52 212-2.doc

Drivers Training Support Services –Solicitation LGL08R00010

52.212-2 -- Evaluation -- Commercial Items.

As prescribed in 12.301(c), the Contracting Officer may insert a provision substantially as follows:

Evaluation -- Commercial Items (Jan 1999)

(a) The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. The following factors shall be used to evaluate offers:

[Contracting Officer shall insert the significant evaluation factors, such as

(i) technical capability of the item offered to meet the Government requirement;

(ii) price;

(iii) past performance (see FAR 15.304);

(iv) small disadvantaged business participation; and include them in the relative order of importance of the evaluation factors, such as in descending order of importance.] Technical capabilities and past performance, when combined, are __________ [Contracting Officer state, in accordance with FAR 15.304, the relative importance of all other evaluation factors, when combined, when compared to price.] “Addendum to 52.212-2 -change paragraph (a) to read:

add changed paragraph here.”

(a). The evaluation and award selection process will be an integrated assessment for a best value award decision. For those offerors found to be within the competitive range based on the evaluations conducted in accordance with the factors listed below, tradeoffs will be made between Technical capabilities, past performance and price, with Technical capabilities and past performance being considered each more important than price. However, price will become more important if the Technical capabilities and past performance of two offerors is determined to be relatively equal.

a. Technical capabilities- The Government will evaluate Technical capabilities through the ten factors listed in Clause 52.212-1 to determine if the offeror has the ability and understanding of the requirements. Each offeror’s Technical capabilities proposal will be evaluated to determine if the offeror provides a sound, compliant approach that meets the requirements of the Performance – Based Statement of Work (PBSOW) and demonstrates a thorough knowledge and understanding of those requirements and their associated risks. The Technical capabilities portion of the contractors’ proposal will be rated using the following scale:

superior – good – satisfactory – marginal – unsatisfactory. The definitions of the rating standards are:

SUPERIOR: Proposal demonstrates excellent understanding of requirements and approach that significantly exceeds performance or capability standards. Has exceptional strengths that will significantly benefit the Government;

GOOD: Proposal demonstrates good understanding of requirements and approach that exceeds performance or capability standards. Has one or more strengths that will benefit the Government.

SATISFACTORY: Proposal demonstrates acceptable understanding of requirements and approach that meets performance or capability standards. Acceptable solution. Few or no strengths, MARGINAL: Proposal demonstrates shallow understanding of requirements and approach that only marginally meets performance or capability standards necessary for minimal but acceptable contract performance UNSATISFACTORY: Fails to meet the requirement; one or more deficiencies for which correction would require a major revision or redirection of the proposal basis. The Technical capabilities proposal shall meet specified performance and capability requirements. These requirements are necessary for acceptable contract performance and will receive a “superior”, “good” or “satisfactory” rating. If the proposal fails to meet specified minimum performance and capability requirements, the offeror will be given an assessment of “marginal” or unsatisfactory”. An assessment of either of these ratings will result in the proposal as being found unacceptable. Proposal risk will be a part of the criteria considered in the acceptability decision. Proposal risk assesses the risk associated with the offeror’s proposed approach as it relates to accomplishing the requirements of this solicitation. Offerors may be determined unacceptable, even though the minimum requirements are met, if the proposed approach poses too great a risk.

The following sub factors will be evaluated as part of the Technical capabilities evaluation for this solicitation: Service Plan, Quality Control Plan (QC), Safety Plan, Environmental Management Plan, Management and Administration, Key Management Personnel Qualifications, Risk, Contingency Plan, Commercial Driver’s License (NOTE: Only this Subfactor (ix) will be a pass/fail evaluation), and Property Control Plan.

b. Price- The Price volume must include CLIN price breakdown detailing labor categories, labor burden, other direct costs, indirect rates to include overhead and G&A and profit percentage proposed for this effort. The overall price proposed will be evaluated in accordance with FAR 15.404-1 to determine if the proposed price is fair and reasonable. The Government may determine the offeror unacceptable if the proposed price(s) are materially unbalance (significantly understated or overstated in relation to the actual cost of that work); for this reason, unique and innovative approaches must be clearly explained in the price proposal. The proposed price will be evaluated to determine the offeror’s understanding of the contract requirements as expressed by the Performance – Based Statement of Work. Although burdened rates provided by offerors for CLINs X003 and X004 will not be evaluated as part of the overall dollar amount of the contract, the rates will be evaluated for price reasonableness as specified below. One or more of the following techniques may be used to perform price proposal evaluations:

(i) Comparison of proposed priced received in response to the solicitation.

(ii) Comparison of previously proposed prices and previous Government and commercial contract prices with current proposed prices for the same or similar services.

(iii) Application of rough yardsticks to highlight significant inconsistencies.

(iv) Comparison with competitive published price lists, published market prices, similar indexes and discount or rebate arrangements.

(v) Comparison of proposed prices with prices obtained through market research for the same or similar items.

c. Past Performance (see FAR 15.304)- The Government will evaluate Past Performance through an integrated analysis of those risks and strengths the Government identifies in the offeror’s recent and relevant contract performance. Evaluations will be based on present and past performance information gathered from various sources known to the government, to include: Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) reports, interviews with program managers and contracting officers or other sources known to the government, Past Performance Questionnaire responses, telephone and email interviews with offeror-provided references and other known sources located by the Government.

