RFP396770.pdf

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP)

RFP No.:396770

Request for Proposal BSD-CS-2282 (Rev.1) May 22, 2025

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP)

1. INTRODUCTION

Date: 8/13/2025 RFP No.: 396770 RFP Description: Cryo-EM Clean Station RFP Closing Date and Time: 8/22/2025 at 5:00PM EST

Subject: RFP for the ORNL Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences Division In Response Refer to: RFP No. 396770– Cryo-EM Clean Station

ORNL Procurement Officer: Daniel DeFord Phone: 865-341-2797 Email: deforddd@ornl.gov

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a US Department of Energy (DOE) science and energy laboratory, conducting basic and applied research to deliver transformative solutions to compelling problems in energy and security. ORNL is managed and operated by UT-Battelle, LLC (UT-B). ORNL’s diverse capabilities span a broad range of scientific and engineering disciplines, enabling the Laboratory to explore fundamental science challenges and to carry out the research needed to accelerate the delivery of solutions to the marketplace.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), herein referred to as “Buyer,” is pleased to invite your company, herein referred to as “Offeror,” to submit a proposal in support of the subject effort, as outlined in the attached Statement of Work or Specification and/or Technical Direction attached.

Buyer reserves the right to update this RFP by amendment prior to date of award.

The Offeror’s proposal shall be prepared in accordance with the information provided in this RFP. Specific responses to the Buyer's requirements are necessary to enable the Buyer to evaluate Offeror’s understanding of, and capability to accomplish the stated objectives. Throughout the proposal, the Offeror shall provide sufficient detail to substantiate the validity of all stated claims, comments, or positions. All proposed concepts must be shown to be technically feasible and achievable within the allotted time limitations, and all performance and schedule requirements must be shown to be realistic. The response shall correspond to the requirements of this RFP, unless otherwise specified in writing by the Buyer.

2. RFP INFORMATION

Solicitation Number: 396770 Offers Due By: 8/22/2025 at 5:00PM EST Questions Due By 8/18/2025 at 5:00PM EST Offer Validity Period: 120 days NAICS Code: 334516 – Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing –

1,000 Employees Subcontract Type Anticipated: Firm Fixed Price Small Business Set-Aside: No Description of Supplies/Services Sought: Cryo-EM Clean Station Anticipated Subcontract Period of Performance: To Be Determined ORNL Procurement Representative: Daniel DeFord (deforddd@ornl.gov)

BSD-CS-2282 (Rev.1) May 22, 2025

3. LIST OF RFP ATTACHMENTS

Attachment

No. Description Document Title (Date/Revision)

Attachment A ORNL Terms and Conditions Terms and Conditions- Commercial Item (BSD-CS- 2146, dated 06/06/2025)

Attachment B Prime Contract T&C Flow Downs

UT Battelle Prime Flowdown Clauses- (BSD-CS-2258, dated 08/11/2025)

Attachment C Statement of Work (SOW)/ Technical Specification Attachment C- RFP396770 Bill of Materials

Attachment D Representations and Certifications

Representations and Certifications – Abbreviated (BSD-CS-2260, dated 02/10/2025)

4. STATEMENT OF WORK/SPECIFICATIONS

See Attachment C- RFP396770 Bill of Materials

5. PROPOSAL PREPARATION

Preparation of Offers. (a) Offerors are expected to examine the drawings, specifications, descriptions, terms and conditions, and all instructions. Failure to do so will be at the Offeror's risk. (b) Each Offeror shall furnish the information required by the solicitation. The Offeror shall sign the offer. Erasures or other changes must be initialed by the person signing the offer. (c) Unit price for each unit offered shall be shown and such price shall include packing unless otherwise specified. A total price shall be entered for each item offered. In case of discrepancy between a unit price and total price, the unit price will be presumed to be correct. (d) Offeror must state a definite time for delivery of supplies or performance of services unless otherwise specified in the solicitation. Time, if stated as a number of days, will include Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. (e) Offers in strict accordance with the solicitation are desired. Any exceptions should be referenced to related documents by title, page, and paragraph, and should be set forth in detail.

