Final RFP Questions-Answers.pdf

Question # Document Section # (If available) Industry Question/Comment Government Response

The three areas referenced (L, M, Attachment P1) do not seem to align. There are three evaluation factors listed in Section M;

Recency, Relevancy (scope, magnitude and complexity), and Overall Quality (with seven quality areas to address). The PPIF will allow us to show the recency, however, there is no room for us to present our Relevancy and Overall Quality.

The breakdown of Section L also excludes any mention of Relevancy and Overall Quality.

a. Recommend the Government align the requirements in L and evaluation factors in M.

Section L and Attachment P1 instructions will be revised in Amendment 01 to ensure consistency between Section L, M and Attachment P1.

b. Recommend the Government either modify the PPIF to allow for Relevancy and Overall Quality or release the PPIF (Attachment P1) in Word format to allow inclusion of the those additional evaluation factors.

As stated in Section L "The Offeror shall complete the Past Performance Information Form, Attachment P1 for each past performance reference (contract or delivery/task order) performed within five years of the solicitation release date." Offerors may add up to 4 extra continuation pages to the form in the P1 Attachment to provide an explanation of what aspects of the referenced contract is deemed relevant to this solicitation’s requirements. To demonstrate relevancy, Offerors shall provide a comparative analysis to the scope, magnitude, and complexity of this solicitation’s requirements. The Government will assess the overall quality of the submitted contract references by reviewing CPARS, Attachment P-2 (Contractor Performance Assessment Questionnaire (CPAQ)) or any other performance information as described in the first paragraph of Section L, Part B, Paragraph 2.1.

2 RFP

Section L-Volume 1:

Technical, paragraph 1.2.3, Transition Plan, and Attachment 1 TEPL SOW paragraph 3.1.8, Transition In Strategy

The length of time allotted to transition was not provided.

Question/Recommendation: Please provide the length of time requirement for the transition in period.

The anticipated Transition period is 60 days.

3 RFP Section M, 2.0 Past Performance, first aspect of performance evaluation (Recency).

This section only states that the citation must have been performed within five years of the release date of the solicitation (6/8/2021). There appears to be no other qualifiers applied to this such as: must been have been in effect for 12 months or a minimum time in operation within this five-year window. Please confirm there are no other qualifications for Recency other than having at least one day of performance within the five-year window.

Recency will be evaluated on work performed within the 5 year period as indicated.

4 RFP

Section M, 2.0 Past Performance, second aspect of performance evaluation (Relevancy).

This section states “Offerors are required to explain what aspects of the referenced contracts are deemed relevant to this solicitation’s requirements. To demonstrate relevancy, Offerors shall provide a comparative analysis to the scope, magnitude, and complexity of this solicitation’s requirements.” The Section L Part B Specific Instructions for Past Performance do not address where this information must be located within the proposal. Question/Recommendation:

Please clarify where in the proposal offerors should provide a comparison of the citation SOW with Attachment 1 TEPL SOW. As provided, this information will not fit in the PPIF.

Please see the response to Question #1 above.

1 RFP

Section L-Volume 2:

Past Performance, Section M, 2.0 Past Performance and Attachment P1 PPIF.

5 RFP

Section L, Volume 2:

Past Performance, paragraph 2.1.2

Paragraph 2.1.2 states “In Annex A (Final Versions of Previous Statement of Work (SOW)/Performance Work Statement (PWS)/Other Supporting Documentation for Past Performance), the Offeror shall provide one electronic copy of the complete final versions of the SOW/PWS or other supporting solicitation/contract documentation from each… ” It is unclear what constitutes “Other supporting Documentation ”. Question/Recommendation: Please clarify or define what the Government considers acceptable “Other supporting documentation”.

In addition to the Statement of Work (SOW) or Performance Work Statement (PWS) in which relevant work was performed, other documentation could also include a SOW/PWS equivalent, such as a Statement of Objective (SOO).

Attachment

P1-PPIF

Contract Effort Description field

This is a fillable field with scrolling text. Only eight lines are visible at a time. This is a very difficult format to use either for offerors to write their responses or for reviewers reading those responses. Question/Recommendation: Recommend the Government release the PPIF (Attachment P1) in Word format to allow offerors a proper Contract Effort Description narrative.

Please see the response to Question #1 above.

Annex B (DCAA/DCMA Reports, Audits and Determinations) is referenced in both Volumes 3 (paragraphs 3.1.5 and 3.4.3) and 4 (paragraph 4.1.c). The Q&A#42 response states “An Annex is separate from a Volume. Only one Annex B - DCAA/DCMA Reports, Audits, and Determinations is required .”

a) Please confirm if both Volumes 3 and 4 require Annex B submission

While Annex B is referenced in both the Section L paragraphs for both Volume 3 and Volume 4, the previous Government response stands. Annex B is stand alone and is not specifically part of the Volume 3 or Volume 4 submission. If DCAA/DCMA Reports are submitted in Annex B that are in direct relation to something required in the Volume 3 submission, it is acceptable to reference the Audit Reports within Annex B as meeting the proposal requirement in Volume 3. It is also acceptable to reference a document submitted within Annex B if responding to a proposal requirement in Volume 4.

b) If only one submission, please confirm that Annexes are standalone documents and not associated with any volumes.

Annex B is a single, separate, stand alone file, which is used to submit DCAA/DCMA Reports, Audits, and Determinations that are required to address elements in other proposal Volumes (e.g. Volumes 3 and 4).

