Instruction to Offerors - MATOC II - NCO5.pdf

This is a competitive source selection process which will result in, multiple awards. The Government intends to select the best value offers based on a trade-off analysis per FAR 15.101-1, based upon the following criteria: 1. Previous Experience, 2. Past Performance, 3. Safety & Infection Control, 4. Key Personnel, 5. Quality Control, and 6. Cost/Price. The solicitation may result in awards to technically capable, higher rated, higher priced offers, consistent with the evaluation factors. The Government may reasonably determine that the technical superiority and/or overall business approach and/or superior present and past performance of the higher priced offers outweighs the cost difference.

Previous Experience, and Past Performance are equal, but when combined are significantly more important than price. The perceived benefits of the higher priced proposal can merit the additional cost, and the rationale for tradeoffs.

Technical and Past Performance will be considered significantly more important than price. This may result in an award to higher rated, higher priced offerors, where the decision is consistent with the evaluation factors and the Source Selection Authority (SSA) reasonably determines the higher rated technical and higher rated past performance or a combination of those non-price factors of a higher priced offeror outweighs the price difference.

Contractor shall be deemed responsible in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 9 and Veteran’s Affairs Acquisition Regulation (VAAR) Part 9.

While the Government SSEB and the SSA will strive for maximum objectivity, the source selection process by its nature is subjective and, therefore, professional judgment is implicit throughout the entire process. The Government reserves the right to award without discussions, therefore each initial offer should contain the Offeror’s best terms from a price and technical standpoint. However, the Government reserves the right to conduct discussions if later determined by the Contracting Officer to be needed or required.

WHEN COMBINED ALL NON-PRICE EVALUATION FACTORS ARE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE IMPORTNANT THAN PRICE. THE GOVERNMENT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO AWARD TO OTHER THAN THE OFFERORS WITH THE

LOWEST OFFER.

Proposals will consist of three (3) parts: Volume I – Technical, Volume II- Past Performance and Volume III- Price Proposal.

Submission of Offers shall consist of three (3) separate Adobe “PDF” format files i.e., one (1) for each volume and emailed to the Contracting Officer, Lisa Lake at lisa.lake2@va.gov. The total size of submission shall not exceed 10MB. Zipped files cannot be accepted due to firewall restrictions.

Emailed portion of submission receipt shall go off the time stamp sent on the email; it is suggested that proposal be submitted as early as possible.

Any missing or incomplete information could result in the offer(s)/proposal(s) to be non-responsive. It is intended that proposals be evaluated, and award made, without discussions with the offerors (other than communications conducted for purpose of minor clarification(s)), unless discussions are determined to be required.

EVALUATION FACTORS, SUBFACTORS, ELEMENTS

Factor 1 Previous Experience (Volume I Technical): Offerors must provide information demonstrating that they have successfully performed hospital construction as a prime contractor or sub-contractor within the last five (5) years* where at least three (3), no more than five (5) construction projects where multiple trades were involved. Project magnitude shall be the price range of $2,000 and $1 million. The following information is required:

• Government or Company which awarded contract/project

• Contract number if Government award

• Project Name

• Project location

• Primary Point of Contact i.e., name, title, telephone number and email address

• Award amount

• Performance Period

• Description of Project i.e., scope of work

• Number of change orders/modifications and type of modifications (owner directed, differing site conditions, contractor requested)

*The five (5) year timeframe is from award date of the project.

Factor 2 Construction Management – (Volume I Technical):

Subfactor 2.1 Key Personnel

• Project Manager, on-the job Superintendent seed project(s) biographical data including name, company position, years with company, work and educational background, experience applicable to hospital construction.

• The Site Superintendent(s)/Project Manager(s) shall have a minimum of a high school diploma or equivalent, five (5) years’ experience in construction and proof of two (2) projects managed by them valued over $100,000.00 for a minimum of 50% of the duration of the project(s) in a hospital facility.

Person(s) must be employed by the prime contractor and show evidence of employment or contract for employment.

• Offeror may list additional key personnel such as Senior Project Manager, Quality Control Manager, or Safety Officer(s) if firm employs personnel in these roles and they are separate duties or different individuals from the Site Superintendent/Project Manager.

