ID01150067_Tab_9_SETS_Presolicitation_Conference_Q A_01.pdf

ID01150067 – SETS

Draft Solicitation Questions

Item Reference Question Response

QD1 J.5 - Statement of Work, page 2 (1.3)

Under 1.3, the Period of Performance is indicated as March 7, 2016 through March 6, 2021. However, on page 6 of the Draft Solicitation, paragraph F.2, the base period is indicated from July 30 2016 through July 29, 2017. Please clarify which of these is correct.

We are anticipating awarding the Contract in time for a July 30, 2016 – July 29, 2017 base performance period. We will ensure the anticipated award date and Performance Periods are correct in the Solicitation.

QD2 Pre-Solicitation Draft, page 30, K.6

Section K.6 defines the NAICS code and small business size standard. Does the Government intend to provide small business contracting goals for this procurement?

Yes. The Small Business contracting goals for this procurement are found in NOAA Procurement Memorandum 2016-03 dated December 10, 2015 and will be incorporated into the Final Solicitation

QD3 Pre-Solicitation Draft, page 45, L.6.2 (c)

Under (c ) Management Capability, (1) Staffing plan asks that the bidder detail the labor categories and Education, Knowledge, Skills and Abilities of each Labor Category.

Given that the total number and type of Work Assignments are not yet known, are these labor categories and staffing levels the same as provided in Attachment J-3?

Yes. It is anticipated that offerors may have different names for the J-3 labor categories and different levels within each category; however, the number of FTE must be proposed. Suggest Solicitation language for this requirement.

QD4 Pre-Solicitation Draft, page 45, L.6.2 (c)

Under (c ) Management Capability, (2) Transition Plan, the Government requests major components and milestones of the Transition Plan. For the purposes of developing the Transition Plan, will the Government provide a list of the predecessor contracts that will be transitioned after award of SETS, and the approximate transition start date(s)? Also, will the Government provide guidance regarding the anticipated length of the contract transition?

Presently, all work being performed by Noblis will be performed by the SETS contractor. As existing NOAA contracts end, they may be added to the SETS contract. The Transition Plan will be evaluated only as it relates to work being performed by Noblis and as identified in the Solicitation.

The transition start date will be upon award. The Offer will propose the length of the Transition Plan and the length of the Transition Plan is a consideration under the Management Capability evaluation factor for award.

QD5 Section J.6 Anticipated Work Assignments

This section contains various anticipated work assignments.

What is the process for issuing new Work Assignments?

The Government will issue Work Assignments via a Work Assignment Request (WAR). A WAR is similar to a Task Order Request for Proposal whereby the Government issues the WAR and requests the Contractor to provide a Staffing Plan and, if required, to provide a detailed Technical Response to performing the requirements of the WAR. Recommend Solicitation language or use a facsimile of the Ordering Clause for ID/IQ contracts.

QD6 Section J.6 Anticipated Work Assignments

In the Anticipated Work Assignments, are the dates provided draft dates since they are not in agreement with the PoP in F.2?

Yes. The Anticipated Work Assignments are a very close approximation of the type of services the Contractor will provide. A Staffing Plan and a Technical Response to the anticipated Work Assignments are not required with the Offer.

QD7 L.1, Page 44, Subcontracts

The Government requires cost information for each subcontractor at the same level as for the prime. Does this apply to all subcontractors no matter what size, or only to subcontractors that fall over a specified cost threshold (e.g., significant subcontractors)?

What dollar value are you suggesting is a “significant subcontract”? What information would you (the prime) use to determine your subcontractor’s rates are fair and reasonable?

QD8 Attachment J-3 – Level of Effort by Labor Category

Although multiple types of engineers and scientists are mapped to the “Engineer 3” and “Scientist 3” NOAA labor categories, the quantity only appears mapped to the initial OMB category. Does the Government expect the Engineers and Scientists to span all of the categories or only the first?

Will the Government allow a blended rate for each of these categories that takes into consideration a mix of the different OMB SOCs provided for previous contracts?

