DRAFT SECTION M 22 Dec 08.pdf

22 Dec 08

SECTION M

1. M- BASIS FOR CONTRACT AWARD: This is a competitive, best-value source selection in which competing offerors' past performance history will be evaluated on a basis significantly more important than price considerations. By submission of its offer, the offeror accedes to all solicitation requirements, including terms and conditions, representations and certifications, and technical requirements, in addition to those identified as evaluation factors or subfactors. All technically acceptable offers shall be treated equally except for their prices and performance records. In other words, no proposal will be found more technically acceptable than another. Failure to meet a requirement may result in an offer being determined technically unacceptable. Offerors must clearly identify any exception to the solicitation terms and conditions and provide complete accompanying rationale. A statement by the contractor of ‘Exception’ or ‘No Exception’ shall be included in the Proposal Volume IV, Contract Documentation. The 309 th

MXW Equipment Program acquisition will be a Small Business Set-Aside to select approximately three contractors. An

Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract will be awarded with a $51 Million program estimate. The contract ordering period will be a five-year basic. This section defines the evaluation process.

2. Technical Acceptability. The Government technical evaluation team shall evaluate the technical proposals on a pass/fail basis, assigning ratings of Acceptable, Reasonably

Susceptible of Being Made Acceptable, or Unacceptable. The proposals shall be evaluated against the following subfactors:

2.1. Subfactor 1. Task Order Management Plan: The Government will assess whether the offeror’s task order management plan meets management requirements for directing administrative, technical, procurement, and logistical functions (e.g. material storage, transportation, special equipment, etc.) of this effort. At a minimum, the plan shall effectively demonstrate how the offeror will manage the following:

2.1.1. On-site supervision authorized to make decisions -- responsive to emergencies, problems (personnel, workmanship, etc.), or to answer questions, within four hours, between the regular shifts of 6:00 am to 3:30 PM Mountain Time, Monday through Friday. A 24 hour response time is required on all other shifts to include weekends and holidays, unless otherwise specified at the task order level.

2.1.2. Procedures and communication tools required to effectively manage and successfully implement this program, to include, but not limited to the following:

providing qualified personnel, managing change orders, scheduling (e.g. extra shifts, swing, graveyard, weekend, holidays, etc.), functional testing, significant risks, reporting project status, and cost and schedule management.

2.2. Subfactor 2. Quality and Safety Plan: The offeror meets the requirements of subfactor two when the offeror provides a quality and safety plan that effectively addresses the following:

2.2.1. Quality control. Ensure that equipment and machinery that is removed, relocated, modified, and installed performs to manufacturer’s or customer’s specifications, including professional appearance of finished work.

2.2.2. Safety equipment, procedures, and processes (e.g. plumbing codes, building codes, electrical codes, etc.)

2.2.3. Cleanup (e.g. daily and at completion of task; tool and Foreign Object Damage

(FOD) control, etc.)

2.2.4. A method for controlling and accounting for tools used (at a minimum, contractors shall uniquely identify their own tools and supply a list of tool IDs to the contracting officer)

2.2.5. Identifying and correcting quality deficiencies in a timely manner.

Subfactor 3. Contractor Statement of Work (CSOW): Offerors are required to provide an effective CSOW that provides, at a minimum, all requirements from the

PWS and how the offeror will meet those requirements as well as any major aspects of the technical proposal. The Government will evaluate whether the contractor’s CSOW shows an understanding of the requirement, procedures and timelines for completion, methodology to ensure compliance, as well as the accuracy and clarity of format and content. The Government must find the CSOW acceptable in order to give an acceptable rating to the Technical Capability factor. The Government reserves the right to evaluate the CSOW through sampling or through line by line review at its discretion.

The CSOW will be incorporated as an attachment of the resultant contract award.

3. Price Evaluation. The Government shall rank all technically Acceptable and Reasonably

Susceptible of Being Made Acceptable offers by price.

3.1. The Government will compute a Total Evaluated Price (TEP). The evaluation will consist of Government notional hours for the different labor categories/skill levels multiplied by the offerors’ Composite Labor Rates for the different categories/skill levels. The Government will estimate the notional hours using historical costs and engineering judgment. The TEP is for award purposes only and is not contractually binding. Offerors are not required to compute the TEP. The NTE composite rates submitted are contractually binding. Offerors shall populate ALL rate fields for all labor categories and for all calendar years in the pricing matrix attachment. Additionally, offerors shall populate the emergency task order multiplier for emergency work as described in the PWS (para. 4.11). Although the emergency multiplier will not be evaluated for the TEP, it will be contractually binding. Again, offerors must ensure that all loaded NTE composite rates entered are for the applicable period of performance for each labor category and skill level listed in the spreadsheet. The NTE Composite Labor

Rates proposed are fully burdened maximum hourly rates for each labor category/skill level identified for each calendar year identified. The rates shall include all applicable direct and indirect costs as well as profit.

3.2. Unbalanced Pricing. Offerors are cautioned against submitting an offer that contains unbalanced pricing. Unbalanced pricing exists when, despite an acceptable TEP, the price of one or more price elements, such as labor rates for the basic ordering period or option ordering periods, is significantly overstated or understated as indicated by the application of analysis techniques. The Government shall analyze offers to determine whether there are unbalanced separately priced labor rates. Offers that are determined to be unbalanced may be rejected if the lack of balance poses an unacceptable risk to the

Government.

4. Performance Confidence Assessment. Using questionnaires, the contracting officer shall seek recent and relevant performance information on each offeror based on:

(1) Past and present efforts provided by the offeror

(2) Data independently obtained from other Government and commercial sources.

The Government will not use Subfactor 3, CSOW, in the past performance evaluation.

