Exhibit_6_RFC_Government_Responses_Amendment_01.xlsx
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- Solicitation number
- M67854-16-R-4800
- Issued by
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United States Marine Corps
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Exhibit 6 - Requests for Clarification and Government Responses
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Sheet1 M67854-16-R-4800 MCRISS Requests for Clarification
| Quest. No. | DOCUMENT / PAGE / PARAGRAPH / LINE NUMBER | SOLICITATION SECTION | VENDOR QUESTION | GOVERNMENT RESPONSE |
| 1 | Page 40 | Instructions, Conditions, and Notices to Offerors | The Government has requested that offerors develop Draft Plans that do not count toward page count. To develop Draft Plans (Post-Deployment Software Support, Software Development, and Project Management) seems overly onerous for a proposal especially for a small business, given that they are ‘Draft Plans’ and the Government normally couldn’t use them as part of their best value evaluation because they are in a draft state and the Government would generally be required to provide feedback on them prior to assessing their value. Would the Government consider removing these as a requirement for the proposal and consider making them due within 5 days of award? | The Government anticipates that there would be a significant overlap in terms of the content of the respective draft plans and any response to the over-arching/IDIQ PWS (and any amplifying information provided in the task order PWS responses). As a result, the Government does not believe that the level of effort required to prepare these draft plans would be excessive given that the content would have to already have been prepared in the total response elsewhere. It is the intent of the Government to engage the successful contractor to finalize these plans, consistent with that offeror's proposal, after contract award. The Government, therefore, will not remove the requirement for submission of the draft plans as identified in the solicitation. |
| 2 | Page 41 | Instructions, Conditions, and Notices to Offerors | The Government specifically states, “Note that the offeror shall ensure not to address the same tasks in multiple sections of this volume using the same language (i.e. the offeror shall propose an approach to PDSS in this section, but when addressing PDSS in Task Order 1, shall ensure that the language is not simply copied and pasted from the ID/IQ Approach).” In reviewing the ID/IQ PWS and the task specific PWS’s, they appear to be virtually identical across common tasks. Additionally, in creating an overarching approach that approach would be the basis of the detailed response at the task level and therefore some things will be virtually identical just like in the Government’s PWS’s. Also, we would think the Government would want to see consistency and alignment between our ID/IQ and Task approaches. With the need to ensure consistency between overarching and Task Order approaches would the Government consider striking this language from the RFP? | The Government's intent with regard to this language is to minimize the potential for duplicative writing and subsequent evaluation in the interest of expediency both for offeror preparation of submissions and the Government's source selection. To that end, the over-arching/IDIQ technical approach should comprehensively address the total effort as described by the overarching/IDIQ PWS. Individual responses to the task order PWS requirements should only provide any amplifying or supplementing information above and beyond the content already provided in the over-arching/IDIQ response. For example, the over-arching response may address help desk support from a process-oriented perspective, while the task order response might specifically address hours of operation, staffing approach, etc. The Government, therefore, will not remove or alter the language, as stated in the solicitation. |
| 3 | 4 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/Table 1 TFITS Mgmt Plans | Will the Gov’t provide the Management Plans referred to in Table 1? | The Government will provide the documents identified in Table 1 as exhibits via amendment to the solicitation. |
| 4 | Page 5-6 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/2.2 SI System Instantiation | On line 224, the Gov’t refers to a copy of the production system software being provided, on line 229 refers to a copy of the preproduction system software, and on line 252 refers to the training environment system software. Are there three separate versions of MCRISS being maintained for production, preproduction, and training? | Yes, there are three (3) separate environments, not including the vendor-maintained development environment. |
| 5 | 6 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/2.2.3.1 MC EDTE Transition | Does the Gov’t plan to provide all licenses for software, dev tools, etc. that will be utilized in the USMC EDTE? | The Government will provide software licensing for development tools, applications, and operating systems in the EDTE. |
| 6 | 6 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/2.2.3.1 MC EDTE Transition | What is the timeline for transitioning the Development and Testing Environments to the USMC EDTE? | Transition is estimated during 2nd or 3rd Quarter of FY17. |
| 7 | 6 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/2.2.3.1 MC EDTE Transition | Is the SI required to utilize the USMC EDTE if they are currently incurring all costs for the SI hosted environment? | The Government anticipates a mandate for all systems to utilize the EDTE, once available, regardless of the existence of any other development environment. The Government expects to realize a significant cost-savings as a byproduct of consolidating numerous development environments in place by virtue of individual contract award into a single, Government-hosted environment. Significant importance has been placed upon this effort in light of ever-diminishing budgets. |
| 8 | 6 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/2.2.3.1 MC EDTE Transition | Will the USMC EDTE be a part of the MCRISS accreditation boundary? | The Government has not developed a finite determination on this issue at this point in time. For the purposes of this solicitation, offerors should assume that the MCRISS Accreditation Package will require modification to add the MCRISS Development System and all required software as part of the transition to the USMC EDTE. |
| 9 | 7 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/2.4.3 Phase-In Transition Activity | Line 279 states that a day is equivalent to a minimum of eight hours, not including lunch. Is there a maximum number of hours we are limited to by the availability of the Gov’t or incumbent SI? | The Government anticipates eight hours of availability, per day, for the personnel necessary to affect phase-in. |
| 10 | 7 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/2.4.6 Phase-In Transition Activity | Line 284 states that the SI shall provide the Gov’t with a physical copy of the system source code. Is this different than the code being provided to the SI (refer to section 2.2 SI System Instantiation)? | The source code provided by the Government at the inception of the contract will be the current baselined version of the system. As changes and updates are made to the software, the awardee shall provide the Government with updated source code in conjunction with the release process, or upon Government request. |