Input from industry is necessary to ensure the Solicitation allows for each offeror to propose its Staffing Plan but at the same time sets the baseline (levels the playing field) for evaluation of offers. The Government suggests all offerors bid the same number of FTE in the major OMD SOC but offerors propose their own staffing plan.

QD9 Attachment J-3 – Level of Effort by Labor Category

At the bottom of table in Attachment J-3 there are a number of additional categories (e.g., Computer and Information Systems Managers) that do not have quantities. What is the purpose of these categories?

The purpose was for the Government to reference the OMD SOCs that were used. We may determine that those additional categories that do not have quantities are not required and therefore will not be included in the Solicitation.

QD10 General Will the NOAA SETS contractor support source selection of Pro Tech IDIQs? What Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI) approach would be acceptable to NOAA for a contractor that supports both SETS and Pro Tech?

Please restate this question. Are you asking whether the SETS Contractor may be precluded by an Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI) from performing task orders against the ProTech ID/IQ contract? Other potential Organizational Conflicts of Interest may arise for future NOAA work as well and must be identified as early in the acquisition process as possible.

QD11

Section C, ¶1, Page 3 Section C is entitled "SOW" but points to Attachment J.6.

Attachment J.5 appears to be the base SOW. Section J calls Attachment J.6 "Anticipated Work Assignments." Should section C refer to J.5 only?

Section C is the SOW and the reference should be to Attachment J.5. This will be corrected in the Solicitation.

QD12 Section F, ¶2, Page 6 The Period of Performance Schedule in the Solicitation paragraph F.2 is inconsistent with performance schedules provided in J.5 SOW Paragraph 1.3, and J.6.A-D.

Please see Item QD1.

QD13 Section F, ¶F.3 Solicitation paragraph F.3 indicates that travel may be required to Wallops VA, Fairmount WV and Fairbank AK. For planning purposes, can the Government provide the anticipated number of trips annually to each location?

The Solicitation will include a “plug” or stipulated dollar value for travel that offerors will burden with applicable indirect costs. The Solicitation may also include the anticipated number of trips per Contract Performance Periods if Interested Parties deem the information necessary to respond to the Solicitation and to be evaluated fairly in accordance with Section M Evaluation Factors for Award.

QD14 Section F, ¶F.3, Page 6 Paragraph F.3 says the Contractor must account for on-site and off-site rates. Attachment J.1 appears to have only columns for 1 rate. Should we add a separate worksheet for off-site rates?

Are Offeror’s allowed to manipulate Attachment J.1 to fit their standard accounting practices?

We should agree on a format for Attachment J.1, i.e., the Cost Details spreadsheet. The Government proposes Attachment J.1_v1

QD15 Section G, ¶G.4 Solicitation paragraph G.4 defines the GFE provided to the contractor. Will desktops and/or laptops be provided to both on-site (Government site) and off-site (Contractor site) personnel?

The Government anticipates that it will provide all desktops/laptops for both on-site (Government site) and off-site (Contractor site) personnel. Accordingly, there is no requirement for offerors to price desktops/laptops for personnel who will be performing direct labor.

QD16 Section H, ¶(a), Page 14 This paragraph lists 4 Key Personnel categories. Attachment J.3 provides quantities for the 4 categories. How many key personnel are required to be submitted with the proposal?

How many key personnel for each of the provided Work Assignments (J.6.A-D)?

Paragraph H.3.(a) CAR 1352.237-75 - Key Personnel (Apr 2010) states: "The contractor shall assign to this contract the following key personnel: Program Manager; Project Manager; Subject Matter Expert; and Systems Architect."

Should "key personnel" actually read "key personnel labor categories"?

The Key Personnel categories may be applicable to each Work Assignment. Therefore, it is possible for there to be multiple Key Personnel performing under the Contract at any given time. We will discuss a fair method for determining the number of Key Personnel to be submitted with the Offer.

Let’s discuss.

