DRAFT RFP N6134021R0001_Att L-10 FTSS V Solicitation_QA 1-9_8.2.21.xlsx
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- Navy Fielded Training Systems Support (FTSS)
- Solicitation number
- N6134021R0001
About this file
This document is a sources sought notice for contractor support services for the Navy's Fielded Training Systems Support program. The Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division seeks potential sources to provide a wide range of complex and non-complex services, including contractor operation and maintenance of simulators and training devices, and contractor instructional support services at Navy and Marine Corps training sites worldwide. Interested parties are requested to provide details of their capabilities, experience in the last five years performing relevant services, size status, and recommendations to improve acquisition processes by March 16, 2020. The anticipated requirements include approximately 19 known task orders valued at $1 billion to support programs suitable for both large and small businesses.
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Q&A
DRAFT SOLICITATION FTSS V MAC N6134021R0001
| Date of | ||||||||
| Request | Question Number | |||||||
| Topic | Subject (title) | Question | Question Reference (SOW, L&M, Page #s, etc.) | Response | Answer Reference (SOW, L&M, Page #s, etc.) | |||
| 07/27/21 | 1 | Small Business Participation Plan in Volume 1 Cover Letter | The RFP requires Lot 1 offerors to provide a Small Business Participation Plan in Annex B. The requirements for Volume 1 Cover Letter include a section for the Small Business Participation Plan. Please clarify what should be included in Volume 1 Cover Letter for the Small Business Participation Plan. | Draft RFP, page 130 of 161, Section L, L.2.1 Volume 1 Cover Letter, L.2.1.2 Prerequisites, # (2), a) | The Small Business Participation Plan described in L.2.1.2.a.2 shall be provided by the offeror in Annex B. The RFP will be updated to clarify this information. | L.2.1.2.a.2 | ||
| 07/27/21 | 2 | Reference to FTSS IV in Section M | Should the reference in the second sentence in M.1.1, a) be "FTSS V MAC" (rather than "FTSS IV MAC")? | Draft RFP Section M, page 153 of 161, M.1.1, a) | Good catch! Yes the reference should have been to FTSS V and the RFP will be updated accordingly. | M1.1.a | ||
| 07/27/21 | 3 | Rating of JV Offeror Without Record of Past Performance | The RFP states: "In the case of an Offeror without a record of past performance or for whom information on past performance is not available, the Offeror will receive a rating of “Acceptable.” Does this mean that a JV offeror with no past performance receives an automatic Acceptable? Please clarify what this means in terms of evaluation. | Draft RFP Section M, page 156 of 161, M.2.4, d) | Yes, the M.3.1.2 definition of the Acceptable rating for Past Performance includes an Unknown performance record. It is important to note, however, that the Technical (Experience) evaluation comes before the Past Performance evaluation. Any proposal that does not meet all of the requirements of section M.2.3 Technical (Experience) of this solicitation for the Lot proposed will be removed from consideration for award without further evaluation. Proposals that meet the Technical factor (Experience) requirements for the Lot proposed will receive an ACCEPTABLE Technical Factor (Experience) rating and will proceed to the section M.2.4 Past Performance evaluation. M.1.3.d sums up the entire evaluation process best and would be a good area for you to review. | M.2.4.d, M.3.1.2, M.3.1.d | ||
| 07/27/21 | 4 | Attachment L-3a/b Clarification | Section L.2.3.1.1.1 and Section L.2.3.1.1.2 requirements are not consistent with Attachments L-3a and L-3b, respectively. Please clarify which document(s) take precedence with regard to evaluation of relevance. | Draft RFP, page 133 of 160, Section L, L.2.3.1.1.1 and L.2.3.1.1.2; Attachment L-3a and Attachment L-3b | Sections L.2.3.1.1.1 and L.2.3.1.1.2 are the Technical (Experience) factor evaluation requirements, not the Relevancy requirements. M.2.3.b identifies that the Experience element evaluation establishes a minimum threshold of Relevant Experience necessary to be considered in the Past Performance factor evaluation in section M.2.4 for potential MAC award. The contract reference submissions will first be assessed for Relevancy by the government. The M.3.1.3 Relevant definition identifies that only performance on Relevant contracts will be considered in the Technical(Experience) and Past Performance evaluations. Please see section M3.1.3 for a full definition of Relevant. | |||