(f) This request does not commit ORNL to pay for any costs incurred in the preparation and submission of an offer or for any other costs incurred prior to the execution of an Agreement.

Explanation to Prospective Offerors. Any explanation desired by a prospective Offeror regarding the meaning or interpretation of the solicitation, drawings, specification, etc., must be requested with sufficient time allowed for a reply to reach all prospective Offerors before submission of their offers. Any information given to a prospective Offeror will be furnished to all prospective Offerors if such information is necessary in submitting offers or if the lack of such information would be prejudicial to any other prospective Offerors.

Proposal Format. Offerors are requested to submit their proposal in MS Excel, MS Word, or PDF formats. Proposals may be submitted on the forms furnished by the Buyer or may be submitted in a format of the Offeror’s choosing on the Offeror’s company letterhead.

Contractual / Administrative Authority. No direction to proceed or other instruction to begin work shall be binding upon Buyer except when specifically issued and confirmed in writing by an authorized member of Buyer’s Procurement organization. Offeror’s acceptance of, or reliance upon any direction to proceed or other instruction by Buyer’s technical personnel, or other representatives not specifically authorized to issue formal purchase order commitments, shall be at Offeror’s own risk and shall not constitute a binding purchase commitment upon Buyer.

Acknowledgement of Amendments. Receipt of an amendment to a solicitation must be acknowledged in writing.

https://contracts.ornl.gov/terms-and-conditions/ https://contracts.ornl.gov/special-articles-and-forms/ https://contracts.ornl.gov/special-articles-and-forms/

BSD-CS-2282 (Rev.1) May 22, 2025

Proposal Contact. Any questions regarding any portion of this RFP must be coordinated through the Buyer’s Procurement organization, identified as Buyer’s Contact in the Introduction. No written or verbal correspondence will be permitted with any other member of the ORNL team without coordination through the Buyer’s Procurement organization. Failure to comply with this requirement may result in the Offeror’s disqualification from consideration for award. The Buyer is open to proposal clarification questions/discussions in regard to this RFP via the email address or telephone number provided in the Introduction.

Omissions. It shall be clearly understood that, not-withstanding the detailed requirements contained herein, it is the Offeror’s responsibility to identify and quote any aspect or area which may have been omitted in this RFP and which will nevertheless be necessary to meet the general requirements of the defined effort.

Offeror’s Challenge. In the interest of cost effectiveness, the Offeror is encouraged to challenge specifications and other requirements that, in its judgment, provide little value in consideration of cost. Further, the Offeror is invited to suggest practical performance incentives that may be introduced to the advantage of both Offeror and Buyer.

Proposal Acceptance. Buyer reserves the right to (a) consider proposals or modifications to proposals received after the due date should such action be determined to be in the best interest of Buyer or its customer, and/or (b) make award without written or oral discussion.

Affordability. This effort is in support of the U.S. Government, who has a vital mission and constrained resources, and it is incumbent upon industry to provide our customer with high quality and affordable solutions. ORNL considers this challenge to be a major discriminator in our ability to win and retain business based upon proven performance and demonstrated value to our customers. ORNL has developed a number of initiatives to drive value for our customer and we expect our partners in our supply chain to do the same. It is requested as part of your proposal in response to this RFP that you articulate and demonstrate specifics in your offer that are affordable and meet or exceed all technical and schedule requirements. Your response to these criteria will be an element of the ORNL proposal evaluation and award decision process.

Order of Precedence. Any inconsistencies between sections of this RFP shall be resolved in accordance with the following descending order of precedence: (1) This RFP; (2) Special Provisions listed within this RFP; (3) Statement of Work/Technical Specifications; (4) UT-B Prime Flowdowns; (5) ORNL Terms and Conditions.

Payment. Payment shall be made by electronic funds transfer. The form for enrolling is available at http://web.ornl/adm/contracts/eft.shtml.