Attachment P1

Past Performance Information Form

It is unclear if the “Role on this Solicitation ” field refers to the cited contract or the NTWL solicitation.

Question/Recommendation: Please clarify “Role on this Solicitation” is in reference to the contract being cited in the

PPIF.

In the Attachment P1 form, "Role on this Solicitation" refers to the role that the company submitting the P! would have if the Offeror is awarded the contract. As an example, in the drop down menu for that block, the options are either Prime, Principle Subcontractor or Team member.

9 RFP Section L 2.11 Will the Government allow subcontractors to submit additional pages to Attachment P1?

Based on the instructions in Section L, Part B, paragraph 2.1.1, subcontractors categorized as principal or JV team members may submit past performance information. For those principal subcontractors or JV team members submitting past performance references, the same Attachment P1 instructions for the Prime offeror would also apply.

See response to Question #1 above.

7 RFP

Section L-paragraph

3.0 Proposal Content

and Volumes Table, paragraphs 3.1.5, 3.4.3, 4.1.c and Q&A #42

10 RFP Section L 2.13 Will the Government allow subcontractors to submit CPARS directly to the Contract Specialist in lieu of providing them in Volume 2?

There is no need to submit CPARS within the proposal submission. The Government evaluation team can pull the CPARS from PPIRS for a contract reference submitted in the Past Performance volume.

However, if a contract reference does not have an associated CPARS reference, “the Offeror shall submit a Contractor Performance Assessment Questionnaire (CPAQ), Attachment P-2, to the Government Program Manager or Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) who is the Assessing Official. The Offeror shall include instructions for the Government representative (e.g. Program Manager, COR, etc.) to send completed questionnaires within two weeks of its receipt via e-mail to Brittany Anderson - Contract Specialist, at brittany.anderson @navy.mil, thereby allowing the customer approximately two weeks to complete their response.”

11 RFP Section L 3.4.3

Section L 3.4.3; Paragraph 1 states: "Offerors shall provide historical indirect rates for the last three years for the indirect rates proposed in the CA-1 or CA-2 attachments. Provide a narrative to explain pools to which indirect rates are applied. If proposed indirect rates are not in line with historical trends, Offerors shall provide a detailed explanation with supportable rationale for why the proposed rates are not consistent with historical trends."

Will the Government, please further define this requirement by establishing a threshold that would render a proposed rate to be "not in line with historical trends"? For example, a proposed indirect rate that falls outside of +/- 10.00% variance, year over year, would be considered not in line with historical trends, therefore requiring a detailed explanation with supportable rationale for why the proposed rates are not consistent with historical trends.

No. The Government will not further define an acceptable threshold for variation of indirect rates.

Using an example, if indirect rates are trending upwards over the three year period and the proposed indirect rates are clearly not consistent with that historical trend, then supportable rationale shall be submitted to explain why the proposed rates are not in line with historicals. Any proposed rates that are not supported by the historical rate trend or supportable rationale, may be subject to adjustment.

12 N/A N/A

Will the Government provide a breakdown of the current distribution of NTWL contract labor or anticipated distribution by Branch (# of FTE in each Branch supplied under the current contract)?

Please see the attached document to these Questions and Responses. The breakout within that attached document provides an estimated percentage of each Program Office for the overall requirement as well as estimated percentage for the labor categories.

13 N/A N/A It seems that the DD254 for this solicitation is written to require safeguarding (11C). My question is, is it required at contract inception or can it be obtained after award?

The requirement for a Secret Safeguarding level classification, outlined in the DD254, may be obtained after award of the contract, but shall be obtained by the start of the period of performance of the contract. Currently, a 60 day Transition period is anticipated, spanning from contract award up to the start of the period of performance.

14 RFP

Pg. 92, Section 1.2 Workforce, Subsection 3 Transition Plan

In the solicitation it discussed a transition plan (page 92, section 1.2 Workforce, subsection 3 Transition plan). If we are able to provide a transition plan that does not involve a loss of service, would our company still be eligible to pursue the opportunity, meet the criteria working at the government locations, while pursuing approval for storage?

If the Transition Plan clearly shows that all required security requirements will be met by the start of the period of performance, with no loss of service, this would be an acceptable approach. A 60 day transition period is anticipated prior to the start of the period of performance of the contract.

15 RFP

Section L, Part A General Instructions, Paragraph 2.0 Electronic Proposal Format

Paragraph 2.0 states, “All pages should be numbered with section and page numbers. Question/Recommendation:

Please clarify or define what the Government considers “section”.

Each proposal Volume should have its own set of page numbers. If there are multiple sections within a Volume, each Section should have its own set of page numbers. As an example, Section L, Part B, "Section 3.4 - Cost Narrative" is a separate section within the Cost volume. That section should have its own set of page numbers.

16 RFP

Section L-Part A General Instructions, Paragraph 3.0 Proposal Content and Volumes

The bulleted list following the table on page 90 contains a list of what must be included in each volume. There is no mention of List of Tables/Figures/Exhibits or Acronym List. Question/Recommendation: Recommend the Government allow for both a List of Tables/Figures/Exhibits and Acronym List and they be excluded from page count.

The bulleted list following the table in Section L, Part A, paragraph 3.0 includes items that each volume shall contain. If an offeror chooses to provide additional items, such as Tables/Figures/Exhibits or an Acronym List, they may do so as long as each volume includes the items in the previously described bulleted list. To clarify, the Government has provided a "page recommendation" only for the Technical Volume as outlined in the RFP. It is not a page limit.