| L.2.3.1.1.1, L.2.3.1.1.2, M.3.1.3 | ||||||||
| 07/27/21 | 5 | Volume 3 Technical (Experience) Page Count | Please confirm the "suggested page count" for Technical (Experience) is 5 pages given that the "suggested page count" for Volume 4 Past Performance is 50 pages. | Draft RFP, page 127 of 161, Section L, L.1.1.2.2 Proposal Content and Volumes, Table G-3 Proposal Structure | Yes, the suggested page count for Volume 3 Technical (Experience) is only 5 pages, while the Volume 4 Past Performance suggested page count is 50 pages. In accordance with L.2.3.a, this is because the L-3a and L-3b Contract Reference submissions that are used for the Technical (Experience) evaluations are submitted in Volume 4 Past Performance. Please also note that in accordance with L.2.3.a. “Relevant Portions of Final Versions of Previous SOO/SOW/PWSs for Past Performance and Experience” will also be considered, but these are part of Annex A and not considered part of the page count. | L.1.1.2.2 Table G.3 and L.2.3.a | ||
| 07/26/21 | 6 | Alternative Solicitation NAICS code for Lot 2 determination | Will the government allow offerers to propose under NAICS code 336413, Other Aircraft Parts and Auxiliary Equipment Manufacturing as an alternative to the RFP NAICS code 541330? Rationale: This NAICS code is consistent with other COMS/CIS contracts such as TSA IV. It also ensures the broadest Small Business pool possible, with Past Performance requirement still driving relevance and competence to satisfy FTSS V taskings. | RFP H.11 | No, the solicitation requires all offerors to propose under he North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 541330, Engineering Services, with a size standard of $41.5M annual revenue when in support of military and aerospace equipment and military weapons. The government has determined that 541330 is applicable to this acquisition, and it has been historically used by NAWCTSD over the last 20 years and four iterations for FTSS services requirements. Market research conducted with companies in April 2020 revealed that all companies concurred with the government assessment of the requirement and subsequent selection of the PSC and NAICS as appropriate. Utilization of NAICS code 541330 has been coordinated through both the NAWCTSD Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP) and Small Business Administration (SBA) Procurement Center Representative (PCR) . | H.11 | ||
| 07/26/21 | 7 | Interpretation of Lot 1 Experience requirement 3) | Where the offeror has experience with COMS for systems capable of conducting 10 or more training events simultaneously with separate student stations and host stations for each simulation, does this experience meet the requirements of Lot 1 Experience Requirement 3? If not, would the Government consider revising Lot 1 Experience Requirement 3 to allow offerors to submit relevant COMS maintenance on Military Aircraft Flight Simulators that cumulatively support greater than 10 simultaneous simulations? An example is a Flight Simulator with 14 Crew positions and 8 IOS that can split the crew positions and IOS inputs in order to simultaneously run 3 different mission representative simulation training events. | L.2.3.1.1.1 a) 3) | No, we are looking for demonstration of COMS performance on multiple simulators, not multiple training events or simulations. The focus of L.2.3.1.1.1.a.3 is performing COMS on a minimum of 10 Military Aircraft Flight Simulators. Each simulator may have the capacity to perform one or more simultaneous training events. The average FTSS TO requirement for Lot 1 is performance of COMS on 18 Aircraft Flight Simulators. The government looked at the range of recurring FTSS Lot 1 requirements when it set the Experience minimum of 10 Military Aircraft Flight Simulators. | L.2.3.1.1.1.a.3 | ||
| 07/27/21 | 8 | Past Performance Recency | The three (3) year recent and relevant past performance requirement identified in the RFP and Att L-3b for performance on the 15 Weapon Systems (Att L-7) restricts many small business entities from bidding on FTSS V since only the incumbent can claim performance within three (3) years. |
Will the Government increase the three (3) year past performance recency requirement to five (5) years for Lot 2 in order to open the opportunity up to additional small business principal entities?
