HT003824R0010 TBLD DRAFT Section L_M.docx

SECTION L

INSTRUCTIONS, CONDITIONS, AND NOTICES TO OFFERORS

TBLD-M Continued Support

Preparation Instructions

GENERAL

A. Proposals are expected to conform to all solicitation requirements and the instructions contained in this Section L. The Government will evaluate proposals on the basis of the information provided in the proposal. The Government will not assume that an offeror possesses any capability unless set forth in the proposal. This applies even if the offeror has existing contracts with the Federal government.

B. These instructions are not evaluation factors. Evaluation factors are set out in Section M of this solicitation. However, failure to provide the requested information may make an offeror ineligible for award or adversely affect the Government's evaluation of an offeror's proposal. In addition, a proposal may be eliminated from further consideration before the initial rating if the proposal is so grossly and obviously deficient as to be totally unacceptable on its face. For example, a proposal may be deemed unacceptable if it does not represent a reasonable initial effort to address the essential requirements of the solicitation, or if it clearly demonstrates that the offeror does not understand the requirements of the solicitation.

C. The proposal shall be clear, concise, and shall include sufficient detail for effective evaluation and for substantiating the validity of stated claims. The proposal should not simply rephrase or restate the Government's requirements but, rather, shall provide convincing rationale and examples, where necessary, to address how the Offeror intends to meet these requirements. Offerors shall assume that the Government has no prior knowledge of their experience and will base its evaluation on the information presented in the Offeror's proposal.

D. Discrepancies. If an Offeror believes that the requirements in these instructions contain an error, omission, or are otherwise unsound, the Offeror shall immediately notify the Contracting Officer in writing with supporting rationale as well as the remedies the Offeror is asking the Contracting Officer to consider as related to the omission or error.

E. System for Award Management (SAM) Requirements: Offerors must be registered and active in the SAM database. If registration is not active at the time of award, the Offeror will not be eligible for award. Offerors may obtain information on registration at https://sam.gov and/or https://www.acquisition.gov.

F. Offerors shall submit one (1) electronic copy of their proposal via email on or before the RFP closing date of 16 July 2025, 09:00 AM Eastern Time. Proposals received after the time and date listed will not be considered or evaluated for receipt of award. The Government will not be responsible for any failure of receipt of the proposal or any failure of the Offeror to verify receipt of the proposal.

G. The Contracting Officer is Elizabeth (Beth) Ruckwardt, elizabeth.m.ruckwardt.civ@health.mil. This is the sole point of contact for this acquisition. Address any questions or concerns to the Contracting Officer via email to the address listed in the RFP.

H. Offerors submitting a proposal in response to this RFP shall submit an administrative volume, technical volume, past performance volume, and price volume. All volumes must be submitted as separate attachments. Proposals shall be clear, concise, and shall include sufficient detail for effective evaluation.

Proposals shall be single-spaced, on 8.5 x 11 paper, have a minimum of one-inch margins all around and not less than Times New Roman 12 pt. font. All pages in a PDF or MS Word volume should be numbered sequentially. All proposal information shall be submitted in either MS Word/Excel format or as a searchable PDF. Proposals do not need to be submitted in all formats.

Page limits do not include covers for volumes, tables of contents, glossaries of abbreviations and acronyms, indices, title pages, cross reference indexes, section dividers/tables if they are inserted solely to provide ease to the reader in locating parts/sections of the proposal, and pages marked “This page intentionally left blank”.

The following table identifies the page limits to which Offerors must adhere. Pages in excess of these page limits will not be read or considered in the evaluation of the proposal. Submit your proposal in accordance with the table below. All submissions shall reference the complete RFP number.

VOLUME 1: ADMINISTRATIVE

(a) Offerors shall provide a cover letter with their proposal to include the name(s) of individual(s) that are authorized to obligate their firm, mailing address, current e-mail address and phone number, and a statement that the company does or does not take exception to any of the requirements of this order. Offerors shall also confirm proposal validity for 120 days.