Rights to Technical Data in Successful Proposals. Should an Agreement be awarded based on a proposal, it is policy, in consideration of the award, to obtain unlimited rights for the Government in technical data (but not commercial or financial information) contained in a successful proposal upon which award of an Agreement is based. To exclude technical data contained in a proposal from the Government’s rights, the offer must:

(1) Advise the Buyer that the technical data, or portions thereof that are identified by the Offeror, are covered by the restrictive notice regarding the disclosure and use of proposal information in accordance with the provision of this RFP entitled Treatment of Offer Information and request that such protection be maintained by excluding the data from the Government’s rights; or

(2) Establish to the Buyer’s satisfaction that identified portions of the technical data do not relate directly to or will not be utilized in the work to be performed under the Agreement, and request that such portions be excluded from the Government’s rights.

If unlimited rights to technical data in successful proposals, as set forth in the first paragraph of this section are to be acquired, it shall be by use of the clause below titled, “Rights to Proposal Data (Technical).” Any excluded http://web.ornl/adm/contracts/eft.shtml

BSD-CS-2282 (Rev.1) May 22, 2025 technical data will be identified by inserting appropriate proposal page numbers in the clause, which clause enables the identification of data to be excluded from the Government’s rights, as discussed in the first paragraph of this section. Such exclusion is not dispositive of the protective status of the data, but any excluded technical data, as well as any commercial and financial information contained in the proposal, will be used for evaluation purposes only. If there is a need to have access to any of the excluded technical data during contract performance, their acquisition will be as limited rights data, if they so qualify, in accordance with FAR 27.404(d).

Rights to Proposal Data (Technical) Except for data contained on pages _______, it is agreed that as a condition of the award of this subcontract and notwithstanding the conditions of any notice appearing thereon, the Government shall have unlimited rights (as defined in the “Rights in Data – General” clause contained in this subcontract in and to the technical data contained in the proposal dated, _______, upon which this subcontract is based.

Treatment of Offer Information. Offerors that include in their proposals information that they do not want disclosed to the public for any purpose, or used by the Company or the Government except for evaluation purposes, shall:

(a) Mark the title page with the following legend:

This proposal includes information that shall not be duplicated, used, or disclosed—in whole or in part—for any purpose other than to evaluate this proposal. If, however, an Agreement is awarded to this Offeror as a result of—or in connection with—the submission of this information, the Company and the Government shall have the right to duplicate, use, or disclose the information to the extent provided in the resulting Agreement. This restriction does not limit the Company’s and the Government's right to use information contained in this information if it is obtained from another source without restriction. The information subject to this restriction are contained in pages [insert numbers or other identification of pages]; and

(b) Mark each page of information it wishes to restrict with the following legend:

Use or disclosure of information contained on this page is subject to the restriction on the title page of this proposal.

Signing Authority. Signature of official authorized to contractually commit the Offeror; the names, positions, email address, and phone numbers of persons authorized to negotiate this proposal or persons to be contacted for clarification or questions.

Proposal Validity. Statement that identifies proposal validity. Unless otherwise stated in the Offeror’s proposal, the Offeror’s proposal shall be valid for 120 calendar days.

FOB and Shipping Terms. FOB Destination or Delivered At Place (DAP) Shipping Terms

Offeror Business Information. Complete business address of the Offeror, the corporate name to be used on any resultant contract, and the remittance address if different from that above. Identify “parent company” or “sponsoring corporation” name, also provide such identity as appropriate.

Options. Buyer shall have the option to purchase additional quantities of items or services described in the Statement of Work/Specifications. The Offeror should include any option prices in the appropriate area of the RFP. It should be understood by the Offeror that the Buyer may not exercise any or all options which are not included in the base award. The award may be made by the Buyer for the initial quantity only. It is important that the foregoing be considered by the Offeror in preparing and submitting separate prices for the initial order quantity and for each individual option. Offers will be evaluated for purposes of award by adding the total price for all option quantities to the total price for the initial quantity. Evaluation of options will not obligate the Buyer to exercise the option(s).

6. COMPETITION

This RFP is being issued on a competitive basis. The Buyer intends to make one award.

