J.2 Instructions to Quoters and Basis for Award (L&M).docx

Supplies, Services, and Material Management Division

www.aoc.gov

Instructions to Offerors and Basis for Award

AOCSSB25R0005

Release Date: 1/30/2025 The Architect of the Capitol (AOC), Supplies, Services, and Material Management Division (SSMMD) is issuing Request for Proposals (RFP) # AOCSSB25R0005 for U.S. Capitol Building Exterior Temporary Food Service Facility. It is anticipated that this RFP will result in a Firm Fixed Price Contract to a responsible Offeror actively registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) and whose proposal provides the overall best value to the AOC in accordance with the requirements set forth by this solicitation and the Statement of Work (SOW). This solicitation will use the procedures in AOC Contracting Manual § 9.1 Negotiated Acquisitions. The AOC Contracting Manual can be found here:

https://www.aoc.gov/sites/default/files/2023-01/AOC-Order-34-1_Contracting-Manual-2022.pdf The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes for this requirement is 722330 - Mobile Food Services. The Product Service Code is W073, Lease or Rental of Equipment- Food Preparation and Serving Equipment.

The period of performance (PoP) will be as follows:

The period of performance of this requirement is anticipated from contract award to the temporary facility delivery and startup no later than 7/28/25 and an additional three years for the facility lease. This includes the following lease periods

1. 12-month base lease period

2. One additional 12-month option lease period

3. Two three-month lease periods

4. One six-month lease period in accordance with FAR 52.217-8 The List of Attachments is in Section J of Standard Form 33 (SF33).

L.1 RFP GENERAL CONDITIONS

The submission of a proposal to the Government shall constitute the proposal’s acknowledgement, agreement and compliance with the terms and conditions of the RFP. The Government will not be obligated to pay any cost incurred by a contractor in the preparation and submission of a proposal. Offerors are cautioned to ensure that their proposal submissions are complete and reflective of the evaluation criteria and requirements described herein. Offerors are encouraged to provide their best terms with their initial proposal submission. Offerors shall not assume that the Government will afford an opportunity to clarify, discuss, or revise a proposal. The Government reserves the right to conduct discussions if it determines that it is in the best interest of the Government.

Proposals shall be valid for 90 days from the date of final proposal submission.

Any exceptions or conditional assumptions taken with respect to the requirements outlined in the RFP or SOW shall be fully explained in the proposal’s Introductory Letter. The Government cautions Offerors that taking exception to any term or condition may render their proposal non-responsive and the proposal will be ineligible for award, unless the RFP expressly authorizes such an exception with regards to a specific term or condition.

L.1.1 SITE VISIT

An optional site visit is scheduled for 10am (EST) on February 12, 2025 at the South House Entrance on the AOC campus. Interested Contractors should contact Marshall Graves, email lawrence.graves@aoc.gov , as soon as possible to inform him that you will plan to attend. Attendance to the site visit is not required but is highly encouraged. Any question answered during the site visit and not answered in writing will not be recognized as a valid response later by the contractor if it results in a delay, dispute or misunderstanding of work requirements.

*All questions must be submitted in writing to Tim Nyberg via email at tim.nyberg@aoc.gov by 12:00 P.M. (EST), February 14, 2025 – see L.2.1 below. Answers to questions will be posted on SAM.gov.

There will be no Government owned parking spaces available, participants are responsible for finding parking spaces.

L.2 QUESTIONS AND PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS

All correspondence in conjunction with this solicitation, including questions and proposal submittals, shall be directed to the Contracting Officer, Tim Nyberg, via e-mail at tim.nyberg@aoc.gov. E-mail messages shall not exceed 15 MB.

L.2.1 Questions Due Date Questions about the technical or contractual details of this procurement must be submitted in writing via e-mail by February 14, 2025 at noon EST . When submitting questions, please include the RFP #, Company Name and the word “Questions” in the subject line of the email. For example, “AOCSSB25R0005_ ABC Inc. Questions”. Questions submitted after this cut off will be responded to at the discretion of the Contracting Officer.

Answers to questions will be provided as an amendment to the RFP.

L.2.2 Proposal Due Date Proposals must be received no later than February 27, 2025 by noon EST. When submitting your final proposal, please include the RFP #, Company Name and the word “Proposal” in the subject line of the email. For example, “AOCSSB25R0005_ ABC Inc. proposal”. Proposals received after this date and time shall be considered late and shall not be accepted by the Government unless it is determined to be in the best interest of the Government.

