OER_Scientific_and_Program_Support_Questions_and_Answers_-_Part_1.pdf

12/20/2018

OER Scientific and Program Support

RFP-NIH-LM-01800097

Questions and Answers

1. Question: How many Key personnel is expected to be on this RFP and in what labor categories?

Answer: The Offeror shall determine the appropriate designation of Key personnel assignments in terms of number and labor categories.

2. Question: Are the resumes required for non-key personnel?

Answer: No

3. Question: Are the Letter of Commitments required for non-key personnel?

Answer: No

4. Question: Can “exemplary” resumes be submitted for non-key personnel instead of real ones?

Answer: Yes, if the company elects to provide resumes.

5. Question: Due to the proposal taking place over the Federal Holidays and our intent to provide the best possible proposal to the government, please consider extending the due date by 2 weeks.

Answer: This request shall be considered; a determination will be made if an extension is required.

6. Question: The government has provided an estimated Level of Effort of over 150,000 hours (approx. 79 FTEs) per year on page 24 of the PWS as an overall annual estimate for the contract to be used for cost estimation purposes. To further assist in cost estimation, please clarify the number of FTEs that should be priced for this solicitation.

We understand that the 79 FTEs may be greater or lesser than the scope of the existing current OER contracts supporting the PWS tasks.

Answer: The Offeror shall price to the estimated level of effort provided in the PWS.

7. Question: The LOE table only provides labor categories and total annual hours. By person, please provide the roles, level within the labor category, LOE, and functions for staff in scope by labor category. This is necessary to provide accurate pricing estimates.

Answer: The Offeror shall determine and propose pricing estimates to meet the requirement based on the labor categories and estimated hours provided in the PWS.

8. Question: The table in Section 10 references two separate deliverables, a Personnel

Management Plan and a Supervisory Plan (numbers 1 and 5). Please provide information on what should be covered in the Personnel Management Plan and clarify the difference between the Personnel Management Plan and the Supervisory Plan.

Answer: The Offeror shall determine how best to provide the Personnel Management and

Supervisory Plans. The Personnel Management Plan should provide for solutions regarding the requirements for personnel and the Supervisory Plan should provide for solutions regarding the requirements for supervision.

9. Question: Reference: “Key Personnel must be an employee of the prime Contractor.” Can the government please remove this requirement to allow offerors to propose the best possible candidates for key personnel including staff from subcontractors?

Answer: This requirement shall be employed by the Prime by the start of the contractor performance.

10. Question: The instructions reference technical discussions on the statement of work, personnel and other considerations; however, the primary evaluation subfactor 1 is the management approach. There is nothing in the instructions for a management approach.

The PWS also has minimal guidance to what is required for the management of the program. Please provide guidelines for the management section.

Answer: The Offeror shall propose a management approach as determined by their understanding of the requirement.

11. Question: Key Personnel- There are no positions defined as key personnel, however, resumes are required for key personnel. Please identify the positions the government establishes as key.

Answer: The Offeror shall propose Key personnel as determined by their understanding of the requirement.

12. Question: Resumes -The resumes require a list of qualifications for key positions.

However, there are no position descriptions or list of key personnel required for the contract.

Answer: The Offeror shall provide resumes of Key personnel based on proposed designation of Key personnel.

13. Question: Factor 3 – Past Performance -Since the estimated size of this contract (PWS

Section 9) is about 150,100 annual hours (~79 FTEs), this is a sizable small business undertaking. We ask the government to consider that relevant size, scope, and complexity for past performance be taken as the totality of all cited past performance examples presented by the Offeror rather than individually. This will allow a more competitive small business procurement which will benefit the Government.

Answer: The Government shall consider this request.

14. Question: To reduce the burden on the offerors and allow more time to prepare the best possible proposal, please allow for electronic delivery of the proposal.

Answer: Electronic delivery is required along with hard copies. Please e-mail to briscoee@mail.nih.gov.