FTSS V Draft RFP:
o Page 131, L.2.2.1.2 o Page 135, L.2.3.1.1.2 a) 2) o Page 135, L.2.4 c) o Page 136, L.2.4 f) o Page 158, M.3.1.3 Att L-7 Military Aircraft Flight Training Devices (Lot2)
| #12, Att L-3b-FTSS-V-Contract Data (Lot 2) | While 5 year recency criteria had been utilized in prior FTSS iterations, the Government made a decision to restrict performance to a 3 year recency criteria under the current FAR 15.304(c)(1)(ii) methodology where the government intends to make award to to each qualifying Offeror who is a responsible source, submits a technically acceptable proposal that conforms to the requirements of this solicitation, and that the contracting officer has no reason to believe would be likely to offer other than fair and reasonable pricing. Other factors that went into the decision were that more recent performance is a better indicator of future performance, and Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) data only goes back 3 year. The three year recency requirement for Relevant performance does not restrict small business relevant submissions only to the FTSS incumbent. First, the small business set-aside Lot 2 was cancelled in FTSS IV due to a protracted protest, so there are no small business FTSS incumbents. Second, the Relevant definition in M.3.1.3 (see question 4 above) does not restrict relevant performance only to FTSS work or FTSS incumbents. Relevant performance involves similar scope, and magnitude of effort, and complexities that this solicitation requires. Similar performance may come from requirements other than FTSS and non-Navy work. Furthermore, the M.3.1.3 definitions (Recent, Relevant and Not Relevant) also identifies that the Government will consider contracts, or those portions of the contracts, that are within the 3 year Recency period. | |||
| 07/16/21 | 9 | Affiliated business units under common parental control | "We seek clarification on how more than one affiliated businesses that are under common control of a single corporate parent may each submit relevant information for the evaluation factors (i.e. Technical, Corporate Experience, and Past Performance Factors) under a single offer. As the result of recent mergers, our corporate structure contains multiple business units with different CAGE codes under a common corporate parent. The common corporate parent does not perform government contracts on its own. But the business units can combine efforts through a common contract administration team, even though only one of those business units will technically be the 'prime' offeror. |
With respect to Joint Ventures (JV), the previous solicitation requested evaluation factor information from both the JV and its partner companies. But in the above-described situation with multiple affiliated business units under a common corporate parent, it is unclear whether the affiliated business units can respond in a consolidated manner to the solicitation. In our experience, prior solicitations navigated this arrangement via a Letter of Support among the relevant affiliated business units to confirm (a) their ability to coordinate with each other and (b) each business unit’s commitment to performance under the Task Orders.
Would you consider clarifying the solicitation so that affiliated business units under common parental control may submit for evaluation relevant information from more than one business unit and effectively participate in this competition, similar to what is permitted for JVs?"
No, M.3.1.3 states that corporate parents, corporate divisions, corporate subsidiaries, or corporate affiliates are not Principal Entities, and as such their Experience and Past Performance will not be evaluated. L.2..4.c states "Submitted contracts shall be from a CAGE code/DUNS that is the same as the Principal Entities proposed in Table ES-1 (Offeror Summary)." Section M.3.1.3 defines Principal Entities as "entities proposed as the Offeror/Prime, JV, and JV team member." Please see the full M.3.1.3 definition of Principal Entities for more information. This approach has been utilized successfully in the historical FTSS iterations. It becomes even more important under the current FAR 15.304(c)(1)(ii) methodology . The intent of the FAR 15.304(c)(1)(ii) methodology is to balance having a healthy/robust number of Offerors, but not so many as to not allow all Offerors a fair opportunity to receive award. Furthermore, Industry was made aware of the intention to continue the approach for FTSS V at the April 2020 Industry Day 1-on-1 sessions and posted Q&A (see #1 , 78, 83 and 85) L.2.2.1.2, L.2.4.c, M.3.1.3
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Attachment L-9
| Solicitation Question Form | &"Arial,Bold"&14SOURCE SELECTION INFORMATION&12 |
| When Filled In | &P of &N |
Attachment L-10 RFP Question and Answer Form This spreadsheet shall be used to submit RFP questions .
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