| 11 | 7 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/3.1.2.1 Development Environment | Line 295 states that “All data in the SI development environment(s) shall be obfuscated”. Will the Gov’t clarify what data that is stored in MCRISS will require obfuscation? | Historically, production data has been utilized to populate the Pre-production/test environment and a limited amount of developer generated data has been used within the development environment. As MCRISS data includes Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Personal Health Information (PHI), steps have been taken to restrict the amount, and storage location, of this data. At a minimum the vendor must obfuscate PII and PHI data prior to export from the production network and use within the development environment. |
| 12 | 8 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/3.1.2.1 Development Environment | Will the Gov’t provide the applicable SLAs for the USMC EDTE in regards to patches and maintenance activities, delineating which are the responsibility of the service provider, and which of the SI? | The USMC EDTE is not currently operational. SLAs and other supporting documentation are not available at this point in time. |
| 13 | 8 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/3.1.2.1 Development Environment | What is the capacity and planned availability of the USMC EDTE? | The USMC EDTE is not currently operational. Capacity and other supporting information is not available at this point in time. |
| 14 | 8 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/3.1.2.2 Production Environment | Will the Gov’t provide a network and system diagram of the MCRISS configurations, to include accreditation boundaries? | The Government has update the image in Appendix C |
| 15 | 11 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/3.1.4.3 Incident Management | Do the response times for tickets listed in Table 4, as well as the requirements listed in 3.1.4 account for the initial Tier 1 contact to the Gov’t support Help Desk? | No. The response times will be tracked from the point in time when the Tier II representative receives the ticket. |
| 16 | 13 | Attachment 1-4 - Overarching PWS/3.1.4.19.5.1 | Line 458 states that the MSR shall include a report of the number of Help Desk Tickets resolved during the first contact. Does this include tickets resolved by the Tier 1 Gov’t support? Does the metric include only Tier 1 tickets, or all contacts to the Help Desk, such as those tickets that require Problem Management resolution (Section 3.1.4.19.6)? | The successful contractor under this procurement will report on Tier 2 and above tickets. Tier 1 tickets will be addressed under a separate contractual instrument already in place. |
| 17 | 16 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/3.1.6.5 | Line 565 refers to a Gov’t provided toolset to maintain configuration control of application source code. What is the Gov’t toolset and what application source code tool is currently being used for the MCRISS application code? | No version control/configuration management software will be provided by the Government, with the exception of the point in time that the EDTE becomes available for mandated use. Subversion is currently planned as the EDTE version control software package. |
| 18 | 22&38 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/3.2.1.4 & Table 7 | Line 795 and Table 7 state the system interfaces will be maintained at a 99.9% availability level with an AQL of 99.7%. What is the historical availability of the MCRISS system interfaces? Is availability factored on a 24/7/365 basis? | The Government selected these particular service availability levels based upon increasing scrutiny and relative importance of the MCRISS and senior Marine Corps Leadership priorities. Substantive historical data is not currently available. The interfaces have been available no less than 99.7% of the past 30 days. Availability will be factored on a 24/7/365 basis, with the exception of planned down-time. |
| 19 | 24& 38 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/3.2.4.2 & Table 7 | Line 890 and Table 7 state that each system module will be maintained at a 99.9% availability level with an AQL of 99.7%. What is the historical availability of each MCRISS system module? Is availability factored on a 24/7/365 basis? | See Government's response to Question No. 18 above. |
| 20 | 25 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/3.3.1 Sustainment Logistics | Will the Gov’t provide a list of current MCRISS assets that will require tracking in the IUID Plan? | The Government will not be providing any hardware for the successful contractor to track. The successful contractor will be responsible for providing their own development environment assets. The Government will only provide source code and data to populate the development environment. |
| 21 | 26 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/3.3.2 | Will the Gov’t provide specify the existing end user training materials and WBT(s) that will require maintenance and the new training materials anticipated under this contract? | The Government will provide a list of training materials in Appendix D of the Overarching PWS. |
| 22 | 26 | Attachment 1 - Overarching PWS/3.3.3 | When is the 5 year expiration date for the current MCRISS hardware? Is the SI responsible for ordering the hardware? | The successful contractor will not be responsible for procuring any hardware or software under this contract award. |
| 23 | All | Solicitation/All | Section B tables refer to Task Orders PDSS, ECP and RCT however this is an ID/IQ. Will the government revise the Section B tables to account for the Contract type? | Please see the revised Model Contract (Volume IV, Section 3) Description of Instructions to Offerors |
| 24 | All | Solicitation/All | Can the Government provide an estimate start date to this ID/IQ? | The Government anticipates commencement of effort on 25 June 2016. |
| 25 | All | Solicitation/All | If the Government intends to award an ID/IQ to allow cost type Task Orders, how is the Government evaluating the offerors accounting system is adequate? | This solicitation is for a commercial ID/IQ that will result in firm, fixed-price orders. |
| 26 | All | Solicitation/Price | The Government intends to award an ID/IQ and allows for type cost type task order, is the Government’s intention on evaluating the offerors ability to perform Cost Type work at the Task Order Level? | See Government's response to Question No. 25 above. |
| 27 | All | Solicitation/Price | Since the Government is intending on awarding an ID/IQ contract, and is allowing each offeror to propose its own list of labor categories, how is the government going to be able to evaluate the offerors LCAT ceiling rates to determine the ceiling rates fair and reasonable? | Attachment 6 (Pricing Workbook) provides a worksheet for offerors to enter their specific labor mix (labor categories) to be utilized across all orders. This worksheet allows entry of LCAT titles, rates, and a variety of identifying information, including role and responsibility. This data may be used by the Government to compare proposed LCAT rates to other commercially available, published rates (i.e. GSA IT Schedule 70, GWACs, etc.) to determine reasonableness and realism. |
