Attachment XI - Questions and Answers.pdf

No. Question Answer

1. Is there any incumbent/recompete or this is a brand-new project? If yes, could you please provide us with their award number or even if the customer bought similar services in the past.

This is not a new requirement, and it is currently being performed under contract N0018922D0003.

2. When bidding as a JV the requirement for the TS FCL is met as long as one of the members holds the required FCL level?

Please refer to the ISSO Joint Notice 2024-01 and 13 CFR §121 et. seq. for information concerning small business joint venture facility clearance requirements. It is also recommended that you contact the Small Business Administration (SBA) or legal counsel of your choosing (at your own expense) if you have additional questions about compliance with SBA regulations concerning joint venture eligibility and facility clearance requirements. The contracting officer cannot provide you with legal advice.

3. Is the 12-month past performance requirement met when referencing an IDIQ contract leveraging the IDIQ start date?

Yes.

4. Given that a DCSA FCL report is required for Volume I Factor 1 and that DCSA FCL reports are CUI documents, this in turn makes all of Volume I – Non-Price Factor a CUI document.

How does the government propose the CUI Volume I document be sent to the addressees?

Offerors may submit their FCL verification via DoD SAFE.

Offerors shall coordinate submittal with NAVSUP Fleet Logistics Center Contracting Depart points of contact identified within Addendum to 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors - Commercial Products and Commercial Services at time of proposal submittal. The drop-off of the FCL verification in that system must be completed with sufficient time so that the foregoing points of contact receive notice of its completion before the deadline provided for in the solicitation.

5. Attachment II - Performance Work Statement.pdf page 16 states in 6.1 "Contractor shall possess a current Top Secret/Sensitive Compartment Information (TS/SCI) facilities clearance." however, the Solicitation document Section L Factor I Facility Clearance (page 46) states "Facility Clearance (FCL) at the Top Secret (TS) level" and Attachment IV - DD254.pdf section 1a. states "Top Secret" for FCL requirement and 1b. states "None" for safeguarding at Contractor facility. Will the Government please clarify/correct the FCL requirement in the PWS?

The offeror shall possess a current Top Secret (TS) facilities Clearance (FCL). See revised PWS in Amendment 0001.

6. The PWS states that, “Performance will occur at the following locations: Vendor company accredited facility/corporate office upon COR approval.”

What portions of the contract work can be accomplished at the accredited company location?

All labor categories are expected to perform their contract duties at the designated government work site 100% of the time.

Authorized Exceptions: Off-site performance is strictly prohibited unless one of the following emergency conditions is met:

1. Work Site Unavailability: The physical government work site is closed or inaccessible.

2. Technical Issues: System outages or technical failures directly prevent work production at the primary onsite location.

Approval Authority: COR Only. Even when a valid exception occurs, work off-site cannot commence without the explicit, formal approval of the Contracting Officer's Representative (COR) for any labor category.

See revised PWS in Amendment 0001.

7. The PWS states that, “Performance will occur accredited facility/corporate office upon COR approval.

Must the accredited company location be in the

Norfolk area?

The vendor's company accredited facility/corporate office is not required to be located within the Norfolk area however it shall be located within the continental United States.

Please see revised PWS in Amendment 0001

8. The PWS states that, “Performance will occur at the following locations: Vendor company accredited facility/corporate office upon COR approval.

Which labor categories are expected to work primarily onsite versus at the contractor facility, and what percentage of each position may be performed remotely?

Please see response to question 6.

9. The PWS states that, “Performance will occur accredited facility/corporate office upon COR approval.

What are the requirements for an accredited company location?

Please see response to question 7.

10. The PWS states that support shall include, “Data architecture development for NIODB support to legacy and emerging systems.”

What additional information can be provided regarding the legacy and emerging systems of the NIODB technical environment (application architecture, Oracle version, .NET version, DevSecOps toolchain, and cloud architecture) to support staffing and technical planning?

References to "legacy and emerging systems" denote external Navy military platforms requiring custom-formatted data payloads extracted from the Navy Information Operations Database (NIODB), rather than the core NIODB database architecture itself.

11. In Factor I – Facility Clearance, it states, “The verification shall be provided via the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency's (DCSA) National Industrial Security System

See Factor I – Facility Clearance, “The verification shall be provided via the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency's (DCSA) National Industrial Security System (NISS) and obtained no earlier than thirty (30) days prior to the

(NISS) and obtained no earlier than thirty (30) days prior to the issuance of the solicitation.”

We have received various instructions about the use (or prohibition of use) of the Industrial Security Facilities Database (ISFD) printouts from NISS.

What type of FCL verification is the Government expecting for this requirement?

issuance of the solicitation.” Please also see response to question 4.

12. The Instructions to Offerors, Factor III, states, in part, “Offerors shall provide a detailed explanation demonstrating the relevance of the contracts to the requirements of the solicitation. Offerors shall also cite the task sections / subsections of the PWS to which the past performance is relevant for each of the three (3) contracts.”

The Attachment VII, Past Performance Information Form, has spaces for Scope and Magnitude. The number of FTEs and the total contract amount are listed above.

Should offerors change “Magnitude” to “Relevance” in Attachment VII?

No. Offerors should complete the form as is.

13. The solicitation states that Past Performance submissions “shall not exceed 12 pages total.”

Attachment VII (Past Performance Information Form) is required for each reference.