L.3 VOLUMES AND ORGANIZATION

Proposals shall be clearly and concisely written, as well as being neat, indexed and logically assembled as described herein. Offerors are advised to supply all information in the sequence and format specified in the table below. The submitted proposal must provide a sufficient basis for a thorough evaluation and contain the information necessary for evaluation. The Government will not assume the proposal possesses any capability, understanding, or commitment not specified in the proposal. The proposal must not merely repeat the solicitation and Statement of Work requirements, but rather must provide convincing documentary evidence in support of conclusive statements of how contract requirements will be met.

Proposals shall be prepared in separate volumes: Volume I – Technical and Volume II – Price. The proposal shall provide the requested information within the designated volume evaluation factor. Any requested information placed outside of the designated location shall not be considered or evaluated under that evaluation factor regardless of whether it is located somewhere else in the proposal. In order for the technical proposal to be strictly evaluated on the merit of the material submitted, Volume I and Volume II shall be submitted as separate documents. Pricing is prohibited in, and shall be omitted from, Volume I. Each volume shall be indexed by evaluation factor.

Volumes shall be organized in the following manner:

All pages in Volume I, except the introductory letter, shall include page numbering.

Content which is outside the Page Limits in the above chart will not be considered by the Government during evaluations.

Table of Contents does not count towards the page count.

L.3.1 Paper Size and Formatting All responses to solicitations must be submitted electronically as described below. Responses submitted in a paper form are unacceptable. Failure to comply with this requirement may jeopardize the possibility of receiving an award for the contract due to noncompliance with the terms of the solicitation. You must submit your electronic proposal, and any supplemental information (such as spreadsheets, backup data, technical information), using any of the electronic formats and media described below.

In addition, contractors are notified of the award via an electronic Notice of Award e-mail. The award document will be attached to the Notice of Award e-mail.

Acceptable Electronic Formats (Software) for Submission of proposals

1. Files readable using the current Microsoft* Office version Products: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Access. Spreadsheet documents must be sent in a format that includes all formulas, macro, and format information. Print or scan images of spreadsheets are not acceptable. Please see security note below for caution regarding use of macros.

2. Files in Adobe* PDF (Portable Document Format) Files: When scanning documents scanner resolution should be set to 200 dots per inch, or greater.

3. Other electronic format. If you wish to submit a proposal using another format other than described in these instructions, e-mail the Contracting Officer who issued the solicitation. Please submit your request at least ten (10) calendar days before the scheduled closing date of the solicitation. Request a decision as to the format acceptability and make sure you receive approval of the alternate format before using it to send your proposal.

4. .zip files are not accepted.

E-mail Submission Procedures: For simplicity in this guidance, all submissions in response to a solicitation will be referred to as proposals.

a. Subject Line: Include the solicitation number, name of company, and closing date of solicitation. Use only one of the terms Proposal and proposal in your submission.

b. Size: Maximum size of the e-mail message shall not exceed five (15) megabytes. Only one email is permitted unless otherwise stated in this paragraph or in writing by the Contract Officer submitting the solicitation.

Each emailed electronic proposal must include everything that is requested in the solicitation.

The proposal will be date and time stamped by the Microsoft Outlook Email system will be the official record of receipt for the submission.

The proposal shall be clearly and concisely written, as well as being neat, indexed and logically assembled as described herein. The proposal shall use the attached specification/pricing lists. The proposal is allowed to propose an alternate method of pricing in their proposal, and if the alternate method is accepted and advantageous, the government could incorporate the contractor proposed method of pricing into the contract. (Contractor must still complete the included pricing format as well.)

Written materials shall be submitted 1 sided single spaced pages using standard 8 ½” x 11” size paper with a minimum of 1” margins. Font size shall be Times New Roman or Calibri with a minimum of 12-point size for text and 10-point size for tables and graphics.

L.3.2 Introductory Letter The following introductory information is required before the first index of Volume I:

· RFP Number & Title;

· Name and address of proposal;

· Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) & cage code;

· NAICS / PSC;

· Name, telephone number & e-mail address of proposal’s main point-of-contact;

· Date of submission;

· Name, title and signature of authorized representative;

· All technical factor assumptions to the RFP and SOW shall be identified in this section. Pricing assumptions shall be identified in Volume II. Exceptions identified in other areas of the proposal will not be considered.

Do not include any other information other than the items listed above in your Introductory Letter.

L.3.3 Standard Form 33 The proposal shall complete Page 1 of the SF33 and all the provision fill-ins under Section K - Representations, Certifications, and other Statements of Offerors or Respondents. The entire form shall be returned in PDF format in Volume II. Any SF-30 associated with any amendments to this RFP shall be signed by the proposal and included in Volume II as well.

L.3.4 Factor 1 – Technical Approach The proposal shall provide a technical approach plan in a narrative format that describes the proposal’s approach to managing and executing the requirements of the SOW. Offerors are cautioned that the submitted approach will be contractually binding.