(b) Organizational Conflict of Interest

The Offeror’s attention is directed to FAR, Subpart 9.5, “Organizational and Consultant Conflicts of Interest.” For the purpose of these provisions, the term “Offeror” means the offeror, its subsidiaries, affiliates, partners, marketing consultants, as defined by FAR, Subpart 9.501, or any of its successors or assignees.

The Offeror shall represent in writing that, to the best of the Offeror’s knowledge, there are no relevant facts or circumstances concerning any past, present, or potential contract or financial interest relating to the work to be performed, which could give rise to an organizational conflict of interest, as described in FAR, Subpart 9.5. In the event an actual or potential organizational conflict of interest exists, the Offeror shall submit a mitigation plan to the Contracting Officer, no later than the proposal due date, that effectively demonstrates how the Offeror will mitigate any actual or potential organizational conflict of interest while supporting this contract and any other DHA contract. As a part of the proposal, the Offeror shall provide the Contracting Officer with information of previous or ongoing work that is in any way associated with this solicitation.

The Contracting Officer will review all mitigation plans to determine whether award to the Offeror is consistent with FAR, Subpart 9.5. The Contracting Officer may request additional information at any time from Offerors to facilitate their obligation to identify, analyze, avoid, neutralize or mitigate an OCI. Such requests for information shall not be considered discussions. If the Contracting Officer determines that no conflict would arise or that the mitigation plan adequately protects the interest of the Government, the Offeror will be eligible for award. If the Contracting Officer determines that the mitigation plan is inadequate, remedial actions will be considered, including elimination from the solicitation process, termination of related contract efforts already awarded, or negotiation of the mitigation plan. Any such determination is within the discretion of the Contracting Officer.

(c) Support Contractor Proposal Access Consent

Contractor support personnel from the below listed companies under existing PEO DHMS contracts will be used for administrative purposes only. This assistance will not include evaluating proposals.

Contractor Support - Administrative

Proprietary information submitted in response to this solicitation will be protected from unauthorized disclosure as required by Subsection 27 of the Office of the Procurement Policy Act as amended (41 USC 423) as implemented in the FAR. Contractor Support Personnel are bound contractually by Organizational Conflict of Interest and disclosure clauses with respect to proprietary information. Contractor personnel will take all necessary actions to preclude unauthorized use or disclosure of an Offeror’s proprietary data.

Responses to this solicitation must clearly state permission is granted allowed the contract support identified above access to the Offeror’s proposal. Subcontractors that provide proposal information separately shall clearly state permission is granted allowed the contractor support identified above access to the subcontractor’s proposal. The Offeror and its subcontractors may choose to execute a proposal access agreement with these support contractors. Failure to clearly state permission is granted for access to the proposal may result in the offer being deemed unacceptable and therefore ineligible for contract award.

The exclusive responsibility for evaluation resides with the Government.

VOLUME 2: TECHNICAL

The Offeror’s technical volume should demonstrate its understanding and ability to address all elements of the PWS with specific attention on the technical subfactors identified will be evaluated.

Sub-Factor 1: Offeror’s ability to ingest the existing program code/data and quickly provide support The Offeror shall describe its approach to ingesting the existing program code/data and quickly provide support. The Offeror shall address the following elements:

· Mitigation of risks, identification of requirements that are risk drivers, and optimization of timelines.

· Ensure a smooth and efficient transition of the TBLD program with minimal service disruption to vital Government business and no service degradation during and after transition.

· Use of a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline where you will baseline and manage code.

· Support to cloud environments.

Sub-Factor 2: Integration and Agile Project Management Experience and Expertise

The Offeror shall describe its approach to integration and agile project management experience and expertise by addressing the following elements:

· Describe the transition of the application software for continued development and deployment to the field as well as its overall Agile process methodologies throughout the contract performance.

· Describe the maintenance, enhancement, and integration of application capabilities, data, and technical features within a portfolio of related programs and systems.