Contractor must submit for Government approval replacements or deviation from proposed key personnel.

Subfactor 2.2 Quality Control

• The Offeror shall submit a Quality Assurance/Quality Control plan regarding submittal review, construction management, closeout, processes and logical measures to ensure successful execution of the seed project(s).

• The Offeror shall outline techniques for work coordination with subcontractors. Describe the mechanisms that are in place to monitor performance of subcontractors and guarantee performance.

• The Offeror shall outline sound measures to monitor performance of subcontractors and guarantee performance, to include appropriate corrective actions, management tools, methods, and documentation to correct performance if necessary.

• The Offeror shall describe in detail the procedures utilized that ensure all contractual requirements will be completed on time to include written documentation such as payrolls, daily logs, submittals, warranties, payments, and training completion.

Subfactor 2.3 Risk Assessment

The Offeror shall provide a written Risk Assessment on the Seed Project(s) to include an understanding of the site conditions and plans to deal with varying elements and factors affecting the work (e.g., weather, local obstacles, public access and other conditions, inflation, cost of fuel, length of contract performance as it relates to offering a firm-fixed-price without the ability to make inflationary adjustments). The Risk Assessment shall include what contingencies are being anticipated and what plans are proposed to address them.

Subfactor 2.4 Safety & Infection Control

• The Offeror shall identify personnel responsible for safety i.e., Competent and/or Qualified Person(s) and provide proof of competency/qualification to meet OSHA Competent/Qualified Person(s) requirement.

• The Offeror shall outline how all workers whether a worker for the prime contractor or any subcontractor will be trained for the required minimum 10-hour OSHA training.

• Offeror shall provide CURRENT insurance Experience Modification Rate and discuss their experience with on-the-job incidents or injuries during the last two calendar years.

• The Offeror should demonstrate knowledge of and experience with the American Society of Healthcare Engineer's (ASHE) Healthcare Contractor Certification Program. Offerors with ASHE

Healthcare Contractor's Certification will be rated higher than others. At a minimum, the Offeror should describe familiarity with Healthcare Construction, along with applicable JCAHO standards, AIA guidelines, ASHRAE guidelines, EPA IAQ guidelines, and CDC guidelines.

Subfactor 2.5 Bonding

Provide information, from an acceptable surety in accordance with FAR 28.202 Acceptability of Corporate Sureties, reflecting sufficient bonding capability to meet the maximum per Task Order amount of $1,000,000.00. This information will be documented by the Surety submitted in this volume.

Factor 3 – Past Performance (Volume II): Offerors are required to demonstrate recent (within the last 5 years), successful performance under contracts that involve general hospital construction (completed or ongoing) which are similar in scope, magnitude and complexity to the Seed Projects. Offerors will either submit CPARS for successfully completed or ongoing projects, letters of recommendation or will have the Contracting Officer/Point of contact fill out a “Past Performance Evaluation Form” and submitted/emailed directly to the Contracting Officer, Lisa Lake, lisa.lake2@va.gov from references. The Contracting Officer shall include it as part of the proposal package.

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 IAW FAR 15.305(a)(2)(iv). Therefore, the offeror shall be determined to have unknown past performance i.e.

Neutral. Although the SSEB may not rate an offeror that lacks recent, relevant past performance favorably or unfavorably with regard to past performance, the SSEB may recommend and the SSA may determine, that a “Substantial Confidence” or “Satisfactory Confidence” past performance rating is worth more than a “Neutral” past performance rating in a best value tradeoff.