(i) Special emphasis will be placed during evaluations on relevant performance related to areas covered by the PBSOW. Relevant performance for past performance evaluation purposes are drivers training support services provided on comparable contracts of similar scope/magnitude for types of services (fleet management/transporting vehicles, vehicle inspections, maintaining driving ranges, etc.). Past Performance information shall be recent, defined as within the past three years. Current past performance will have a greater impact in the confidence assessment than earlier past performance. Performance trends and consistency in performance will also be considered during Past Performance evaluations.

For technically acceptable proposals, the past performance assessment will assess the confidence in the offeror’s ability (which includes, if applicable, the extent of its critical subcontractors’ or teaming partners’ involvement) to successfully accomplish the proposed effort based on the offeror’s demonstrated present and past work record. The Government will evaluate the offeror’s demonstrated record of contract compliance in supplying services that meet users’ needs including cost and schedule. The currency and relevancy of the information, the source of the information, context of the data and general trends in the contractor’s performance will be considered.

(ii) The Government will perform an independent determination of relevancy of the data provided or obtained. A relevancy determination of the offeror’s present/past performance (which includes, if applicable, the extent of its critical subcontractors’ or teaming partners’ involvement) will be made. The Government is not bound by the offeror’s opinion of relevancy. The Government may consider an offeror’s contracts in aggregate in determining relevancy, should the offeror’s present and past performance lend itself to this approach. For example, an offeror’s work experience on three contracts may, by definition, represent only a semi-relevant effort when each contract is considered as a stand-alone effort. However, when these contracts are performed concurrently (in part or in whole) and are assessed in the aggregate, the work may more accurately reflect a very relevant effort.

(iii) The following relevancy ratings apply:

(iv) The following confidence ratings apply:

“High Confidence” is considered as essentially no doubt exists that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

“Significant Confidence” has been considered as little doubt exists that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

Offerors without a record of relevant past performance or for whom information on past performance is not available will not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably. (See FAR 15.305(a)(2)(iii) & (iv)).

PERFORMANCE CONFIDENCE ASSESSMENTS

(iv) In assessing present and past performance, the Government will employ several approaches including, but not limited to:

1. Evaluation of present and past performance will include consideration of overall customer satisfaction and conclusions of informed judgment.

2. Offerors shall be given an opportunity to address adverse past performance information if the offeror has not had a previous opportunity to respond to the information. Recent contracts will be examined to ensure that corrective measures have been implemented. The confidence assessment will consider issues including, but not limited to, the number and severity of the problems, the appropriateness and/or effectiveness of any corrective actions taken (not just planned or promised), and the offeror’s overall work record. Prompt corrective action in isolated instances may not outweigh overall negative trends.

3. Past performance information will also be considered regarding critical key personnel. If an offeror, or the proposed key employees of the offeror, do not have a past performance history deemed relevant to this solicitation, the offeror will receive a neutral confidence rating.

Where performance record indicates performance problems, the Government will consider the number and severity of the problems along with the appropriateness and effectiveness of any corrective actions taken. The offeror will have an opportunity to address any negative or adverse past performance information received during evaluations for which they have not had the opportunity to address in the past (subject to the restrictions of FAR 15.306(e)(4)). A performance confidence rating will be assigned based on the offeror’s ability to perform the requirements of the solicitation.

4. Offerors are cautioned to submit sufficient information in the format specified. Offerors may be asked to clarify certain aspects of their proposal (for example, relevance of past performance information) or respond to adverse past performance information to which the offeror has not previously had an opportunity to respond. Communication conducted to resolve minor or clerical errors will not constitute discussions and the Government reserves the right to award a contract without the opportunity for proposal revision. Offerors are advised to submit their most favorable proposal initially because the Government reserves the right to award without additional discussions.

5. The Government intends to award one contract to the offeror deemed responsible in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation, whose proposal conforms to this RFP’s requirements, and is determined to be the best value to the Government. The “best value” is the most advantageous offer, price and other factors considered, consistent with the Government’s stated importance of evaluation criteria (Past performance and technical capabilities are each more important that price). The Government reserves the right to award to other than the low offeror without conducting discussions. This may result in award being made to a higher-rated, higher priced offeror where the Contracting Officer determines that the past/present performance of the higher-priced offeror or the offeror with the higher level of technical proficiency outweighs the price difference. To arrive at a best value decision, the Contracting Officer will conduct an integrated assessment conducting tradeoffs between Price, Technical Capabilities and Past Performance. The evaluation process, by its nature is subjective and therefore, professional judgment is implicit throughout the entire evaluation process.

(b) Options. The Government will evaluate offers for award purposes by adding the total price for all options to the total price for the basic requirement. The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable if the option prices are significantly unbalanced. Evaluation of options shall not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s).

(c) A written notice of award or acceptance of an offer, mailed or otherwise furnished to the successful offeror within the time for acceptance specified in the offer, shall result in a binding contract without further action by either party. Before the offer’s specified expiration time, the Government may accept an offer (or part of an offer), whether or not there are negotiations after its receipt, unless a written notice of withdrawal is received before award.

(End of Provision)