The purpose of the past performance evaluation is to allow the Government to assess the offeror’s ability to perform the effort described in this RFP, based on the offeror’s demonstrated present and past performance. The assessment process will result in an overall

Performance Confidence Assessment of Substantial Confidence, Satisfactory Confidence, Limited Confidence, No Confidence, or Unknown Confidence as defined in AFFARS

MP5315.3 (see table below). Past performance regarding predecessor companies or sub-contractors that will perform work on this requirement will be rated as highly as past performance information for the principal offeror. Reference Attachment: Team List, Roles and Responsibilities. Offerors with no relevant past or present performance history shall receive the rating "Unknown Confidence," meaning the rating is treated neither favorably nor unfavorably.

4.1. Recency is satisfied by performance less than three years old. The Government will not consider performance on contracts/ task orders where performance was concluded more than three years prior to the solicitation issue date or newly awarded contracts that do not have performance history.

NOTE: The contract/ task order in its entirety may be evaluated for past performance if any part of the contract performance falls within the three-year timeframe, to include task orders and trends.

4.2. Relevancy and past performance ratings will be integrated into the overall confidence assessment. Past performance ratings will be based on the definitions identified on the

Past Performance Questionnaire (see definitions below).

E EXCEPTIONAL - Performance meets contractual requirements and exceeds many

(requirements) to the Government's benefit. The contractual performance of the element being assessed was accomplished with few minor problems for which corrective actions taken by the contractor were highly effective.

V VERY GOOD - Performance meets contractual requirements and exceeds some

(requirements) to the Government's benefit. The contractual performance of the element being assessed was accomplished with some minor problems for which corrective actions taken by the contractor were effective.

S SATISFACTORY - Performance meets contractual requirements. The contractual performance of the element being assessed contains some minor problems for which corrective actions taken by the contractor appear or were satisfactory.

M MARGINAL - Performance does not meet some contractual requirements. The contractual performance of the element being assessed reflects a serious problem for which the contractor has not yet identified corrective actions or the contractor's proposed actions appear only marginally effective or were not fully implemented.

U UNSATISFACTORY - Performance does not meet most contractual requirements and recovery is not likely in a timely manner. The contractual performance of the element being assessed contains serious problem(s) for which the contractor's corrective actions appear or were ineffective.

N NOT APPLICABLE - Unable to provide a score. Performance in this area is not applicable to effort assessed.

P PROPRIETARY – The answer will lead to release of proprietary data and cannot be provided.

4.3. Each offeror will receive one of the Past Performance Confidence Assessment ratings for the Past Performance factor, IAW AFFARS MP5315.305, (see table below).

4.4. The following relevancy definitions will be used to determine relevancy:

PERFORMANCE CONFIDENCE ASSESSMENTS

Rating Description

SUBSTANTIAL CONFIDENCE Based on the offeror’s performance record, the Government has a high expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

SATISFACTORY

CONFIDENCE

Based on the offeror’s performance record, the Government has an expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

LIMITED CONFIDENCE

Based on the offeror’s performance record, the Government has a low expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

NO

CONFIDENCE

Based on the offeror’s performance record, the Government has no expectation that the offeror will be able to successfully perform the required effort.

UNKNOWN CONFIDENCE No performance record is identifiable or the offeror’s performance record is so sparse that no confidence assessment rating can be reasonably assigned.

4.4.1. Very Relevant – Past performance involves essentially the same effort, magnitude, and complexity that this solicitation requires (e.g., on-site supervision, procedures and communication tools to manage task orders, quality, safety, clean-up, FOD control, tool control, correcting deficiencies, etc.).

4.4.2. Relevant – Past performance involves much of the same effort, magnitude, and complexity that this solicitation requires (e.g., on-site supervision, procedures and communication tools to manage task orders, quality, safety, clean-up, FOD control, tool control, correcting deficiencies, etc.).

4.4.3. Somewhat Relevant – Past performance involves some of the same effort, magnitude, and complexity that this solicitation requires (e.g., on-site supervision, procedures and communication tools to manage task orders, quality, safety, clean-up, FOD control, tool control, correcting deficiencies, etc.).

4.4.4. Not Relevant – No experience involving the same effort, magnitude, and complexity that this solicitation requires.

4.5. Higher relevancy will be assessed for contracts most similar in magnitude and complexity to the current acquisition requirements and will have a corresponding impact on the offeror’s overall performance confidence assessment rating. Relevancy of contracts will be evaluated individually. The Government is not bound by the offeror’s opinion of relevancy.

4.6. In evaluating past performance, the Government reserves the right to give greater consideration to information on those contracts deemed most relevant to the effort described in this RFP.

4.7. Past Performance will be rated by a confidence assessment based on a subjective, integrated assessment of the recency, relevancy, and quality of past performance.

Offerors will be ranked according to the Government’s confidence assessment rating in accordance with Table above.

5. If the lowest priced offeror is other than the highest confidence rating, the Government reserves the right to award a contract to other than the lowest priced offeror. In that event, the Source Selection Authority shall make an integrated assessment best-value award decision.

6. Offerors are cautioned to submit sufficient information and in the format specified in Section

L. Offerors may be asked to clarify certain aspects of their proposal (for example, the relevance of past performance information) or respond to adverse past performance information to which the offeror has not previously had an opportunity to respond. Adverse past performance is defined as past performance information that supports a less than satisfactory rating on any evaluation element. Communication conducted to resolve minor or clerical errors will not constitute discussions and the contracting officer reserves the right to award a contract without the opportunity for proposal revision.

7. The Government intends to award a contract with discussions with respective offerors. The

Government however, reserves the right to award without discussions if deemed in its best interest.