| 28 | Section 13 | Attachments 1-4/Period of Performance | In Attachments 1-4, under Period of Performance states the Period of Performance is in accordance with Section B of the solicitation, however Section B of the solicitation does not provide a Period of Performance in Section B. Please provide? | See Government's response to Question No. 23 above. |
| 29 | Section 15 | Attachments 1-4/Travel | In Attachments 1-4 it states that there will be 2 weeks of travel to the Kansas City, MO Location, however this is in all of the PWS sections, which Task Order anticipates the travel to occur in? | The Government anticipates the requirement to migrate the MCRISS from its current hosting environment into the Marine Corps Enterprise IT Services Environment. That specific effort will be awarded as an individual task order (engineering change). The Government does not anticipate any additional travel outside of that individual task order. |
| 30 | 47 | Solicitation/Document format |
| d) Attachments: Will the government accept PDF documents and attachments? | The Government requires proposal submission in the formats identified in section L/Instructions to Offerors of the solicitation (MS Office version 2007 or later compatible). | ||||
| 31 | 44 | Solicitation/Volume IV: Price Proposal | Can the government please specify which section ODCs/Travel will go within the Price Proposal? It is not listed as one of the sections on page 44. | ODCs/Travel should be addressed in Volume IV, Section 2. Please also see the Government's response to question 39 below. | |
| 32 | 20 | Attachment 2/Section 3.1.9 | The Government seeks support in CS and CND for the entire RCEN and the MCRISS applications. This involves Certification and Accreditation (C&A), Computer Incident Response Team (CIRT), and a Security Operations Center (SOC)." |
This RFP also calls for support for the MCRISS ATO. These services are currently provided by the Network Service Support (NSS) contract managed by the MCRC G6. Can the Government provide clarification on who is ultimately responsible for maintaining the MCRISS ATO: the NSS or the MCRISS vendor?
| The MCRISS ATO will be maintained by the successful contractor for this procurement. Responsibility under this award will include any system changes or updates required to maintain an ATO for the MCRISS system. The MCRC network ATO (and associated system hardware) is maintained under a separate contract. | |||||
| 33 | 7 | Attachment 4 /4.6.2 | How does the IA process differ for client installed applications designed to support offline use compared to web applications? | The C&A process will not differ for a client application, however, the client application will be subject to different controls and STIG requirements than the MCRISS system, proper. | |
| 34 | 7 | Attachment 4/4.6.2 | What are the limitations for installing client software on USMC equipment for use in offline scenarios? | Marine Corps Recruiting Command controls both policy and facilitation/administration of recruiter computer assets. |
The max size of storage available on clients is approximately 100GB, to include all data, etc.. The Government estimates that 60GB will be available for use by the RCT (to include the client application and all data). Final size limitations will be determined during Requirements Review with the successful offeror.
| 35 | 7 | Attachment 4/4.6.2 | How many individual devices will be used for offline recruiting activities? | Approximately 4,500 devices are currently issued to recruiter personnel. |
| 36 | 7 | Attachment 4 /4.6.2 | Who will be responsible for supporting the installation and management of client software used for offline MCRISS activities? | MCRC G-6 will be responsible for support of installation and management of client software. |
| 37 | 7 | Attachment 4 /4.6.2 | The RCT capability states that prospect lists will need to be downloaded to a portable electronic device. Does this data that will be downloaded include PII? | The data in question will include PII, however, data-at-rest security and associated safeguards will be handled by MCRC. The Government is open to any additional data safeguarding approaches beyond customary data-at-rest/end-point security applications. |
| 38 | 41 | Attachment 1 | As the Gov’t does not want to the same tasks referenced in multiples sections, will the Gov’t accept cross references between the various sections, to include between the Technical and Management Approaches? | See Government's response to Question No. 2 above. |
| 39 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | Section B, pp. 3-4 | CLINs 0001, 0002, and 0003 are to be priced exclusive of Other Direct Costs. CLIN 0004 covers Other Direct Costs associated with CLIN 0001. Please confirm that CLINs 0002 and 0003 will not require any Other Direct Costs. | The Government confirms that CLIN 0004 is for ODCs specifically in association with CLIN 0001. The Government views ECPs and the RCT as solutions, for which the pricing should incorporate any proposed ODCs. There are, therefore, no ODC CLINs in association with CLINs 0002 or 0003. |
| 40 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 52.216-18, p. 29 | The RFQ states that task orders may be issued through the end of the third year of the ID/IQ. What is the maximum period of performance for a task order issued on the final day of the third year of the ID/IQ? | The maximum period of performance for any task order issued under this ID/IQ, regardless of award date (provided it is made within the ordering period) is 12 months. |
| 41 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 52.222-46, p. 30 | How will the government determine whether labor rates proposed by the incumbent contractor or other offerors result in lowering the compensation of professional employees on the contract? Will the government assess that offeror’s technical or management proposals as “marginal” or “unacceptable” based on their inability to successfully staff and execute the required tasks with qualified personnel, even though the technical or management proposal would otherwise be deemed acceptable? | The intent of FAR provision 52.222-46 is to ensure that, under situations of service re-competition, offerors are compensating their employees in a fashion so as to ensure continuous, uninterrupted, high-quality service to the Government. The data provided to this end, via Attachment 6 (Pricing Workbook), will be contrasted against sources such as published, commercially available industry norms for the Quantico, Virginia area to determine the level of risk to the Government relative to the proposed total compensation. Please see paragraphs (c) and (d) for the impact of offeror's responses to the requirements of this provision: |
(c) The Government is concerned with the quality and stability of the work force to be employed on this contract. Professional compensation that is unrealistically low or not in reasonable relationship to the various job categories, since it may impair the Contractor’s ability to attract and retain competent professional service employees, may be viewed as evidence of failure to comprehend the complexity of the contract requirements.
