RFQ-12314424Q0041_COMBINED SYNOPSIS_SOLICITATION FOR COMMERCIAL ITEMS.pdf

COMBINED SYNOPSIS/SOLICITATION FOR COMMERCIAL ITEMS

SOLICITATION NO. 12314424Q0041

Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) Application and Support

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Nutrition Service (FNS)

(1) Action Code- This is a combined synopsis and solicitation procedure IAW FAR 12.603 for commercial items.

(2) Date: 2/15/2024

(3) Year: 2024

(4) Contracting Office ZIP Code: 80521

(5) Product or Service Code: DA01

(6) Contracting Office Address: 301 S. Howes St., Suite 321 Fort Collins, CO 80521-2795

(7) Subject: Summer Electronics Benefit Transfer Application and Support

(8) Proposed Solicitation Number: 12314424Q0041

(9) Closing Response Date: March 4,2024

(10) Contact Point or Contracting Officer: Jessica Massey

(11) Contract Award and Solicitation Number: Contract Award to be assigned at time of award.

Solicitation number is 12314424Q0041.

(12) Contract Award Dollar Amount: To be negotiated

(13) Line Item Numbers: 0001, 1001, 2001

(14) Contract Award Date: On or before March 25, 2024

(15) Contractor: Unknown

(16) Description.

i. This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial products or commercial services prepared in accordance with the format in subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; quotes are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued.

ii. See attached solicitation number 12314424Q0041, which is a Request for Quote (RFQ) and is attached to this combined synopsis/solicitation notification IAW FAR 12.603(b).

iii. A statement that the solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2024-02.

iv. The associated North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 541519 -Other Computer Related Services. This requirement is Full and Open.

v. The USDA Food Nutrition Service (FNS) is seeking to procure creation and administration of online Summer EBT application on behalf of states and tribal organizations. For a base year and two (2) one year option periods.

Base Year 3/25/2024 – 3/24/2025 Option Year 1 3/25/2025 – 3/24/2026 Option Year 2 3/25/2026 – 3/24/2027

vi. See attached “Attachment 1: Performance Work Statement” for a description of requirements for these services.

vii. Services for the Summer EBT will be coordinated with a USDA FNS Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) within the Period of Performance dates in paragraph v above.

viii. FAR Clauses 52.212-1, 52.212-3, 52.212-4, and 52.212-5 are referenced in Solicitation 1231424Q0041 as well as other FAR Clauses that applies to the acquisition.

ix. Award will be made to the vendor that is deemed the best value to the government in response to Solicitation 12314423Q0041.

x. See below Section 1 for question and quote due dates.

https://www.acquisition.gov/far/part-12#FAR_Subpart_12_6 https://www.acquisition.gov/far/part-52#FAR_52_212_1 https://www.acquisition.gov/far/part-52#FAR_52_212_3 https://www.acquisition.gov/far/part-52#FAR_52_212_4 https://www.acquisition.gov/far/part-52#FAR_52_212_5

xi. Point of Contract for information regarding this combined synopsis and solicitation is below:

Contracting Officer: Jessica Massey Phone Number- 970-295-5698 Email: Jessica.massey@usda.gov

(17) Place of Contract Performance: Performance of performance will occur at Contractor Facility

(18) Set-aside Status: Not applicable (Full and Open)

Solicitation Contents:

Section 1: Solicitation Information, Dates, and Deadlines Section 2: Overview of Solicitation Section 3: Submission Instructions Section 4: Award Criteria Section 5: Attachments

Section 1: Solicitation Information, Dates, and Deadlines

1.1 Solicitation Amendment History

Amendment Action Date 0 Solicitation Issued 2/15/2024

1.2 Point(s) of Contact / Contract Administration

Points of Contact: The following points of contact are to be used to communicate with the Government during the delivery order duration. During solicitation through award, the Contracting Officer shall be the primary point of contact:

Contracting Officer (CO):

Name: Jessica Massey Email: jessica.massey@usda.gov Phone: 970-295-5698

1.3 Solicitation Due Date and Delivery

Quotes must be submitted on or prior to 12pm MST, March 4, 2024. USDA will not accept quotes received by fax or mail. Offerors are to submit quotes electronically via email to the Contracting Officer listed above.