· Provide a notional timeline illustrating analysis and execution time, including potential risks, relevant milestones, and that supplements regular sprint cadence and backlog implementation.

· Describe management of the development effort of multiple teams with varying timelines, milestones, and suspense dates. Include a description of how inter-team dependencies are identified and tracked and how risks are mitigated.

Sub-Factor 3: Denied, Degraded, Intermittent, and Limited (DDIL) and non-Functional Capabilities The Offeror shall describe its approach to DDIL and non-functional capabilities by addressing the following elements:

· Describe its approach to enhancing, optimizing, and supporting DDIL design, capabilities, and architecture and experience or approach to data management and resiliency in a distributed configuration

· Describe its approach to developing software using DevSecOps practices, containerization, and delivery of software via CI/CD pipelines including deployment speed and frequency

· Cybersecurity design and ATO maintenance

· Detail how cybersecurity will be worked into the development process including incorporation of Zero Trust and Cyber-Resilience & Survivability best practices. Detail what tooling and processes will be used to automate security requirements within the specified platform/environments.

· Describe its approach to developing Cloud-hosted solutions leveraging tools such as Python, Java Script, PostgreSQL.

VOLUME 3: PAST PERFORMANCE

Offerors will be required to identify three (3) contract efforts that display recent and relevant past performance that demonstrates the Offeror’s ability to successfully perform in accordance with the PWS. Offerors may use the same contact number to demonstrate successful performance for purposes of the three contract efforts. Past performance for proposed subcontractors will not be evaluated. Offerors may not propose an entire IDIQ or MAC; task orders will be considered standalone contracts; provided, however, that if multiple task orders under an IDIQ are for the same effort and need to be viewed holistically to fully respond to the Government’s requires for a past performance reference of similar scope and complexity, Offerors may include multiple task order contact numbers but must justify that approach in the description. “Recent” is defined as any portion of the work having been performed within three years prior to the proposal submission date. In the event that an Offeror has over three years of continuous service on an effort, it should note the work performed within three years of the proposal submission date and use this data to address the requirements in Volume 3. Any recently awarded contract submitted for past performance must have at least six months of performance completed. “Relevant” is defined as efforts with contract performance and responsibility similar to this solicitation performed by the Offeror, to include the following aspects:

(i) The contract type (firm-fixed price)

(ii) Total dollar amount of funded performance of at least $10M. This includes the base and all exercised options or awarded orders with exercised options. Unexercised options of unfunded ceiling value shall NOT be included.

(iii) The length of the period of performance of the past performance effort of at least one year.

(iv) Complexity that required developing and maintaining software using Agile/DevOps methodologies (e.g., Continuous Integration/Delivery, Pipeline).

(v) Should any of the past performance efforts be registered in CPARS, the Offeror must provide a copy of each completed annual CPAR report(s) for all performance that occurred within the three years preceding the proposal due date.

Offerors shall also present the following information for each past performance reference: Name, title, email address, phone number, ad any additional information for a point of contact for the contract. For any Government contract, include the CAGE code.

The Government will not evaluate the past performance of individuals, predecessor corporations or corporate parent/affiliates; provided, however, that for a joint venture formed to perform this effort the Government will consider the past performance of members in the event that there is a contractual commitment that all members will continue as part of the joint venture during the entire period of performance of the to-be-awarded contract; provided, further, that for other than a joint venture the Government will consider past performance of a predecessor corporation or parent or affiliate where the Offeror demonstrates that the resources of the predecessor corporation or parent or affiliate were meaningfully involved in the past performance contract and the Offeror includes an express commitment that the resources of the successor entity or the parent or affiliate will be available to and meaningfully involved in performance under the to-be-awarded contract. In this regard, Offerors shall address, for example, the resources of the predecessor corporation involved in the successor entity, conditions such as interlocking officers and board of directors, the parent’s officers taking an active role in contract performance, and contract management and substantive support provided by the parent’s corporate office.