The Technical Approach narrative shall reflect key management approaches, policies, and procedures to be implemented to ensure exceptional project management, delivery and quality control to complete the contract on-time, within budget and provide an approach which meets the requirements of SOW sections C.3 Scope of Work, C.5 Tasks, and C.6 Deliverables and Deliverables Schedule, and how the proposal will manage C.15 Key Personnel.

L.3.5 Factor 2 – Key Personnel The proposal shall provide a resume for the Program Manager (SOW Section 15.1). The resume shall indicate information necessary for the Government to clearly be able to interpret how the resume meets the requirements.

L.3.6 Factor 3 – Corporate Experience The proposal shall demonstrate past corporate experience and expertise on three past contracts performing contracts of similar size and scope of the SOW. These contracts shall be both recent and relevant to the requirements in the SOW. The term relevant means similar to project size and complexity as the scope identified in the SOW. The term recent means contracts which were completed within the past five years, or those which have been performed for at least 24 months.

Offerors shall use Attachment J.3 to submit Corporate Experience.

L.3.7 Factor 4 – Past Performance The Government is providing a Past Performance Questionnaire (PPQ) as an attachment to this solicitation (Attachment J.4) which the proposal shall provide to the past customer Point of Contact (POC) for the three past contracts identified under the Corporate Experience factor (L.3.6) for completion. The Government requests that the proposal submit the questionnaire to the POCs via email. All completed questionnaire forms must be emailed by the past customer POC directly to the Contracting Officer, Tim Nyberg, at tim.nyberg@aoc.gov by the due date and time of proposals.

The proposal may use CPARS, in which case shall submit the CPARS Assessment print-out directly to the Contracting Officer along with their Volume I proposal.

L.3.8 Factor 5 – Price Offerors shall fill in Attachment J.5 – Pricing Sheet. Offerors shall include prices for all items listed in the pricing schedule and include all costs associated for work in the specifications, whether or not specifically listed in the pricing schedule. In the absence of adequate price competition a cost realism analysis may be performed, and other than certified cost and pricing data may be required.

In addition to completing the pricing schedule included, offerors must provide an itemized cost proposal showing the breakdown of all unit pricing, and how costs were determined. Provide amounts for supervision, equipment, mobilization, subcontractors, profit, overhead, bonds and any other direct cost that comprises the total proposed amount.

M.1 BASIS FOR AWARD

Evaluations will be conducted in accordance with the procedures defined below. The Government will first verify the on-time submission of all proposals. The Contracting Officer will then verify the proposals meet the Volume and Organization structure described in Section L.3. Volume I of the proposals that meet the requirements of Section L.3 will be submitted to the Technical Evaluation Panel (TEP) for evaluation. Each non-price factor will be assigned an adjectival rating as established in Section M.2 herein. Once all Volume I proposals are evaluated, the TEP will evaluate Volume II, Price in accordance with the evaluation criteria for this factor.

The Government will make an award to the proposal whose proposal represents the best value to the Government. Within the best value continuum, the Government will use the Tradeoff process of non-price and price factors in evaluating the proposals approved for evaluation. The Government will reserve the right to make an award without allowing for proposal revisions if there is a fully acceptable proposal received in the initial submissions. If not, the Government may allow any proposal to revise their Volume I or II submissions, however, a formal competitive range will not be established. The Government also reserves the right to make no award.

In the event that two or more proposals are determined not to have any substantial technical differences (i.e., are technically equivalent), price may become the determining factor and award may be made to the lower priced proposal. In the event that proposals are not technically equal, award may be made to other than the proposal with the lowest priced proposal, if the Government determines that a price premium is warranted due to technical merit. The Government may also award to other than the highest technically rated proposal, if the government determines that a price premium is not warranted.

Evaluations will be based on a complete assessment of the proposal submission. proposals will be evaluated on the following factors listed in descending order of importance. All non-price factors when combined are more important than Factor 5, Price.

Non Price Factors:

Factor 1: Technical Approach Factor 2: Key Personnel Factor 3: Corporate Experience Factor 4: Past Performance

Price Factors:

Factor 5: Price The evaluation criteria for each factor is as follows:

M.1.1 Factor 1 – Technical Approach The Government will evaluate the proposal’s Technical Approach to determine the proposal’s understanding of the requirement and method for completion. The Government will evaluate the proposal’s detailed knowledge and understanding of the SOW challenges associated with SOW sections 3, 5, and 6, and managing (SOW section 15) Key Personnel. The Government will make a determination to which extent the technical approach provided by the proposal meets or exceeds the Government’s expectations.

