one of the other two domains. And that's not fair for the other contractors. O.k. the second kind of condition is as a prime you can pick one track per domain. Even though as a small business or 8(a) or SDV you may be eligible to pick two - that corresponding track and also the unrestricted track - well you have to pick one of the two to be in as a prime. So the third condition is that you can be in either as a prime or sub - one track per domain. So there's a few different ways you can do it. Say for domain two (2), you're a small business - well you could be in the small business track or you could offer as a prime.

You could also team with a large business and be included as a sub in the large business track. You could team with an SDV and be included as a subcontractor in that track. You can be a subcontractor in all three tracks. Alright, you could be prime in the unrestricted track and then a sub in the other two tracks. But one (1) proposal per track - whether you're in that proposal as a prime or in that proposal as a sub. O.k. so the fourth condition is that there is no restrictions on the number of team members you have.

As Wendy mentioned, we're looking for the kind of the ability that can do all the acquisition related services and support under this contract. So, if you need a lot of team members to accommodate that goal, then we're willing to work with that. The fifth condition is a fairness thing. No changes in teams in the first two years. Alright what we evaluate is what we want to see once we actually get boots on the ground. We want to evaluate as the actual events are going to occur. And the only kind of caveat to that is if you need to add a specific team member for some kind of specialized experience requirement, some unique requirement that comes up in a given task order solicitation - well that's fine. O.k. number of awardees. This is L.11 in the solicitation. The big thing is that we want to get the right number of awardees. We've given our kind of best guess as to what we think the right number is based on some previous multiple award vehicles - based on through-put that we expect and based on the split in the different tracks and in the different categories of businesses. But again, this is our guess. We really are going to have a little more clarity once we get those proposals in and start evaluating them and start seeing what we think the actual contractors and contractor teams can handle.

"Alright Next Slide Please" [Slide 32, Review of Draft Solicitation - Sections M - Part 1, 51:35 - 53:45] So Section M; this is how we are going to evaluate for award under the contract - always interesting. So again, just at a very high level, we're going to use Part 12 policies. So that’s commercial policies where they are applicable and we’re going to use Part 15 procedures. That's why we kind of have the contract solicitation in uniform contract format although it is commercial. We're able to do that so we're taking advantage of that. O.k. first of all and this is very important. The Government intends to award without discussions. So it’s very important when you get that final solicitation to read through it very thoroughly and spend a lot of time getting your ducks in a row, doing quality control and coming at us with your best technical proposal. Come at us with your best price straight off the bat because we do not intend to have discussions on this one. We intend for it to be based on those initial proposals. O.k and then, here's the next part. So evaluation will occur at the domain level. Now what does that mean? It does not mean we will be comparing large businesses against 8(a)'s. That's not what that means. We compare the proposals within a given track to each other to determine what are the most qualified and best proposals within that track. But at the end of the day we need to step back and look at the domain level and see will this - the totality of the awardees under here in all three tracks or one track in the case of domain three (3) - will the totality of awardees here be able to fulfill all our needs, give us high quality, and give us competition for all our task orders? So that's kind of what this bullet means.

"Alright Next Slide Please" [Slide 33, Review of Draft Solicitation - Sections M - Part 2, 53:46 - 55:42] O.k. so this is a part of that quality control up front. It's kind of like you get one swing here. So if you have a non-compliant proposal, if its prices are unrealistic, if it's kind of cursory, brochuresmanship, o.k. - this is grounds for elimination from consideration. We reserve the right if it is appropriate, if it is the right decision to make to eliminate from consideration proposals for such reasons. O.k. now we get into our evaluation factors. This is a best value award. That means we are going to get to our selected awardees using the trade-off process. It’s not lowest price technically acceptable – it’s best value. We're looking at these factors. The first factor is your experience and your management approach, so it is kind of two parts.

We're looking at the experience of your personnel, your personnel qualifications, the type of work you've done under previous contracts, previous subcontracts. Then your approach - how you're going to manage this contract, how you’re going to manage your subs, how you’re going to manage potentially multiple task order awards. So that's that factor.

Second factor is past performance. So that's for specific contracts - there are specific contracts you give us examples of and we see how well did you do under there. O.k. that's past performance.

Price obviously, we talked about that. We want to get to that apples-to-apples price comparison that we talked about and we're also going to look at those potential values to the Government of those discounts under that H.10 clause.

"Alright Next Slide Please" [Slide 34, Review of Draft Solicitation - Sections M - Part 3, 55:43 - 57:58] O.k. past performance versus experience. This is something we get a lot of questions about. Not everyone understands this distinction. So the very basic way to look at it, past performance is how well you did - experience is what you did. O.k. so you may have built a fighter jet and it came in. It took off the first time and it came down to land and the landing gear fell off and it skidded off across the runway. So that means you've got experience building a fighter jet but on that past performance factor, well you’re probably not going to do very well in that instance. Now on the other hand if you built that jet and hit all the KPPs, it hit the objective values and you smash your objectives, well then you probably did pretty well on that past performance. So it’s really what you did is one thing and how well you did, when you did it -that's a different thing. So that's why it’s two different factors.

But there are some similarities there - I can see why there is some confusion. That's why we've tried to be explicit that these are separate factors in our solicitation. Alright weight of the evaluation factors. So right now first bullet we have each factor is equally important. O.k. that's how we have it set up now – three factors and each is equally important. Now what the second bullet means is that if you have two proposals that are equal - equally good, equally advantageous to the Government from a non-price perspective - so from your kind of management approach experience and past performance perspective.

Well then if they're substantially equal well then what becomes more important? Price becomes more important - if you have two (2) people who can do equally a good job, equal quality, whatever. Then that price really becomes your factor. So that's all that's saying and that that's spelled out in a little more detail in the solicitation. O.k. So we're done with that slide we can go on to the next.

[Slide 35, Review of Draft Solicitation - Draft RFP Questions & Answers, New Questions from Participants, 57:59 - 1:38:20] Alright draft RFP questions. [So, how much time do we have left, 45 minutes [laughter] I might need another water up here...] Alright so draft RFP questions and answers. So we gave you the draft RFP a couple of weeks ago and let you have a look at it. We got some questions [ooh thank you [someone hands Lance water [laughter] I thought you were coming to help me out but just water - Thank you though, that's beautiful.

So what we're going to do now is I'm going to talk through some of these verbally and we're going to follow these up in writing. We're going to post the answers in writing to FedBizOpps with the synopsis . If you don't have that bookmarked, if you have not signed up to get automatic notifications when there's an update, you should probably go ahead and do that because this is going to be - this is FedBizOpps - this is our communications medium and that's going to tell you everything you need to know on this acquisition. Alright and then again, new questions from participants if we have time. I guess we collected some cards, but we'll get through the ones we have already first. And then the other point I was going to make is that - we've received all these questions and we received a bunch of comments - we're going to take these into consideration as we finalize the RFP.