VOLUME 4: PRICING

Offerors shall provide proposed firm-fixed-prices for all CLINs. The Contracting Officer anticipates adequate price competition. Cost and Pricing Data are not required under this competitive acquisition; but, if only one proposal is received, cost and pricing data may be required (which may include other than cost and pricing data or certified cost and pricing data).

SECTION M

EVALUATION FACTORS FOR AWARD

TBLD-M Continued Support

EVALUATION OF PROPOSALS

The Government intends to award one contract to the responsible Offeror whose proposal conforms to the solicitation requirements and represents the best value to the Government. Selection of the best value to the Government will be achieved through a process of evaluating each Offeror's proposal against the evaluation criteria described below.

The Government will evaluate each Offeror's understanding of the requirements and ability to perform the work based on its proposal. It is the Offeror's responsibility to provide information demonstrating its ability to satisfactorily perform the contract requirements.

The Government reserves the right to change the terms and conditions of this RFP by amendment prior to contract award and allow Offerors to revise their proposals accordingly. The Government also reserves the right not to award a contract if proposals are deemed unacceptable or funds are unavailable.

A proposal will be eliminated from further consideration before the best value analysis if the proposal is so grossly and obviously deficient as to be unacceptable on its face. For example, a proposal will be deemed unacceptable if it does not represent a reasonable initial effort to address the essential requirements of the solicitation, or if it clearly demonstrates that the Offeror does not understand the requirements of the solicitation.

Selection of the best value to the Government will be achieved through a process of evaluating each Offeror's proposal against the evaluation factors described below. The Source Selection Authority (SSA) will select an Offeror for contract award using the best value analysis described in this Section M.

Alternate proposals are not allowed. Proposals with contingent terms and conditions may be deemed non-responsive.

As prescribed in FAR 52.215-1, the Government may award on the basis of initial offers received without conducting discussions. Therefore, each proposal should contain the Offeror’s best terms from a technical, past performance and price standpoint.

The Government may consider the correction potential of any deficiency throughout the evaluation. However, if an Offeror's proposal fails to meet requirements and is deemed non-correctable, the Offeror may be eliminated from further evaluation.

EVALUATION OF FACTORS AND SUB-FACTORS

Overall Factor and Sub-Factor Evaluation Approach The source selection authority (SSA) will select the Offeror whose proposal is considered the best value to the Government based on the evaluation of the factors and sub-factors specified in Section M of this solicitation.

The Offeror’s proposal will be evaluated with respect to three Factors:

Factor 1: Technical Approach Factor 2: Past Performance Factor 3: Price Past Performance will be evaluated on an Acceptable/Unacceptable basis. Where past performance is “Unacceptable” the proposal will be ineligible for award.

Factor 1-Technical Approach is more important than Factor 3 – Price. This is a best value tradeoff, which may result in award to a higher rated, higher priced offeror, where the decision is consistent with the evaluation factors and the decision authority reasonably determines that the technical superiority outweighs the price difference.

In cases where proposals are evaluated as close or similar in technical and past performance merit, the evaluated price will become a more significant factor in determining the best value to the Government.

Details of each Factor are detailed as follows:

1. FACTOR 1 – TECHNICAL APPROACH

The Government will review the Offeror’s Technical Approach to determine the extent to which the Offeror’s proposal:

· Demonstrates a feasible and effective approach to ingest the existing program code/data and quickly provide support.

· Demonstrates a feasible and effective approach to agile project management.

· Demonstrates the Offeror’s understanding of and ability to successfully support Denied, Degraded, Intermittent and Limited (DDIL) and non-functional capabilities.

The Government will assign each Offeror’s Technical Approach (Factor 1) a rating that reflects the degree to which the technical aspects of the Offeror’s proposal meet, exceed, or do not meet the solicitation’s requirements through a qualitative assessment of a proposal’s strengths, weaknesses and deficiencies. The adjectival ratings listed below will be applied at the Factor level for Factor one; they will not be applied at any subfactor level. Technical Approach Factor ratings are merely guides for intelligent decision making. Thus, even if one or more Offerors receive the same Technical Approach factor rating, the fact that the rating is the same does not indicate the proposals are technically equal or the same; qualitative distinctions may exist even between proposals that receive the same Factor rating.