15. Question: FACTOR 2 - PERSONNEL QUALIFICATION AND STAFFING -

Reference: “offeror's proposed staffing and personnel matrix that includes qualifications, experience, roles assigned etc.” Please provide the required roles and qualifications for the matrix.

Answer: The Offeror shall provide roles and qualifications based on their understanding of the requirement.

16. Question: The PWS requires that the offeror submits the following three plans with the proposal: Supervisory Plan, Personnel Management Plan, and Quality Control Plan. On the other hand, there is no mention of these three plans in the RFP Instructions (Section

L) or in the Evaluation Criteria (Section M)

• Can these plans be Appendices to Volume 1? That is, outside the page limit for the Volume 1

• Will these plans be evaluated as part of Factor 1 – Technical Capabilities?

• If these plans are to be evaluated as part of Factor 1, Technical Capabilities, what are the evaluation factors for these plans?

Answer: The Offeror can submit these plans as Appendices and evaluated based on the

Offeror’s association of the appendices in the proposal. For example: If the Personnel

Management Plan is submitted as an appendix and is referenced in the Management

Approach section of the proposal, the Appendix will be evaluated under Factor 1

Technical Capabilities, Subfactor 1 – Management Approach.

17. Question: Past Performance and Experience

Reference “The evaluation of this factor will provide an indication of the Offeror's ability to staff and manage system integration, architecture, requirements analysis, configuration management, testing support, and operations support activities. Greater credit will be given to the past experience and performance references that are linked to Key personnel experience.” This criterion doesn’t align with the requirements of the PWS. Please remove this language.

Answer: This has been removed from the RFP.

18. Question: Estimated Level of Effort (Cost Estimation Purposes). The government has estimated hours by labor categories, but no indication of desired years of experience within a labor category (e.g., a Senior Financial Analyst versus a Junior Financial

Analyst). Can the government define a years of experience range within each labor category which will allow contractors to bid resources at the right level of seniority?

Answer: The Government will not be providing this information.

19. Question: Will work under this contract be performed using government furnished equipment (GFE) or a combination of GFE and contractor computers?

Answer: It is anticipated that all work shall be performed using GFE.

20. On page 24 of the PWS under Estimated Level of Effort, the government defines 13

Labor Categories. Identify functional labor categories within these labor categories (e.g., Scientific Data Analyst I, II, II), and/or both? Is the government looking for the Offeror to define additional labor categories compared to the table, or define functional labor categories within these labor categories (e.g., Scientific Data Analyst I, II, II), and/or both?

Answer: The Offeror may define additional labor categories in their Technical Proposal that have not been identified in the PWS, however, the Offeror shall use the labor categories provided in the PWS for pricing.

21. Question: Please confirm that cost and rates are NOT to be included in the Technical

Proposal.

Answer: Cost and rates shall NOT be included in the Technical Proposal.

22. Question: In the PWS, page 24, #9. Estimated Level of Effort (Cost Estimation

Purposes), the Government provides annual estimated level of effort for a set of labor categories.

a) For pricing purposes, please clarify if Offeror should use the LOEs presented in page 24 of the PWS, #9 Estimated Level of Efforts to estimate cost for the project

b) Can the Government please provide definitions (qualifications, years of experience, etc.) for the various labor categories in the LOE table (PWS, Page 24) so that Offerors can properly estimate cost for each labor category?

c) Since this is a Cost-Reimbursement type contract, how should labor categories by priced? Each individual assigned to the labor category can have a different cost.

Answer: a) The Offeror shall use the labor categories and level of efforts in the PWS for pricing.

b) The Government shall further define the labor categories such as qualifications or years of experience.

c) The Offeror shall assign cost to each labor category.

23. Question: Please define the term predecessor companies?

Answer: Reference removed.

24. Question: When including past performance of key personnel, their performance may span multiple relevant projects. What approach is acceptable for the completion of the

PPQ in this case?

Answer: The completion of the Past Performance Questionnaire and any link to the performance of Key personnel will be determined by the references provided by the

Offeror.