QD17 Section L, ¶L.1, Page 39 Solicitation Section L, paragraph L.1, states that if subcontractors are proposed, cost information for each subcontractor shall be furnished in the same format and level of detail as prescribed for the prime offeror. Does this indicate that one version of "J.1 Cost Summary Details" should be provided for the prime contractor, and a separate J.1 Cost Summary Details spreadsheet provided for each subcontractor? Since the subcontractor will not share proprietary detailed cost data with the prime, will the Government accept subcontractor spreadsheets delivered in sealed packages?

One version of the J.1 Cost Summary Details should be provided for the prime contractor and any subcontractors. The data for those subcontractors who do not share their respective proprietary detailed cost data with the prime contractor will show the fully burdened rate. The proprietary data can be shown on separate sealed package from the subcontractor(s). We can discuss a better format for the J.1 Cost Summary Details with the goal of having all offerors submitting substantially similar Cost Summary Details.

QD18 Section L, ¶L.3, Page 43 Solicitation paragraph L.6.1, first paragraph, indicates the Cost proposal consists of two parts (1) Cost Narrative and (2) Cost Details. Cost Narrative is limited to "(10) sequentially numbered pages." Can we assume the Cost Details provided in Excel and PDF have unlimited page count?

Yes, but the format and details provided should be substantially the same among offerors and contain only the numbers and formulas used to develop the estimated cost and fixed fee. It is anticipated the cost will be comprised of direct labor, applicable burdens, the stipulated, estimated cost of travel, any Other Direct Costs, and fee (profit).

QD19 Section L, ¶L.6 Solicitation paragraph L.6.1 specifies that the basis of estimate is restricted to three comparable contracts, which must have been performed in the Washington DC area. This requirement severely restricts a contractor's ability to cite a highly relevant program that may have been performed in another geographic region. We recommend deleting the "Washington DC area" requirement.

The purpose of the Comparable Contracts is to assist the Government in determining the realism of the proposed labor cost. The price of labor in the Washington, DC area may be different than the price of labor in another area and therefore not a good basis to determine the proposed labor rates (salaries) is realistic.

QD20 Section L, ¶ L.6.1.a, Page

In Section L.6.1.a, the Government is requesting Bidders to provide estimated cost of direct labor for three (3) Comparable Contracts as a basis for the estimated cost for similar in scope to the requirements of this Solicitation…” In accordance with FAR Part 15.404-1 Proposal analysis techniques, if the Government is attempting to perform a Price Analysis on Bidders cost proposal, without requiring submitting certified cost or pricing data, the Government should be comparing/evaluating the overall price proposed to overall historical prices paid by the Government for similar scoped efforts, rather than evaluating/comparing individual cost or profit elements of a given proposed price.

The Government will perform Cost Analysis for this cost type contract. The Comparable Contracts will show the historical cost of labor in the Washington, DC area for performing services similar to the SETS requirement.

QD21 Section L, ¶¶ L.6.2, L.7 Solicitation paragraph L.7 states that "the last page of the Non-Cost Proposal which will necessarily be a Natural Number less than or equal to “31”." However, the page counts defined for the Non-Cost Proposal in paragraph L.6.2 equal "39".

"Section L.7 contains text that reads “…until the last page of the Non-Cost Proposal which will necessarily be a Natural Number less than or equal to “31”. The page counts listed in L.6.2 indicate that the total page count should be “39”. Are there sections referenced in L.6.2 that do not count against the page limits?

Corporate Experience: 15 pages Key Personnel Qualifications: 6 pages Management Capability: 8 pages (Staffing Plan 5 pages + Transition Plan 3 pages) Past Performance: 10 pages 15 + 6 + 8 + 10 = 39

The Solicitation will be carefully reviewed before it is issued and will (hopefully) be free from errors.

QD22 Section L, ¶ L.6.2.a, Is it the Government’s intent that the proposal section entitled “Corporate Experience (Part B1)” shall describe the offeror’s approach to deliver services defined in Attachment J.5, SOW, or that the offeror shall describe its approach to how it will deliver services for each of the Work Assignment defined in Attachments J.6A-J.6D? If the latter, we recommend that the page count be increased from 15 pages to 30 pages to fully address the scope of the program requirements.