Subject line of the submittal email shall be formatted as follows: Summer EBT, RFQ 12314424Q0041, and Vendor Name.

mailto:jessica.massey@usda.gov

Volumes I, II, and III of the vendors quotes must be in separate volumes. All volumes are to be delivered by the closing date and time as stated above.

1.4 Questions – Are due 9am MST on Feburary 23, 2024. Questions are to be put on Attachmet 3 and submitted electronically via email to the CO listed above. Please be advised that the Government reserves the right to transmit those questions and answers of a common interest to all prospective offerors. They will be posted through an amendement to the RFQ on SAM.gov.

Section 2: Overview of Solicitation

2.1 Acquisition Details / Type of Contract

This solicitation is a Request for Quote (RFQ) being issued to SAM.gov.

This is a FAR Subpart 12.603 competitive acquisition.

This acquisition will result in a single open market award.

The order will be Firm Fixed Price contract.

This is an Open Market RFQ

2.2 Period of Performance

Period of Performance for this task order is anticipated to be base period plus two Option Periods are anticipated as follows:

Base Period: 3/25/2024 – 3/24/2025 Option Period 1: 3/25/2025 – 3/24/2026 Option Period 2: 3/25/2026 – 3/24/2027

Section 3: Quote submittal instructions

Quotes shall be neat, indexed and assembled in an orderly manner. Please try and mirror the requirements document as much as possible so a stated fact or reference may be directly attributed to a requirement. Each volume shall stand alone.

ANY EXCEPTIONS TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS SOLICITATION PACKAGE SHALL BE

IDENTIFIED ON A SEPARATE PAGE WITHIN THE COVER LETTER SUBMISSION. EXCEPTIONS MAY

DISQUALIFY YOUR SUBMITTAL FOR AWARD CONSIDERATION.

Company must be based out of The United States of America to submit a quote. This will be verified in the vendors SAM.gov registration. If the company is not US based, they will be removed from competition.

Vendor is required to be registered in SAM.gov with an active registration at the time of RFQ closing.

Formatting

Page size shall be 8.5 x 11 inches with one-inch margins. Pages shall be numbered consecutively.

The font size shall be 12-point, Times New Roman, with single-line spacing. 10-point font size is allowable only for tables and graphics. Offerors shall include a cover letter as described below.

Tabs, table of contents, and cover page are not included in the page count. Quote pages exceeding the page limits shall not be evaluated.

If the Offeror uses a different format (font size, margin, etc.), the Government reserves the right to adjust the quote to fit the parameters of the format as stated in the RFQ. And if this results in the quote exceeding the page limitations in any one area, the Government will not evaluate those excess pages.

Table 1 –Volume Page Limits

Contract Quote Information Page Limit Format

Cover Letter 2 Pages PDF- Submit with Volume I

Volume I – Non-price Factor – Prior Experience

6 Pages PDF

Volume II – Non-price Factors

– Written Technical Package

25 Pages PDF

Volume III – Price Quote (See below for how pricing structure should be set up)

No Page Limit Excel or PDF

Volume I, Non-Price Evaluation Factor: Cover letter (2 pages) and Prior Experience Narrative (6 pages).

Cover Letter

Must have the following:

• UEI Number

• Company name and mailing address

• Date submitted

• Business size

• Point of Contact (Name, email, phone) for the representative the Government should contact with questions regarding the quote.

• Clear label business submission (Joint Venture (JV), teaming arrangement and subcontractors) otherwise the business status is presumed to be standalone standard submission.

• All of the above-cited information for each entity on the proposed team, if a teaming arrangement, JV, or subcontractor is proposed.

Prior Experience Narrative

Provide brief overview of the vendor's (Prime not subs) organization. Describe two (2) specific examples of prior experience working on similar projects comparable in size and scope to the Food & Nutrition Service (FNS) proposed effort for this RFQ. Prior experience shall be within the last three years (as old as 2/2021). The government reserves the right to use prior knowledge of a contractor’s experience as well.

