QA - BAAS RFP_ 16 Nov 2017 Part 2 FINAL.pdf

QUESTIONS ANSWERS

Amendment 02

Page No.

Question 13: Our company just received the necessary documents to complete the AoA on 11/2/2017, two weeks after its original release. In order to promote fair competition, will the government extend the submission deadline due to delayed retrieval of necessary documents and the upcoming government holidays that will take away working days?

Answer 13: The Government will extend the submission deadline 14 December 2017.

N/A

Question 14: Since the CPFF estimated hours in Section L 2.3.2 Estimated Level of Effort, page 72, will be tasked on an as-needed basis, and given the assumption that Government facilities will not be provided for these positions when tasked, is it correct to assume that for bidding purposes all CPFF labor categories should be bid at contractor site rates?

Answer 14: Performance of these services will not be at a Government site. The contractors performance location shall be at the contractors facility. Offerors shall bid rates according to their disclosure statement and accounting practices.

NO CHANGE

Question 15: Will contractors that currently support PMW 160 through prime mission product contracts and/or program management, financial, engineering and/or logistics services be eligible to participate in this procurement?

Answer 15: Any contract resulting from this solicitation will provide for the production and procurement of CANES end items for afloat unit, force, and submarine platforms and associated engineering activities. Performing this effort may potentially result in a potential Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI) as defined by FAR 2.101 and FAR 9.5. OCIs are fact-specific and are evaluated individually on a case-by-case basis. All OCIs must be resolved (avoided, neutralized or mitigated) prior to award. The Contracting Officer has the sole authority to determine whether an OCI exists and whether it can be avoided or mitigated.

Contractors that currently support PMW 160 through prime mission product contracts and/or program management, financial, engineering and/or logistics services (including any affiliates, joint ventures or subcontractors) should review the Organizational Conflict of Interest Clauses that are provided in full text within Section H of the solicitation (Organizational Conflict of Interest (System Engineering) and Organizational Conflict of Interest) in regards to any current/active contracts that they may have with PMW-160 or the CANES Program, including any contracts with SPAWAR Systems Centers Atlantic (SSC LANT) and Pacific (SSC PAC).

NO CHANGE

Question 16: In order for offerors to be fully compliant with the RFP requirements, will the government provide the reference documents listed in the “CANES_Component_Specification_NAC_SAMPLE_v2.0” which include: CANES Functional Specification v1.3.3 FS, CANES Capabilities Description Document CDD, CANES SW1.2 MOD1 Integrated BOM LCC BOM, CANES NG-312-DO21-C002-BOM-CVN10002 CVN BOM , A030 – CANES CF RTM adjudicated v1 RTM, Convery et. al., “Network Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting: Part One - The Internet Protocol Journal,” www.cisco.com, Volume 10, No. 1, March 2007, on page 2 of the document?

Answer 16: The CANES Functional Specification v1.3.3 and CANES RTM are the only two documents required to facilitate a response to the RFP and both will be uploaded to the NESI collaboration site. The remaining documents; CANES Capabilities Description Document CDD, CANES SW1.2 MOD1 Integrated BOM LCC BOM, CANES NG-312-DO21-C002-BOM- CVN10002 CVN BOM , Convery et.a., “Network Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting: Part One - The Internet Protocol Journal,” www.cisco.com, Volume 10, No. 1, March 2007 are not necessary to respond to the RFP.

NO CHANGE

Question 17: According to Section L –pg. 75 of Solicitation N00039-17-R-0038, Documents which are required for an offeror to provide an adequate response to the Solicitation are contained on the specific CANES BAAS NESI portal. Not all offers had the same level of access to NESI at the solicitation release date. For instance, we processed paperwork as soon as practicable to access the required documents on NESI. The documents were made available two weeks after the solicitation was posted. In order to ensure fair competition and allow all offerors the same amount of response time, we respectfully request that the proposal submission date be extended by a minimum of two weeks.

Question 17: The Government will extend the submission deadline to 14 December 2017.

N/A

Question 18: The CANES_Component_Specification_NAC_SAMPLE_v2.0 document references document “CANES SW 1.2 MOD 1 Integrated BOM LCC BOM”; however the requirements within CANES_Component_Specification_NAC_SAMPLE_v2.0 document list in the requirements, vSphere 6.x and cisco 3850 switches which is for MOD 1.2. Will the government clarify which version of CANES requires component replacements?

Answer 18: The Component Specification incorrectly references "CANES SW 1.2 MOD 1 Integrated BOM LCC BOM". The correct reference is HW1.2.

Attach No. 10

Question 19: Section M, 2.2.1 AoA Evaluation Criteria d states, “The contractor shall include the details outlining how the proposed replacement component may impact / change the existing installation instructions and/or installation media, including the CANES CICD, SPS, Technical Data Package TDP, and Installation Requirements Drawings IRDs. Will the government provide these documents?