No. Section L.6.2.a does not request the offeror to state its “approach to deliver the services defined . . .”. Section L.6.2(a) requires the offeror to (1) Detail the services proposed for this Solicitation; (2) Detail its corporate experience performing services that are similar to the scope and magnitude of the services proposed for this Solicitation; and (3) Detail how its corporate experience relates the services proposed for this Solicitation.

The Government will evaluate the Offeror’s Corporate Experience to assess (1) the understanding of Government requirements; (2) the quality of the proposed services; and, (3) the likelihood of successfully performing the prospective Contract.

QD23 Section L, ¶ L.6.2.c

The Government identifies the requirement for a Transition Plan. However, no time frame for the Transition Period is provided. Please provide a time frame for the transition period.

The Transition Plan is included in the evaluation of the Management Capability. The duration of the Transition Plan is necessarily part of the Management Capability and is therefore unique to the offeror.

QD24 Section L, ¶ L.6.2.c

Will the Transition Period be considered a separate contract?

No. What is the benefit to the offerors, the Contractor, and the Government if the Transition Plan were considered a separate contract?

QD25 Section L, ¶ L.6.2.c

Are there no requirements to describe how the contract and team will be organized and managed to perform the SETS tasking?

The Government believes this is part of Corporate Experience and Management Capability.

QD26 Section L, ¶L.6.2.d, Page

Solicitation paragraph L.6.2 (d) states "not more than two

(2) current contracts" for Past Performance citations. Given the extensive nature of the requirements in the SOW J.5 and Work assignments in J.6, this seems restrictive.

The Government is not sure how more contracts is less restrictive than fewer contracts. If an offeror has no relevant past performance record, it will receive a neutral rating.

QD27 Section M, ¶M.2.3.C, Solicitation paragraph M.2.3.c evaluation criteria do not include evaluation of the offeror's Transition Plan.

The Transition Plan will be evaluated as part of the Management Capability.

QD28 Attachment J.1 J.1 Spreadsheet Tabs for Options 2 through 4 appear to be missing. We assume we can copy the Option 1 Tab and make the appropriate changes to name the option period in the spreadsheet tab?

Please see the Response to QD17.

QD29 Attachment J.1 The spreadsheet appears to have a typo on the Option 1 Tab. We assume "Base Period Total" annotated on the Option 1 Tab should read "Option 1 Total"?

Please see the Response to QD17 and QD28.

QD30 Attachment J.1 The Government has provided a fairly robust list of labor categories. However, it is our experience that there are additional skills that could be of benefit to the customers’ requirements

Please see the Response to QD8 and QD16.

QD31 Attachment J.3 The entry in the spreadsheet for “Engineer 3” indicates a 14 FTE estimate. Are these 14 FTE all “System Engineer (Aerospace)” or does the 14 apply (spread across) the GIS Specialist, Mechanical Design Engineer and the R&D Engineer? Similarly, are the 8 “Scientist 3” all “Astrophysicist” or does the 8 FTE spread across the other 4 categories under the Scientist 3 header? Are the 15 “Technician 3” personnel all Geospatial Intelligence Analysts (entry is off by one line)?

QD32 Attachment J.3 This spreadsheet provides a quantity for each labor category (labor categories provided correspond to J.1 Cost Summary Details). Is it the Government's intention for the Offeror to simply enter the quantity (total hours) for each labor category provided in J.2 in the "Quantity" column in J.1? Is one FTE = 1860 hrs/year?

Yes. The number of hours per labor category must be proposed. FTE counts are not necessarily the same among offerors. Cost realism analysis will adjust for an unrealistic number of hours per year but the number of hours in a year need not be leveled among offerors.

QD33 Attachment J.5 SOW J.5 SOW paragraph 2.1 defines the role of the project manager. From the description it seems that this is the Program Manager listed in J.3 and described in J.4.

Clarify whether this paragraph refers to the Program Manager that is listed as (1) in the J.3 "Level of Effort by Labor Category" attachment, or the Project Manager which is listed as 9 FTE in J.3.

QD34 Attachment J.5 SOW J.5 SOW Para 2.1 states that "the contractor shall designate an on-site Project Manager to coordinate day-to-day activities and to act as the technical interface to the COR.