25. Question: The performance incentives are not listed. Please provide.

Answer: There aren’t any performance incentives.

26. Question: For budgeting purposes, what assumptions should be made about the NIH salary cap over the 5 years of the contract?

Answer: There should be no assumptions made. See HHSAR 352.231.70.

27. Question: The solicitation identifies 2 parts: Technical Proposal and Business Proposal.

Please clarify which part includes the Past Performance Volume.

Answer: The Technical Proposal requires the Past Performance Volume.

28. Question: The PWS identifies the following plans to be submitted with the proposal which are not Identified in the Solicitation. Given the limited page count please confirm the Personnel Management Plan, Quality Management Plan and Supervisory Plan are not required with the proposal and are required after award.

Answer: All Plans are required to be submitted with the proposal and may be submitted as Attachments or Appendices to the proposal.

29. Question: Leading up to the release of the RFP, as well as in the final RFP, the NAICS codes identified were 541611 and 541690 with the $15M size standard, but the recent amendment added 541511 and 541512 with a $27.5M size standard. Given the majority of the work for this PWS is Scientific and Technical in nature, please confirm the predominant NAICs code for this effort is 541690 at a $15M size standard.

Answer: The primary NAICS Code is 541511.

30. Given this work is a consolidation of multiple contracts, the inclusion of Alternate

Proposals provides an unfair advantage to the incumbent contractors. Please remove this requirement.

Answer: This has been removed from the RFP.

31. Question: Please confirm that the technical attachments should be included as an appendix in the Technical Proposal and are outside of the page count.

Answer: The Plans specified in the Deliverables section of the PWS may be submitted as

Appendices.

32. Question: At the top of page 53, the table indicates a page limit of seven (7) for

‘Personnel Qualifications and Staffing.’ How does this page limit correlate to Tab 1

(Staffing Plan) and Tab 2 (Qualification and Experience) at the top of page 54 -

TECHNICAL PROPOSAL (Volume 1)? Is the combined page limit for Tabs 1 and 2 seven pages?

Answer: The combined page limit is seven (7) for the Personnel Qualifications and

Staffing section of the Technical Proposal that shall contain the Offeror’s Staffing Plan and Qualification and Experience.

33. Question: Citation in PWS states that all key personnel must be an employee of the prime. Can the government please clarify or confirm that this is in fact the requirement?

Are contingent hires allowed (as stated in on Pg. 61 of the RFP)? Also can the government identify which of the personnel (cited in the table on page 24) it considers to be key (i.e., which resumes would it like us to include)? Are we required to include resumes for non-key personnel?

Answer: Key personnel must be an employee of the prime when performance starts;

resumes of Key personnel are required.

34. Question: The RFP states that the page limit for this volume is 3 pages. Is that 3 pages per reference? Is there a limit to the number of references we can cite? Are there limits on how many must come from the prime/subs?

Answer: Although this question does not expressly refer to the Past Performance

Volume, it is inferred that “this volume” does relate to it based on the Page Limit Section that specifies the limit for the Past Performance Volume. The page limit is one page per reference.

35. Question: The page limit table provided on page 53 of the RFP cites a 20-page limit for the tech volume, with an additional 7 pages for personnel qualifications and staffing.

Does this mean that there is a 27-page limit for the tech, and that the personnel section of the technical volume cannot exceed 7 pages? Please clarify.

Answer: The Technical Proposal has a 27-page limit, with the Personnel Qualifications and Staffing section not to exceed 7 pages.

36. Question: It is our understanding that multiple NAICS codes can only be used for multi-award IDIQs and that the government must select a primary NAICS code for single award contracts. Would the government please confirm that the primary NAICS code for this contract is 541511 (Custom Computer Programming Services) with a size standard of

$27.5M?

Answer: The primary NAICS code is 541511.

37. Question: Regarding the OER_SP_QASP file:

1. b. PM4 does not specify adherence to a particular metric. (Unlike PM1-3. Is this intentional?)

Answer: The Performance Standard for PM-4 is specified in the Performance Metric

Table.