Answer 19: The Government will upload Attachment No. 12, CANES CICD and Attachment No. 13, relevant drawings to the Technical Data Package on the NESI Collaboration Site.

Offerors are not required to perform this analysis on the SPS or the Installation Requirements Drawings (IRDs) and Section L of the solicitation will be revised accordingly. Please note that the SOW remains unchanged and this analysis on all documents, including the SPS and IRD, will be required to meet full performance of the awarded contract. All documents required will be provided to the winning offeror.

Question 20: Does the government expect offerors to acquire hardware and software to physically perform testing for proposal effort?

Answer 20: No, the Government does not expect offerors to acquire hardware and software to physically perform testing for the proposal effort.

NO CHANGE

Question 21: Will the government specify on which version of ISE the offerors are performing an analysis of alternatives?

Answer 21: Offerors shall use Identity Services Engine (ISE) version 2.2 for purposes of responding to this solicitation. (ISE is mentioned throughout Attachment No. 10)

NO CHANGE

Question 22: Section H, Special Contract Requirements, Page 15 of 86, under Organizational Conflict of Interest (Systems Engineering) sub paragraph (c) “During the term of this contract and for a period of one year at Task Order level after completion of this contract, the Contractor agrees that it will not supply (whether as a prime contractor, subcontractor at any tier, or consultant to a supplier) to the Department of Defense, any product, item or major component of an item or product, which was the subject of the systems engineering and/or technical direction in support of CANES performed under this contract…”

As written this provision of Section H is overly restrictive on offerors and will result in reduced competition on future opportunities DoD wide outside the scope of PMW 160. In support of BAAS the contractors are not supplying technical direction but recommendations. Can the government please provide clarification for this clause that the OCI intent is to restrict component sales to the BAAS contract?

Answer 22: Efforts under the contract resulting from this solicitation will provide for the analysis, production, recommendations, and procurement of CANES end items for afloat unit, force, and submarine platforms and associated engineering activities. Contractors that support PMW 160 through prime mission product contracts and/or program management, financial, engineering and/or logistics services (including any affiliates, joint ventures or subcontractors) could be in a position to assess their own performance and their own recommendations to the Government regarding future requirements for CANES, thus impacting their ability to render impartial advice to the Government.

As previously identified, OCIs are fact-specific and are evaluated individually on a case-by-case basis. All OCIs must be resolved (avoided, neutralized or mitigated) prior to award. The Contracting Officer has the sole authority to determine whether an OCI exists and whether it can be avoided or mitigated.

NO CHANGE

Question 23: Section H, Special Contract Requirements, Page 15 of 86, under Organization Conflict of Interest subparagraph (b) The Contracting Officer has determined that potentially significant organizational conflicts of interest may arise due to the nature of the work the Contractor will perform under this contract that may preclude the Contractor from being awarded future SPAWAR contracts in a related area. Whereas the Contractor has agreed to undertake this contract to provide “support services”, it is agreed that the Contractor shall be ineligible to act as a prime contractor, consultant, or subcontractor to any prime contractor or subcontractor at any tier who is to supply the services, system or major components thereof for any project where the Contractor has provided or is providing support as described in FAR 9.505-1 through 9.505-4.

Will the government please define exactly what future contract it is agreed the contractor would be ineligible to support due to the “support services” requested in this contract?

Answer 23: Efforts under the contract resulting from this solicitation will provide for the analysis, production, recommendations, and procurement of CANES end items for afloat unit, force, and submarine platforms and associated engineering activities. Contractors that support PMW 160 through prime mission product contracts and/or program management, financial, engineering and/or logistics services (including any affiliates, joint ventures or subcontractors) could be in a position to assess their own performance and their own recommendations to the Government regarding future requirements for CANES, thus impacting their ability to render impartial advice to the Government.

As previously identified, OCIs are fact-specific and are evaluated individually on a case-by-case basis. All OCIs must be resolved (avoided, neutralized or mitigated) prior to award. The Contracting Officer has the sole authority to determine whether an OCI exists and whether it can be avoided or mitigated.

NO CHANGE

Question 24: The RFP states in 2.1.1, “The market research shall consider, at a minimum, Gartner analysis of suppliers within the related technology field” and in 2.2.2 the AoA Scoring Rationale, “Scores shall be supported by suitable evidence from qualified sources that substantiates the performance of the candidate component against each evaluation criteria. Suitable qualified sources include i information from publicly available web sites and product specification sheets published by the product manufacturer; ii data from common independent sources that regularly publish and maintain databases of product performance data e.g. Gartner, Spec.org;” Does the government expect offerors to pay for Gartner accounts, or is the Gartner analysis just an example of a resource.

Answer 24: Section L is revised as follows: "The market research should consider, at a minimum, sources such as Gartner analysis of suppliers within the related technology field, suppliers from GSA schedules, and products deployed within existing and planned Navy and Joint systems similar to CANES.

For the purposes of the RFP (Section L) the requirement has been relaxed to allow for flexibility but the requirement within the SOW has not changed and Gartner subscription is required during performance.