Definitions are as follows:

Deficiency is a material failure of a proposal to meet a Government requirement or a combination of significant weaknesses in a proposal that increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance to an unacceptable level.

Strength is an aspect of an Offeror’s proposal that has merits or exceeds specified performance or capability requirements in a way that will be advantageous to the Government during contract performance.

Significant Strength is an aspect of an Offeror’s proposal that has appreciable merit or appreciably exceeds specified performance or capability requirements in a way that will be appreciably advantageous to the Government during contract performance.

Weakness means a flaw in the proposal that increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance.

Significant Weakness in the proposal is a flaw that appreciably increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance.

FACTOR 2 - PAST PERFORMANCE

The Government will evaluate past performance references received in response to this solicitation, or otherwise identified by the Government in its sole discretion, for recency, relevancy and quality in order to determine whether the Government has a reasonable expectation that the Offeror will successfully perform the required effort (i.e., “Acceptable” past performance as defined in the ratings below). Recency and relevancy are defined in Section L. If an Offeror has a history of any “unsatisfactory” ratings, termination for cause, or termination for default then the Government is likely to determine there is no reasonable expectation that the offeror will be able to successfully perform this effort.

The Government will utilize the “Acceptable/Unacceptable” adjectival ratings provided below that correlate to the Government’s evaluation of the past performance for each Offeror and the Government’s determination whether it has a reasonable expectation that the Offeror will successfully perform the required effort. The Government will assign each Offeror’s Past Performance Proposal an Adjectival Rating as follows:

Note: In the case of an Offeror without a record of relevant past performance or for whom information on past performance is not available or so sparse that no meaningful past performance rating can be reasonably assigned, the offeror may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance (see FAR 15.305 [a][2][iv]). Therefore, the Offeror shall be determined to have unknown (or “neutral”) past performance. In the context of acceptability/unacceptability, a neutral rating shall be considered acceptable. However, an Offeror whose descriptions of their past performance indicate they do not understand the scope and complexity of the solicitation will be considered “unacceptable” because failure to understand the scope and complexity is a basis for the Government to determine that it does not have a reasonable expectation that the Offeror will be able to successfully perform the required effort.

FACTOR 3 - PRICE

The Offeror’s Price will be evaluated using one or more of the techniques defined in FAR 15.404-1 in order to determine if it is reasonable and balanced. Its Total Evaluated Price will be calculated as stated below.

(1) Price Reasonableness. IAW FAR 31.201-3, a cost is reasonable if, in its nature and amount, it does not exceed that which would be incurred by a prudent person in the conduct of competitive business. Normally, reasonableness is established through cost and price analysis techniques as described in FAR 15.404-1. In this case, the Government intends to make a determination of fair and reasonable on the basis of adequate price competition.

The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable, and therefore unawardable, if prices are found to not be reasonable.

(2) Unbalanced Pricing. Offerors are cautioned against submitting a materially unbalanced offer. Unbalanced pricing exists when, despite an acceptable TEP, the price of one or more items is significantly over or under-stated as demonstrated by the application of price analysis techniques. An offer may be rejected if the Government determines the lack of balance poses an unacceptable risk to the Government (FAR 15.404-1(g)).

(3) Total Evaluated Price (TEP). Total Evaluated Price will be calculated by summing the proposed firm-fixed-prices for CLINs 0001-0005, 1001-1005, 2001-2005, 3001-3005, 4001-4005; plus the proposed estimated costs, consisting of the government stated forecasted direct cost for CLINs 0006, 0007, 1006, 1007, 2006, 2007, 3006, 3007, 4006, 4007; plus 50% of the CLINs 4001-4005, evaluated amounts plus the proposed estimated costs for CLINs 4006 and 4007. The Attachment 3 Price Worksheet will be used to accomplish the TEP evaluation.