(d) Failure to comply with these provisions may constitute sufficient cause to justify rejection of a proposal.
| 42 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.2, pp. 40-41 | We would like to provide a title page for each volume of our proposal. Should we include electronic versions of these title pages as part of our CD-ROM submission? | Title pages may be included, if desired, however, they will count towards the page count limitations identified in Section L/Instructions to Offerors of the solicitation. |
| 43 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.2, pp. 40-41 | The instructions for naming the separate documents that make up each volume use the “.doc” extension. We assume that if we are using a newer version of Microsoft Word, we can use the “.docx” extension. Is this assumption correct? | All documents provided must be compatible with MS Office 2007 or later. The XML-based formats of the Office 2007 and later applications may be used (e.g. docx, xslx, etc.). |
| 44 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | Section 5.b.2, pages 40-41 and 44-46 | Please clarify the sections and numbering for Volume IV: Price Quotation. The proposal outline lists section 2 as ODCs/Travel, but there are no further instructions provided for this section. The section instructions provide information for section 5 Small Business Participation, but there is no reference to this section in the Pricing Quotation section of the proposal outline. Additionally, the section numbers in the proposal outline and the section descriptions do not match. | This issue will be remediated with an amendment to the solicitation. Also see the Government's response to question #39 above. |
| 45 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.2, p. 41 | The RFQ states that, “The offeror shall also list all subcontractors proposed on this effort. The offeror shall also submit responses to DFARS 252.209-7992 as part of the executive summary/cover letter content.” Is it sufficient for the offeror to simply certify that the provisions of DFARS 252.209-7992 do not apply, or should the offeror submit a separate signed statement? | This requirement to submit responses to DFARS 252.209-2997 was inadvertently included in the solicitation and has been removed via amendment. |
| 46 | ID/IQ PWS | 2.2.3, p. 6 | Section 2.2.3 states that, “the SI’s hosting environment shall be representative of the constraints and limitations of the production environment.” Will the Government provide the hardware specifications of the production environment? | The current hosting environment for the MCRISS includes five (5) virtual machines acting as web servers with 12GB of memory running four (4) processors (2.67 Ghz); three (3) physical servers for databases with two (2) hexcore processors (2.67Ghz) and 288GB of |
memory.
| 47 | ID/IQ PWS, PDSS PWS | 3.1, p. 7 | The PWS states that, “The SI shall develop and maintain the System Maintenance and Administration Manuals.” Do versions of these manuals exist now, and will the government provide these and any other existing documentation to the incoming contractor to serve as a baseline? | These manuals do not currently exist. The Government will provide all existing documentation upon award of the contract. |
| 48 | ID/IQ PWS, PDSS PWS | 3.1.3, p. 8 | Where is BMC Remedy hosted? Whose responsibility is the hosting and management of BMC Remedy? | The Government's Remedy instance is hosted and managed by MCRC. |
| 49 | ID/IQ PWS, PDSS PWS | 3.1.3, p. 8 | On average how many Tickets are escalated to Tier II on a given month? | The Government estimates 600 per month. |
| 50 | ID/IQ PWS, PDSS PWS | 3.1.3, p. 8 | Can the government provide the most frequent examples of types of tickets to be resolved by the Tier II helpdesk? | Permission changes (~3700 per year); Officer and Enlisted processing applicant record changes |
| 51 | ID/IQ PWS, PDSS PWS | 3.1.3, p. 8 | How many help desk tickets are currently open? | Currently 180. |
| 52 | ID/IQ PWS, PDSS PWS | 3.1.3, p. 8 | The PWS states that, “Escalate the service problem to the Tier III level for resolution if it cannot be resolved at Tier II within eight hours.” Will the Government confirm whether this is within eight hours of escalation to Tier II? | Yes, this is within 8 hours of escalation to the Tier II. |
| 53 | ID/IQ PWS, PDSS PWS | 3.1.9, p. 19 | Which STIGs apply to the MCRISS IA Boundary that the vendor will be responsible for? | Currently, the following STIGs apply: .Net Framework, Application Security and Development, Application Server, IIS Web Server, IIS Website, SQL Server 2012 Instance, and Web Policy. |
| 54 | ID/IQ PWS, PDSS PWS | 3.1.9, p. 19 | What is the ATO expiration date of the MCRISS system? | 11/24/18 |
| 55 | ID/IQ PWS, PDSS PWS | 3.1.9, p. 19 | What is the approximate percentage of the SP800-53 Cybersecurity Controls expected to be inherited from other systems or from a common controls provider during the RMF Assessment and Authorization? | Approximately 51 IA controls are inherited from other entities, namely MCRC. |