Question 25: The solicitation states on pg. 69, Section L 2.2.2 BAAS Low, Moderate, and High Complexity, "Offerors shall propose a total firm fixed price for each of the FFP CLINs as described in Section B and SOW Section 3.2. Section B shall trace directly to the prices proposed in this Cost/Price Volume...The offeror shall propose prices for the Firm-Fixed Price CLINs 0002 – 0004 using Attachment No. 5, Cost/Price Proposal. The complexity levels for all FFP AoA components are defined in Attachment No. 2, AoA Complexity Table." The government has provided offerors a representation of a high complexity AoA in the sample task, however offerors do not have a representation of middle and low complexities. Will the government provide example representations of middle and low complexity AoAs to base offerors' estimates on?

Answer 25: Attachment No. 2, AoA Complexity Table, provides a list of CANES components and the corresponding complexity level (see column titled "AoA LOE"). Additionally, pages 1-2 is the summary of all components, page 3 is all Low Complexity, pages 4-5 are all Moderate Complexity and page 6 are all High Complexity. (see page headings)

NO CHANGE

Question 26: We respectfully request a 15 day extension to submit a proposal for solicitation N00039- 17-R-0038 in order allow adequate time to obtain information from our suppliers for the AOA Scenario information.

Answer 26: The Government will extend the submission deadline to 14 December 2017.

Question 27: Section B indicates (on page 4 of 86) that “The maximum number of AoAs (ordered under the FFP CLINS) that will be conducted at any one time is a quantity of nine (9).” Further, on page 27 of 86 in the RFP, the government cites order limitations, indicating that the Contractor is not obligated to honor: (1) any order for a single item in excess of $1,000,000.00 and (2) any order for a combination of items in excess of $3,000,000.00.

Could the Government please clarify where an “item” is shown in the “Estimated number of orders per year by complexity” table contained in Section L 2.2.2? Is an “item” a quantity buy (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 for lows, 1, 2, or 3 for Moderate, or 1 for High?) , or is it instead a SINGLE AoA regardless of complexity?

Similarly, what does the Government mean by “the combination of items”?

Answer 27: An "item" is a quantity buy. One (1) item equals a single order against one CLIN regardless of the quantity (e.g. a single order for a quantity of five low complexity on CLIN 0002). A combination of items equals a single order against multiple CLINS (e.g. a single order for a quantity of three low complexity (CLIN 0002), two moderate complexity (CLIN 0003) and one high complexity (CLIN 0004)).

Question 28: Section 2.1.1 AoA framework- section 1 market research and replacement component list, page 76 states “The market research shall consider, at a minimum, Gartner analysis of suppliers within the related technology field, suppliers from GSA schedules, and products deployed within existing and planned Navy and Joint systems similar to CANES…d If additional downselect is required after c, products that are neither tracked/reported by Gartner, on GSA schedules, nor deployed within existing or planned Navy/Joint systems shall be removed from the candidate product list.” To promote fair and open competition, will the government supply offerors access to the Gartner analysis; if not, will the government allow offerors to use alternatives to the Gartner analysis since access to the Gartner analysis requires offerors to acquire a subscription costing tens of thousands of dollars?

Answer 28: Section L is revised as follows: "The market research should consider, at a minimum, sources such as Gartner analysis of suppliers within the related technology field, suppliers from GSA schedules, and products deployed within existing and planned Navy and Joint systems similar to CANES.

For the purposes of the RFP (Section L) the requirement has been relaxed to allow for flexibility but the requirement within the SOW has not changed and Gartner subscription is required during performance.

Question 29: Can the government explain the rationale for calculating the LOE for High, Moderate, and Low components? For example, to perform an AoA for 2 moderate components on the list, such as the VTC microphone and the SPARC server components, would require significantly different LOE to complete a thorough AoA.

LOE estimates were based on multiple considerations. These considerations are identified within the columns on the LOE table. As shown in the table, a contributor towards increased LOE is primarily driven by technical complexity and/or requirements scope. However there are other considerations that would drive up the expected labor costs for a particular effort such as the quantity of candidate products within the marketplace. In the example cited (VTC microphone versus SPARC server), the VTC microphone is a less complex component, yet there are far more microphone suppliers within the marketplace - which may lead to a labor increase in order to (i) sort through the marketplace and identify candidate products prior to the conduct of the AoA, and (ii) collect AoA data across more candidate products (relative to SPARC computing suppliers).

NO CHANGE

Question 30: On Attachment No. 2? Complexity Table, the component “Port Security/Network Access Control Server” is listed twice. Does the government expect that multiple AoAs will be performed on this component throughout the duration of the contract?

This is a duplicate entry and Attachment No. 2, Complexity Table, will be revised accordingly.

It should be understood that multiple AoAs may be requested for any of the components listed on the Complexity Table during the execution of the contract .

Attach No. 2

Sheet1 (2)