The Past Performance evaluation considers the Offeror’s demonstrated record of performance in providing products and services that meet the users’ needs. Performance confidence is assessed at the overall Past Performance Factor Level after evaluating aspects of the Offeror’s recent past performance, focusing on performance that is relevant to the MATOC. Particular attention will be paid to the following areas which are addressed in the “Past Performance Evaluation Form” and Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) evaluation data: Quality, Schedule, Cost Control, Management, and Regulatory Compliance, as well as Safety/Labor Compliance. Consideration will be given to things such as similar service, similar complexity of the effort, breadth and depth of skills, similar contract scope and type, contract magnitude and schedule. The Government may consider past performance in the aggregate in addition to an individual contract basis. In conducting the Past Performance evaluation, the Government reserves the right to use both the information provided in the Offeror’s Proposal Volume II and information obtained from any, and all sources, including sources outside the Government. Other sources may include, but are not limited to, the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) and/or similar systems, Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) using all CAGE/DUNS numbers of contractors who are part of the partnership or joint mailto:lisa.lake2@va.gov venture identified in the offerors proposal, inquiries of owner representative(s), Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity (FAPIIS), Electronic Subcontract Reporting System and any other known sources not provided by the offeror. The Government will consider the recency and relevancy of the information, the source of the information, context of the data and general trends in the offeror’s performance. This evaluation is separate and distinct from the Contracting Officer’s responsibility determination. The assessment of the offeror’s past performance will be used as a means of evaluating the offeror’s probability of success of meeting the requirements of the RFP.

Factor 4 – PRICE (Volume III)

The Offeror’s price proposal will be evaluated for award purposes, based upon the total evaluated price proposed for the Seed Project associated with the geographic area (as selected by the offeror) of the demonstration project(s). Total proposed price should be reflected in Block 17 of the Standard Form 1442. Additionally, the offeror shall provide a completed Construction Price Breakdown, to detail their price reasonableness.

Analysis of price proposals will be performed using one or more of the techniques defined in FAR 15.404-1. Price analysis will be performed to ensure that the final agreed-to price is fair and reasonable.

Price analysis will be utilized to review and evaluate the specific elements of each offeror’s proposed estimate in comparison with the Independent Cost Estimates to determine whether the contractor is abiding by the limitations in sub-contracting and reflect a clear understanding of the requirements;

consistent with the performance and materials described in Seed Project(s) Statement of Work, Specifications and Drawings.

NOTE: The Seed Project at each geographic area shall be utilized for evaluation purposes only, and shall not be awarded against.

The following projects are the Seed Project(s):

512-23-105 Upgrade ENT Clinic Access and Flow (Attachments 1A through 1D)

517-17-123 RENOVATE LAB WAITING AREA BECKLEY VAMC (Attachments 2A through 2D)

The Government intends to award minimum of (5) and maximum of (10) contracts per area for the Network Contracting Office (NCO 5) Multiple Award Task Order Contracts (MATOC) as Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB) set-aside based on the proposals received for the “Seed Projects”.

To arrive at a source selection decision, the Government will make an assessment of the proposals submitted in response to the evaluation factors and sub factors.

Offerors have been cautioned to completely read the entire solicitation and submit sufficient and correct information, and in the format specified. The Contracting Officer reserves the right to award a contract without the opportunity for proposal revision(s). Offers not submitting the required information, initially, with their proposals may be rejected. The government intends to award a contract without discussions with respective offerors. The government, however, reserves the right to conduct discussions if deemed in its best interests.

It is the Government’s intent to award without discussions; therefore, it is imperative that each offeror submit their best terms with their initial proposal. However, if during the evaluation period, it is determined to be in the best interest of the Government to hold discussions, offeror responses to clarifications, and the Final Proposal Revision(s) (FPR) will be considered in making the source selection decision.

Offerors are required to meet all solicitation requirements, such as terms and conditions, representations and certifications, and technical requirements, in addition to those identified as evaluation factors. Failure to meet a requirement may result in an offer being ineligible for award.

Offerors must clearly identify any exception to the solicitation terms and conditions and provide complete accompanying rationale.

Offerors to be considered for both geographical regions shall submit two complete separate proposals for each of the “seed” projects.

If contractor submits two proposals, one (1) for each geographical area, the SSEB shall evaluate each proposal separately against the evaluation criteria.

Interested Parties shall submit any RFI’s to the Contracting Officer via email at lisa.lake2@va.gov no later than 11:00am EST Wednesday, September 25, 2024.

All proposals and referenced solicitation requirements shall be sent to the Contracting Officer via email at lisa.lake2@va.gov no later than 11:00am EST on Monday, October 21, 2024.

No late packages shall be accepted.