| 56 | ID/IQ PWS, PDSS PWS | 3.1.9, p. 19 | What tools are currently available/in-use to support the compliance process, i.e. Xacta IA Manager? | The Marine Corps Certification and Accreditation Support Tool (MCCAST - RSA Archer) is the applicable compliance tool currently in use by MCRISS. |
| 57 | ID/IQ PWS, PDSS PWS | 3.1.9.3.4, p. 20 | Will the vendor be responsible for the acquisition of automated code review tools or will software and licensing be provided? | The Government currently maintains licenses and support for HP Fortify. The successful contractor will not be required to provide licenses for code review. |
| 58 | ID/IQ PWS, PDSS PWS | 3.2.4.9, p. 25 | The PWS states, “Support the maintenance of all software and hardware required for the system.” Please clarify the Contractor’s responsibility for hardware maintenance. What hardware does this refer to? Isn’t the hardware, with the exception of the development environment, maintained by another hosting provider? | The Government maintains licenses for hardware and software maintenance and warranties, however, the successful contractor will be required to support the Government in coordinating the resolution of any potential maintenance issues and assist the Government in monitoring end-of-life timelines for equipment employed in the MCRISS environment. |
| 59 | ID/IQ PWS | 4.6.4.1, p. 30 | Is the current MCRISS contractor using any COTS applications or suite of applications for performance monitoring and regression testing? If so, what tools are being used? | The Government is not currently utilizing any such tools. |
| 60 | ID/IQ PWS | 4.6.5, p. 30 | With consideration to PII - What environment is expected to be used for the development of WBT content? | Current Web-Based Training consists of Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) media and does not incorporate any PII/PHI. A training environment replica of the MCRISS is currently being instantiated under the incumbent contract and will be leveraged for training purposes, once complete. The data used to populate the development and training environments will be obfuscated or otherwise notional and should not present any issues with regard to PII/PHI. WBTs are currently developed using the development environment and are validated using the staging/pre-production environment. In the future, WBT development activities may utilize the training environment, once available. |
| 61 | ID/IQ PWS | 4.6.5.1, p. 30 | Are any existing WBT modules currently published on Marine Net? | MarineNet is not currently utilized for any MCRISS training. The MCRISS training environment will be leveraged for all MCRISS training activities once it is available. |
| 62 | ID/IQ PWS | 5, pp. 32-35 | Does the government want offerors to address Project Management in the PWS response or in the Project Management response in Volume II? If the government wishes offerors to respond in both places, please clarify how these responses would differ. | The Government expects offerors to provide narrative describing management processes, as they relate to the technical requirements in Volume I. Management concepts such as staffing, recruiting, retention, and other corporate functions should be described in Volume II. |
| 63 | ID/IQ PWS | 15, p. 46 | Will the government provide a “plug number” for the travel associated with the MCEITS migration, given that this amount cannot be estimated at time of proposal submission? | Please see the Government's response to Question No. 39 above. The Government anticipates ordering MCEITS migration via a task order OTHER than those identified as part of this solicitation. |
| 64 | ID/IQ PWS | Appendix A, p. A-1 | This diagram is blurry and partially unreadable. Can the government provide a clearer copy as an image file, Visio file, etc.? | This issue will be remediated with an amendment to the solicitation. |
| 65 | ID/IQ PWS | Appendix B, p. B-1 | For each interface, can the government state the type of interface (e.g., web services), the owner of the interfacing system, and whether an Interface Agreement is in place? | Yes, the clearer image requested in question 64 will provide this information. |
| 66 | PDSS PWS | 7, p. 33 | The Key Milestones table indicates a transition to the Risk Management Framework (RMF). However, there appears to be no requirement to address RMF in the Statement of Work. Is the contractor expected to integrate RMF into their approach? | Much as the PWS does not specify DITSCAP or DIACAP, RMF is not called out directly either. It is the Government's intent that the successful contractor will implement the certification and accreditation procedures mandated by the Department of Defense (please see table 8 of each of the PWSs). |
| 67 | PDSS PWS | 11, p. 40 | For the “Hardware/Software Refresh Plan (5 Years)” what hardware is the MCRISS ID/IQ contractor responsible for? | The successful contractor will not be responsible for acquiring any hardware, however, they will be required to create and maintain a refresh plan accounting for all MCRISS hardware 90 days after award. |