The Project Manager and COR will be co-located." The Project Manager is listed as a Key Person in H3. J3 outlines 9 Project Managers. Are all 9 Project Managers designated as Key and collocated with the COR?

Please see Response QD16.

QD35 J.6A CIO SOO J.6 paragraph 1 states that three FTEs are required and all three are key personnel needing resumes, which appears to conflict with the key personnel clause of the RFP. Will the government allocate additional page count for these three resumes? Are they required with proposal delivery or at the time of the WA award?

The Solicitation does not require a proposal for the Work Assignments. The Work Assignments are representative of the type of services that will be required by the Contractor pursuant to the Contract.

QD36 J.6.A, J.6.B, J.6.C, J.6.D It is not clear if the Government is providing these Work Assignments (Task Orders) for informational purposes or if the Offeror is to provide either a technical/management or cost proposal against the requirements.

Please see Response QD35.

QD37 J.6B GOES-R SOW Please provide the definition of DPLH, and the estimated hours.

The Anticipated Work Assignments will be cleaned up and included in the Solicitation. See also Response QD35 and QD36.

QD38 J.6C OPPA SOW The telework paragraph appears to be a cut and paste from an existing BPA contract.

Please see Responses QD37, QD36, and QD35.

QD39 J.5 SOW Several processes, standards or documents are referenced in the SOW (e.g., SOW 2.1.2 (Configuration Control Process), SOW 2.1.3 (Government Risk Management Process), SOW

2.2.1 (Current SEP, Schedules and TPMs), SOW 2.2.5 (IRT Process), SOW 2.4.4 (Architecture Artifacts), SOW 2.8 (NIST, DoC, NASA and DHS Security Standard Documents)).

Provide all referenced documents in the Bidder’s Library.

QD40 Attachment J.5 Statement of Work

Reference CAR 1352.237-73 - Should contractors presume that all activities (data, technology and services) are NOT controlled on the US Munitions List (USML)/International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and therefore, defer to the Export Administration Regulations?

QD41 Attachment J.5

Reference CAR 1352.237-73 - Should contractors presume that all interactions (CONUS or OCONUS) will be restricted to US Persons only? (Note: One exception is the requirement to get approval for foreign national access/participation)

QD42 Attachment J.5

Reference CAR 1352.237-73- Does the Government intend to provide export exemption to permit contractors to exchange controlled technical data and perform defense services, if ITAR is applicable to resultant contract/scope of work?

QD43 Attachment J.5 Statement of Work

The requirement states the Contractor shall use the “Government furnished Configuration Management tools”.

Please define the CM tools to be furnished by the Government as well as associated SOPs.

QD44 Section L.6.A, Part A, Page44

The Cost Narrative portion of the Cost Proposal is limited to 10 sequentially numbered pages. Offeror’s are to include evidence of accounting system adequacy as an attachment to the Cost Narrative, with a limit to three pages. Do these 3 pages count against the 10 page limit for the Cost Proposal (Part A)?

No. The evidence of an adequate accounting system is not included in the page count. The Government may require a Government approved accounting system in the final solicitation.

QD45 Section L.6.1 and Attachment J.1

Attachment J.1 includes a column for ‘Bill Rate.’ Will this ‘Bill Rate’ become a ceiling rate on the awarded CPFF contract? How will this ‘Bill Rate’ be evaluated?

Only those costs proposed are subject to Cost Realism analysis. Therefore, only the costs proposed and awarded are per se an allowable cost of the contract, the effect of which is a ceiling rate. The Government accepts that some direct costs may be an estimate of that same cost; however, the burden will be on the Contractor to prove an actual cost is reasonable, and therefore allowable, if an actual cost exceeds the “Bill Rate”. See also, J.1_v1

QD46 Section L.6, Page 42 Paragraph L.6 identifies what pages of the proposal are included in the page count. Is it permissible to include a table of acronyms/glossary and a cross reference table in the proposal that will not be included in the page count?

Let’s discuss what other information offerors would like to provide with their respective offers.