Response Due Date. Your response to this request is due on or before 5:00PM EST on 8/22/2025. All proposal documents shall be sent to the attention of Daniel DeFord via email at deforddd@ornl.gov.

Access to ORNL Site. Vendor personnel may come onto the ORNL site only if they have a current ORNL badge or a visitor's pass. Persons who need visitors' passes to deliver offers or participate in site visits must provide their e-mail address to the Procurement Officer on a workday at least 24 hours in advance. The Site Administrator will send a link to a secure portal (via-email) where vendor personnel provide the following information: (i) Full name, (ii) employer, (iii) social security number, (iv) date of birth, (v) gender and (vi) country of citizenship. Visitors' passes must be picked up at the Visitor Center, Building 5200. Photo identification is required.

Questions. Questions concerning this RFP must be submitted in writing, via email, to the ORNL Procurement Officer listed in section 2 of this RFP. Information given to one prospective offeror will be furnished to all prospective offerors if lack of the information would be prejudicial to them. Questions are due by 8/18/2025 at 5:00PM EST.

Withdrawal of Offers. Offers may be withdrawn by written notice received at any time before award.

Proposal Package. A complete proposal package consists of the following elements:

Proposal Exceptions/Non-Compliance Conditions of Proposal / Assumptions Supplementary Requirements

PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS:

All proposals shall be submitted in U.S. Dollars (USD). The Offeror may submit their pricing information on Attachment C- Bill of Materials or in their own format.

The proposal shall identify the system the offeror is proposing along with the system’s specifications/features.

This proposal may be subject to a Government price audit.

EXCEPTIONS/NON-COMPLIANCE:

Exception(s) to or non-compliance with any portion of this RFP shall be clearly identified in a separate Exceptions/Non-Compliance section referencing the specific document, page, paragraph, and item. Exceptions identified in the Offeror’s Technical Proposal need not be restated in this section. You are requested to explain the reason(s) for the non-compliance and identify any alternate solutions to achieve compliance. Any exceptions that are taken to the provisions of this RFP will be considered in evaluating the Offeror’s proposal and may result in your offer being deemed non-responsive. The absence of a proposal section entitled “Exceptions/Non-Compliance” or a statement indicating “no exceptions are taken” implies complete and unequivocal acceptance of all requirements, terms, and conditions.

CONDITIONS OF PROPOSAL/ASSUMPTIONS:

The Offeror shall identify any conditions and/or assumptions of its proposal in a separate Conditions of Proposal/Assumptions section. The Offeror shall include a list of any Buyer/Government equipment and/or information needed as a condition of performance. Offeror shall include its assertion of Limited or Restricted Rights in Data and/or Software.

SUPPLEMENTARY REQUIREMENTS:

Representations and Certifications – Abbreviated. If your proposal exceeds $10,000, Offeror must complete and return a copy of the Representations and Certifications – Abbreviated (BSD-CS-2260) form which is attachment D of this

RFP.

Foreign End Products. The Offeror shall list as foreign end products those end products that are manufactured outside of the United States that do not qualify as domestic end products. List all foreign end products proposed and their country of origin.

7. BASIS OF AWARD

Basis of Award – Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA). An award resulting from this solicitation will be made to the responsible offeror submitting the lowest-priced offer that meets all specified requirements. Offers will be evaluated for technical acceptability under each of the factors listed below. An offer that is evaluated as unacceptable under any factor will not be considered for award. In your proposal, please clearly document how your offer meets or exceeds the below listed acceptability factors. Note and explain any deviation from the specifications. Make specific written response to items that cannot be met as specified in the specifications.

8. SPECIAL PROVISIONS

- FAR 52.211-6 Brand Name or Equal shall apply

9. PAYMENT TERMS

Payment terms are Net 30 days upon final acceptance of the product/service. All payments will be made in U.S. Dollars (USD). Payment shall be made by electronic funds transfer.

10. CLOSING

Should additional information be required on any of these requests please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned Procurement Officer below.

Sincerely, Daniel DeFord Phone: 865-341-2797 Email: deforddd@ornl.gov