| 68 | RCT PWS | 1.2, p. 3 | Can the test and/or development environments be hosted in the cloud (other than the intended government private cloud)? | The MCRISS pre-production environment, hosted in the Government facility, is utilized for testing activities. Offerors may propose the use of a cloud-based development environment, provided that the approach would not jeopardize or otherwise introduce additional risk into that offeror's ability to meet project milestones and deliverables. |
| 69 | RCT PWS | 4.6.2, pp. 7-8 | Is Transport Layer Security (TLS) on the VPN connecting the RCT to MCRISS sufficient for data-in-motion security? | The Government expects offerors to propose security measures and architectures that represent industry best-practices which must conform to Department of Defense standards and regulations; MCRISS / RCT data-in-transit must be encrypted from the client device to any server component with which the client communicates. |
| 70 | RCT PWS | 4.6.2, pp. 7-8 | Must the data-at-rest on the RCT device (i.e., tablet) be encrypted as well? | Yes, all MCRC laptops/tablets have already implemented DAR encryption capabilities. No additional DAR encryption capabilities are required. |
| 71 | RCT PWS | 4.6.2, pp. 7-8 | What type of tablet is the government considering for RCT? Is it any Windows 10 compatible tablet PC or a specific model? | Dell Venue 11 Pro; Windows 8.1 (with planned migration to Windows 10 in the future). Note that these tablets are CAC enabled. |
| 72 | RCT PWS | 10, p. 15 | Please confirm that any system must be DIACAP 3-Sensitive. | MCRISS is currently assessed as a MAC III Sensitive But Unclassified system. The RCT should conform to the same standard. |
| 73 | ID/IQ PWS Section 4.1 | 26 | Does the Government intend for the Software Development Plan (SDP) to be updated every time there is a maintenance update to the application? The SDP is a plan that contains methodology, approach, and processes for performing the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). Our experience is the SDP should be reviewed every year and updated when methodologies, approach, or processes change. | The Government concurs with this assessment. The SDP should be reviewed minimally on an annual basis, and updated at any point there is a change to the approved SDP. |
| 74 | Solicitation, 5 Instructions for Preparation of Proposals | 40 | Will the Government consider increasing the page count for the SDP to 50 pages in order for offerors to submit a comprehensive SDP? | The Government believes that the current page limit of 15 pages is sufficient. |
| 75 | ID/IQ PWS Section 2 | 5 | Lines 203-205 state the offeror shall submit a Transition Plan. In which volume should the Transition Plan be submitted? | Volume II, 10 page limit, will not count against page limitation for the full volume. |
| 76 | Solicitation, 5 Instructions for Preparation of Proposals | 40-41 and 45-46 | The table detailing the proposal sections required for Volume IV on pages 40-41 of the solicitation does not align with the more in-depth description of what is required in Volume IV on pages 45-46. Please confirm that the description and order of proposal sections required for Volume IV is as written on pages 44-46 of the solicitation and please update the table on pages 40-41 to match accordingly. | This will be remediated via amendment to the solicitation. |
| 77 | Section SF 1449 – Continuation Sheet | 4 | CLIN 0004 only addresses ODCs for CLIN 0001. Please confirm that the Government is not requiring or expecting offerors to propose ODCs in support of CLIN 0002 or CLIN 0003. | See Government's response to Question No. 39 above. |
| 78 | Attachment 6, IDIQ Labor Categories | N/A | Please confirm that the offerors are proposing T&M rates for each proposed labor category for each Year (1-4) of the IDIQ. | This requirement will result in award of an ID/IQ task order contract, which will provide for firm, fixed-price task orders. The labor category rates proposed on the ID/IQ Labor Categories worksheet should be the offeror's firm-fixed price rates for each year for each respective labor category. |
| 79 | Attachment 6, IDIQ Labor Categories | N/A | Please confirm the offeror is only required to propose the 2016 Hourly Compensation, and 2016 Hourly Fringe as required in Attachment 6. | The Government confirms that only 2016 Hourly Compensation and 2016 Hourly Fringe should be provided. |
| 80 | Attachment 6, IDIQ Labor Categories | N/A | Will the Government please confirm the Periods of Performance for task order pricing? | Please see Model Contract Format in Instruction to Offerors for Period of Performances. |
| 81 | Solicitation, 4 Description of Evaluation Factors | 55 | The solicitation states: |
“The Government will review and evaluate whether the Small Business Participation percentages/dollars, provided in accordance with FAR 52.219-9, meet the percentages/dollars of the Navy’s Small Business Subcontracting Plan goals for each Small Business Category.”
Will the Government please provide the Navy’s Small Business Subcontracting Plan goals for each Small Business category?