M.1.2 Factor 2 – Key Personnel The Government will evaluate the resumes for SOW Section 5.1 Program Manager, to determine the extent to which the individuals have the experience and ability to perform their respective tasks and to what extent they meet the requirements outlined in the SOW.

M.1.3 Factor 3 – Corporate Experience Corporate Experience will be evaluated to determine the extent to which the proposal’s Corporate Experience reflects services of similar size and scope to this requirement. A higher degree of relevancy of the corporate experience will result in a higher score for this evaluation factor. The more the Corporate Experience demonstrates elements in SOW sections 3, 5, and 6, the more relevant the Corporate Experience will be found in determining the score for this evaluation factor.

M.1.4 Factor 4 – Past Performance Past performance will be evaluated to determine the extent to which the proposal’s past performance demonstrates successful performance on the contracts identified under the corporate experience evaluation factor.

The Government will evaluate the Past Performance Questionnaires received from customer references to determine the extent to which the proposal demonstrated at least a satisfactory record of customer satisfaction. The Government may contact these references or use other references/information to verify past performance, such as CPARS. See Attachment J.4 – Past Performance Questionnaire for the contents that the Government will evaluate from the proposal’s past customers when using the Past Performance Questionnaire to evaluate past performance. Offerors without a record of relevant past performance, or for whom information on past performance is not available, shall not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably, but shall instead receive an overall rating of “neutral.”

M.1.5 Factor 5 – Price The Government will evaluate the price proposals of all Offerors receiving an Acceptable rating or above for Factors 1, 2, and 3.

Offerors who rate below Acceptable under Factors 1, 2, or 3 shall not be eligible for award, and their price will not be evaluated for award purposes, however, this does not prevent the Government from evaluating price proposals of Offerors who rate below Acceptable for Factors 1, 2, or 3 for the purposes of allowing for proposal revisions (without forming a formal competitive range).

Price criterion will measure not only actual dollars but reasonableness of the proposal’s proposed price and its position in the range of all proposal prices.

The proposal’s price proposal shall be evaluated for price reasonableness to prevent the Government from paying too much for the services outlined in the SOW. Additionally, a price realism analysis may be performed to determine whether a proposal’s price is unrealistically low. An unrealistically low proposal may question whether a proposal fully understands the size, magnitude, complexity, and scope of service outlined in the SOW. An unrealistic price proposal may serve as a rejection for the proposal.

The offeror’s proposal will be evaluated for unbalanced pricing utilizing price analysis techniques. The Government may determine that a proposal is unacceptable if the prices proposed are materially unbalanced. A proposal may be rejected if the Contracting Officer determines that the lack of balance poses an unacceptable risk to the Government.

Price will not be rated adjectivally, but will be evaluated based on a comprehensive review. Price proposals shall be evaluated with respect to accuracy and completeness based on information submitted in the proposal’s written submission. This process will involve verification that figures are correctly calculated, prices are presented in the requested format, and that proposed rates and any applicable discounts are accurate. Additionally, the Government may utilize one or more of the following methods to evaluate price:

As part of the price evaluation, the Government will evaluate the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) clause 52.217-9, Option to Extend the Term of the Contract. The proposal's total evaluated price shall include the base period and all option periods.

M.2 RATING AND DEFINITIONS

The Government will evaluate non-price factors 1, 2, and 3 of Volume I using the following adjectival ratings and definitions scale:

Un-awardable.

Un-awardable.

During the course of the evaluation, the Source Selection Evaluation Panel will record proposal Significant Strengths, Strengths, Weaknesses, Significant Weaknesses, and Deficiencies. The definitions of these terms are as follows:

Significant Strengths: A strength that appreciably enhances the merit of a proposal or appreciably increases the probability of successful contract performance.

Strengths: Any aspect of a proposal which exceeds a requirement and increases the probability of successful performance of the contract.

Weaknesses: A flaw in the proposal that increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance.

Significant Weaknesses: A weakness that appreciably increases the risk of unsuccessful contract performance.

Deficiencies: 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.

Offerors who rate below Acceptable under Factors 1, 2, or 3 will not be eligible for award and their price (Factor 5) will not be evaluated.

The Government will rate factor 4, Past Performance, using the following adjectival ratings and definitions scale, NLT means “No Later than”:

Architect of the Capitol | Supplies, Services, and Material Management Division Ford House Office Building, Room H2-263 | Washington, DC 20515 | 202.226.2557 | www.aoc.gov

Architect of the Capitol | Supplies, Services, and Material Management Division Ford House Office Building, Room H2-263 | Washington, DC 20515 | 202.226.2557 | www.aoc.gov image1.jpeg