Can the Government please clarify whether:

a. The Attachment VII form must be included inside the 12‑page limit, or

b. The 12‑page limit applies only to the narrative portion, with Attachment VII excluded from the count?

Attachment VII, Past Performance Information Form, must be included inside the 12‑page limit.

14. The solicitation allows offerors to submit up to three (3) Past Performance references.

Can the Government please clarify whether:

a. There is a page limit per individual Past Performance reference, or

b. Offerors may allocate the 12 total pages across references at their discretion, so long as the combined Past Performance section does not exceed 12 pages?

Offerors may allocate the 12 total pages across their references at their discretion, as long as the combined Past Performance section does not exceed 12 pages.

15. Please confirm whether an SBA-approved unpopulated mentor-protégé joint venture may satisfy the solicitation's Top Secret Facility Clearance requirement through the Facility Clearance(s) of its mentor member, or whether the Government requires the joint venture entity itself and/or each venturer member to

Please see answer to question 2.

possess an active Top Secret Facility Clearance at the time of proposal submission.

16. Please clarify whether or not the government will align to the guidance provided in the October 2023 SBA/ISOO Joint Notice, which states "a prime JV offeror cannot be required to already hold an EED/FCL in order to submit an offer on a classified contract" and further provides “the responsible Cognizant Security Agency (CSA) assesses the business structure and governance documents of the legal entity awarded the contract on a case-by-case basis in determining which entities must hold an

EED/FCL.”

Please see answer to question 2.

17. Please confirm whether or not a JV submitting a proposal may gain TS FCL compliance with the stated requirement through a CSA determination process after submission of the proposal but prior to contract performance.

Please reference the Factor I - Facility Clearance section within the Addendum to FAR 52.212-1 Instructions to Offerors. The offeror shall provide verification that it possesses an active FCL at the TS level at the time of proposal submission.

18. The solicitation requires Offerors to provide verification of active FCL at the TS level.

Given the verification obtained from the NISS system is marked as Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), will the government provide a DoD SAFE Link for submission of the FCL verification?

Please see answer to question 4.

19. PWS 1.1 and 3.5.1 state NIODB operates in an AWS IL6 environment, but the Windows and Linux Server Administrator tasks (3.4.1, 3.4.3) require backups and data persistence "in accordance with IL5 security and data persistence requirements." Which impact level governs data at rest, backups, and disaster recovery, and is this a mixed IL5/IL6 environment?

Functional Responsibility for the IL5 has been removed from PWS. Please see revised PWS in Amendment 0001. NAVAIR is performing this function as NIWDCs primary cloud provider.

20. Will the Government furnish all tooling and licenses referenced in the PWS (i.e., CA ERwin, Oracle SQL Developer, the Oracle Enterprise RDBMS, .NET dev environment) and provide dev/test/production access within the GFE IL6 enclave for all developer/analyst FTEs, or is the contractor expected to provide any tools, licenses, or a separate development enclave?

The government will provide all software licenses, specialized tooling, and associated technical assets required for the FTEs to successfully complete the tasks outlined in the PWS, which will be furnished directly at the designated government work site.

21. Can the government please confirm requirements within Volume I are to be submitted as a single, combined file? The proposal page limitations table implies 1 electronic file per factor but the requirements read “Proposals shall be prepared in two (2) separate volumes”

Volume I can be submitted as a single combined file or separate files, provided they adhere to the format, proposal content and page limits as required in “Addendum to 52.212- 1, Instructions to Offerors - Commercial Products and Commercial Services.”

22. The instructions read: “The offeror shall provide sufficient information within the resume and copies of required certifications to meet the key personnel requirements as set

Please reference the section Proposal Page Limitations within the Addendum to FAR 52.212-1 Instructions to Offerors https://www.archives.gov/files/isoo/notices/isoo-joint-notice-2024-01-nisp-sba-re-jvs.pdf forth within the PWS, particularly Section 3, including the necessary security clearance and the demonstrated ability for each position.”

Can the government please confirm that copies of required key-personnel certifications are excluded from both the 30-page Factor II limit and the 2 page per KP resume limit?

23. The solicitation states the following requirement: “Contractor personnel working on-site shall possess a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartment Information (TS/SCI) clearance as a condition of hire to support NIWDC services."

Can you please tell us which of the specific job roles listed in the RFP require an active Secret/Top Secret security clearance?

All Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs) are required to possess and maintain an active Top Secret / Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) clearance, as the primary government worksite is designated as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF).

24. The solicitation’s Factor IV – Price instructions require the offeror to submit a complete pricing package, including the SF1449, Attachment I Pricing Spreadsheet, fully burdened labor rates, and supporting data. The RFP does not specifically address whether subcontractors must submit a separate sealed pricing package (cost build-up, sanitized rates, or proprietary cost elements) directly to the Government.

To ensure consistent compliance across offerors, can the Government please confirm:

Whether subcontractors are required to submit any separate pricing package or cost breakdown directly to the Government, OR whether all subcontractor pricing information should provide ONLY burdened rates to the Prime offeror for inclusion in the Prime’s consolidated Volume II Price submission?

Subcontractors are NOT required to submit, and should not submit, any separate pricing package or cost breakdown directly to the Government. The prime contractor shall submit their price proposal, which shall include all elements of price and such other price information considered appropriate to support the offeror's proposal IAW Volume II Price Proposal.