| Please see Exhibit 4 of this solicitation. | ||||||
| 82 | 52.212-1 Instructions to Offerors – Commercial Items (p. 7) “(e) Multiple offers. Offerors are encouraged to submit multiple offers presenting alternative terms and conditions or commercial items for satisfying the requirements of this solicitation. Each offer submitted will be evaluated separately” appears to conflict with “Offerors shall be limited to one proposal for this Solicitation. No alternate proposals will be accepted” (Instructions Conditions, and Notices to Offerors, para 4, p.38). Can the government please clarify? | This issue will be remediated with an amendment to the solicitation. | ||||
| 83 | 52.222-46 Evaluation of Compensation for Professional Employees (p.30) as much of this clause concerns recompetition of service contracts and retention of qualified personnel, can the government confirm this is a recompete and provide the name of the incumbent contractor? | This solicitation is for a re-competition of services previously provided under M67854-13-F-4813. The awardee of M67854-13-F-4813 was CGI Federal, Inc. | ||||
| 84 | 52.222-46 Evaluation of Compensation for Professional Employees (p.30) and Attachment 6: Pricing Workbook (DL and Fringe Columns)– as determination of the reasonableness of commercial rates can be performed without an offeror providing (other than) cost or pricing data, such as direct labor and fringe rates, will the government remove this requirement? | The Government will not remove this requirement. This information will not be utilized to determine price reasonableness, but will be utilized, in accordance with FAR Clause 52.222-46, to evaluate the offeror's ability to provide consistent, high-quality, uninterrupted services. | ||||
| 85 | Can you tell me if there is an incumbent contractor currently performing work for this requirement? If so, could you please provide their company name and contract number? | This solicitation is for a re-competition of services previously provided under M67854-13-F-4813. The awardee of M67854-13-F-4813 was CGI Federal, Inc. | ||||
| 86 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.2, p. 41 | The RFQ states that, “The offeror shall identify all prospective Tier-1 subcontractors in this section as well.” | |||
| What is the government’s definition of “Tier-1 subcontractor”? | The Government defines "Tier-1" as business concerns that subcontract directly with the prime. | |||||
| 87 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.1.2, p. 41 | The RFQ refers to “executive summary/cover letter content”. We assume that there is the Executive Summary also serves as the Cover Letter and that there is no separate Cover Letter. Is this assumption correct? | The Government confirms this interpretation; all executive summary and/or cover letter material should be placed in the Executive Summary Section of the proposal. | ||
| 88 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.1.2, p. 41 | The ID/IQ PWS Approach and the three task order PWS Approaches all have sections that are identical or nearly identical. We understand that due to page limitations and the necessity to address other things in each PWS response that these two responses will not be identical word-for-word. However, the PDSS requirements in each section are still referring to the same thing. Our approach, in keeping with CMMI Level 3 and other best practices, would be the same. Therefore, certain parts of our response would be very similar or identical. |
Therefore, please clarify the government’s intent when it says, “(i.e., the offeror shall propose an approach to PDSS in this section, but when addressing PDSS in Task Order 1, shall ensure that the language is not simply copy and pasted from the ID/IQ Approach).”
| See the Government's response to Question No. 2 above. | |||||
| 89 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.1.2, pp. 41-42 | Section 2, Transition, is identical in the ID/IQ PWS and the PDSS PWS. May offerors provide their responses only in the ID/IQ PWS Approach, consolidating their transition approach for the contract as a whole, PDSS, ECPs, and RCT? | See the Government's response to Question No. 2 above. | |
| 90 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.1.2, pp. 41-42 | Section 3, PDSS, is identical in the ID/IQ PWS and the PDSS PWS. May offerors provide their responses only in the PDSS PWS Approach? | See the Government's response to Question No. 2 above. | |
| 91 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.1.2, pp. 41-42 | Section 5, Project Management, is identical, except for one modified Attachment reference, in all four PWSs. May offerors provide their responses only in the ID/IQ PWS Approach? Or should we only address it in Volume II, Section 1, Management Approach? | See the Government's response to Questions No. 2 and No. 62 above. | |
| 92 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | Section 5 (Volume II Management Approach and Volume IV Price Proposal Instructions)/pgs. 43 and 46 | Volume II includes Section 2 – Small Business Participation Plan and Volume IV includes Section 5 – Small Business Participation Plan. Does the Government require an Offeror to include the Plan in both volumes? | This issue will be remediated with an amendment to the solicitation. | |
| 93 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.1.2, p. 43 | Please clarify what offerors should provide in their Volume II, Section 1, Management Approach. Neither the instructions nor the evaluation criteria make this clear. We assume that offerors’ responses should, at least in part, address Section 5, Project Management, of the ID/IQ PWS. Is this correct? | See the Government's response to Questions No. 2 and No. 62 above. | |
| 94 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.1.2, p. 45 | The RFQ states, “The offeror shall include proposed travel costs in support of this migration in their response to the ID/IQ PWS.” Because this cost cannot be known at this time, we request the government provide offerors a “plug number” for their price proposals. | See the Government's response to Question No. 63 above. | |
| 95 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | Section 5 (Volume IV Price Proposal Instructions)/p. 45 | The requirement states “Submit copies of your latest available financial statement covering the organization(s) which will perform the contract.” Is organization defined solely as the prime contractor, or does it also include subcontractors? | The Government defines "Organization" as the prime contractor only, in this case. | |
| 96 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.1.3.b, p. 47 | The RFQ states “Each proposal shall contain a title page, table of contents, and list of tables and figures for that binder.” However, the file naming structure on pp. 40-41 does not include a title page, table of contents, or list of tables and figures. Please clarify how these should be named in the electronic submission. | This issue will be remediated with an amendment to the solicitation. | |
| 97 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.1.3.b, p. 47 | Under Document Format/Electronic Proposal, it is stated that, “proposal volumes (except for Volume IV) shall be submitted in a Microsoft (MS) Office version no less than 2007 format (.doc)” Will the Government clarify whether this indicates no later than 2007 format or no earlier than 2007 format? | See the Government's response to Question No. 43 above. | |
| 98 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 5.b.1.3.b, p. 47 | Under Document Format/Electronic Proposal, it is stated that, “The CD-ROM must be formatted and readable on a MCEN-N computer.” Are there any specific MCEN-N requirements beyond those previously stated, i.e., MS Office 2007? | There are no additional requirements. Please additionally see the Government's response to Question No. 43 above. | |
| 99 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | 4.a.12, p. 54 | The RFQ states, “The Government will evaluate the proposed staff and their roles associated with the previous development projects that were part of the appraisals or previous identified efforts using an equivalent process maturity model.” |
However, the RFQ does not request that offerors provide names of staff or resumes. Please clarify.
| This issue will be remediated with an amendment to the solicitation. | |||||
| 100 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | p. 55 | The evaluation awards more weight to Department of Defense contracts used as past performance. Our past performance includes highly complex work, similar or larger than the scope of MCRISS, supporting a global user base, for systems directly related to national security that require every contractor employee to hold a Top Secret Clearance. However, this is not Department of Defense work. We request that the government evaluate each past performance contract on its own merits and relevancy to MCRISS and rate non-DoD contracts as highly as DoD contracts if the substance of the contract warrants. This will provide a level playing field and provide the Marine Corps with the ability to select the best contractor for MCRISS. | This issue will be remediated with an amendment to the solicitation. | |
| 101 | M67854-16-R-4800_SF1449_Solicitation | Exhibit 1 | Item 10 contain the text, “Second year extended period of performance to 8A dollar threshold.” We assume this was left over from a template used to prepare this RFQ and should be deleted. Is this correct? | This issue will be remediated with an amendment to the solicitation. | |
| 102 | ID/IQ PWS | 1.2, p. 3 | Does the vendor have any responsibility for the platform supporting MCRISS as listed on lines 154 – 162? | The contractor is not directly responsible for any supporting infrastructure in support of MCRISS. However, the contractor is responsible for providing recommendations, review and input in support of configuration changes that directly impact the MCRISS system. For example, the contractor may be called upon to review and provide recommendations in support of network load balancing configurations, changes to DAF/WAF policies, resolving IAVAs or other configuration changes made to the Windows Operating System or SQL databases, etc. | |
| 103 | ID/IQ PWS | 1.3, Table 1, p. 4 | Table 1 references the TFITS Management Plans as attachments but they are not included in the RFQ. Will the Government provide the attachments listed in Table 1? | This issue will be remediated with an amendment to the solicitation. | |
| 104 | ID/IQ PWS | 1.5, p. 4 | What is the current uptime of the MCRISS system? Do SLAs exist for hosting availability and application availability? | Substantive historical data is not available. Downtime directly related to infrastructure components will not be held against the MCRISS contractor. While there is currently an MOU for services provided by MCRC in support of MCRISS, SLAs do not currently exist. | |
| 105 | ID/IQ PWS | 2, p. 5 | How long does the government anticipate the new contractor will be allowed for transition with the incumbent contractor? Is this transition period a requirement in the incumbent contractor’s contract? | The Government does not anticipate being able to support/provide a significant transition period. | |
| 106 | ID/IQ PWS | 2.2.3, 2.2.3.1, p. 6 | Section 2.2.3 states that, “The SI shall provide the development and SI test hosting environment.” Section 2.2.3.1 states that, “the United States Marine Corps intends to offer a Government owned and operated private cloud environment providing IT system and application hosting services to support developmental and test activities.” These appear to be contradicting statements. Will the Government provide clarification? | The Government expects that the successful offeror will provide a development environment for MCRISS following award of the contract. At such point that the USMC EDTE becomes available and use is mandated, the Government will transition MCRISS development activities to the USMC EDTE. Once migrated to the USMC EDTE, the contractor's development environment will no longer be required by MCRISS. | |
| 107 | Attachment 6, IDIQ Labor Categories | N/A | Would the Government provide further clarity on pricing requirements, to include pricing requirements for subcontractors? | The Government suggests including the subcontractor firm name in parenthesis at the beginning of the labor category title (e.g. "(XYZ Corp) Senior IA Engineer"). | |
| 108 | Attachment 1, 2 | Microsoft has done several assessments of the MCRISS application. Will the Government make the results of these assessments available to offerors? | The Government does not intend to make these assessments available at this time. The Government will provide the results of these assessments to the successful contractor following award of the contract. | ||
| 109 | Attachment 1 | Historically, what LOE has been required for Tier 3 support, to include data fixes, ECP IIs/maintenance patches, and research items for MCRISS? | The Government anticipates implementing ECPs on a quarterly release cycle. The number of ECPs included within each release will vary, depending upon the number of change requests encountered during the period. | ||
| 110 | Attachment 1 | Historically, how many Tier 3 tickets have been resolved per year? | During FY15, 2,530 tickets were received at the Tier III level in support of MCRISS. 3,193 were resolved during the period, including tickets that carried over from the previous period. | ||
| 111 | Attachment 2 | How many maintenance releases are expected to be deployed per option year under PDSS? | The Government anticipates a quarterly release cycle in support of MCRISS, however, in an effort to continue performance improvements for the system, additional maintenance releases above and beyond the quarterly events may be required. | ||
| 112 | To ensure both the incumbent and non-incumbent offerors have a fair opportunity to compete and to assist the Government with accomplishing a best value award decision, will the Government provide more detailed estimates on the estimated ticket volume for Task Order 0001: PDSS? | During FY15, a total of 7,548 trouble tickets were resolved. This is an average of approx. 650 per month, and 145 per week. For additional information, see the Government's response to Question #'s: 49, 50, 51, 110 |
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