Offerors that include information/experience pertaining to all the below bullets in their quote may be considered the most capable through their confidence rating.

• Demonstrated experience developing online applications used to collect personally identifiable information.

• Demonstrated experience developing online applications states or other entities (counties, school districts, territories, tribes, etc.) use to determine program eligibility.

• Demonstrated experience in providing entities (counties, school districts, territories, tribes, etc.) with administrative support for federal program recipients.

The Prior Experience Evaluation Factor includes evaluation of Complexity (difficulty), Magnitude ($ value), Similarity (task similarity) as compared to the services described in the Performance Work Statement.

For each example of prior experience provided, the Offeror shall, at a minimum document:

• Name of project, duration, and dollar value

• Government Agency for whom work was performed. Name, title, e- mail and phone number for a representative of that client agency that can attest to the work performed and who can confirm level and quality of the Offerors demonstrated Prior Experience.

• Description of project (enough to establish relevance of experience to the USDA services requirement), and role of the company which clearly identifies the level and type of services performed under the contract and the role performed.

• Clear demonstration of how each Prior Experience example correlates to the service requirement as described in the Performance Work Statement with respect to complexity, magnitude, and similarity, The burden of providing thorough and complete demonstrated prior experience remains with the Offeror.

Volume II, Non-Price Evaluation Factor: Written Technical Package (25 Pages)

The technical package responding to the non-price evaluation factors in accordance with solicitation provision 52.212-2, EVALUATION-COMMERCIAL ITEMS. The non-price evaluation factor written technical package shall demonstrate how the Offeror shall perform the effort required in this RFQ. The following items will be evaluated off this submission:

• Application Development – Provide in your technical proposal a description of the contractor’s overall plan and approach for developing the Summer EBT application described in the PWS section 2. Include your approach for identifying requirements, testing, and release of the application.

• Application Administration – Provide in your technical quote a description of the contractor’s overall plan and approach for administering the Summer EBT applications for entities (states, territories, and tribes). Ensure you include your plan for documenting and tracking all help desk calls and emails to ensure all issues are resolved with the goal of preventing future errors. Also include how you will ensure confidentiality of applicant’s private data.

• Operations & Maintenance – Provide in your technical quote a description of the contractor’s overall plan for providing operations & maintenance support for the developed Summer EBT application.

• Project Management - Provide in your technical quote a description of how the contractor will ensure the support described in the PWS will be accomplished to include how you plan to manage project scope and risks and effectively utilize personnel resources to ensure timely completion of all project milestones.

Volume III, Price

This requirement is unique, and we need vendors to provide pricing based on the following:

1) Pricing for development of the Summer EBT application with administration/maintenance support provided for up to 10 entities (states, territories, tribes) (baseline cost). Firm Fixed Price.

2) Additional pricing for administration/maintenance of Summer EBT application for additional states, in increments of 5 additional entities (states, territories, tribes) at the #11-15 and #16- 20 quantities, respectively. Firm Fixed Price for each grouping of 5 additional entities (states, territories, tribes) up to 20 entities supported.

The vendors submitted quote needs to be as described above.

Price quotes shall be evaluated by comparing proposed prices received in response to the solicitation and to the Independent Government Estimate (IGE).

The Government shall evaluate all offers by total price. The Government will evaluate pricing utilizing Volume IV. The Government will review the price quote for completeness and accuracy. The Offeror’s quote will be checked for mathematical correctness to include:

(1) Verifying adherence to the model to check computations.

(2) Making sure all price/costs are summarized correctly; and

An analysis of the Offerors’ price quotes will be made to determine if they are fair and reasonable for the work to be performed, reflect a clear understanding of the requirements, and are consistent with the quote.

Section 4: Award Criteria

Trade Off. The Government will award one (1) Contract from this solicitation. For purposes of this solicitation, Best value means the expected outcome of an acquisition that, in the Government's estimation, provides the greatest overall benefit in response to the requirement. The Government may elect to award to other than the lowest priced offeror, or to other than the highest technically rated, based on the results of the tradeoff analysis between non-price and price factors. Offerors should therefore propose their best approach to meeting the requirements of the solicitation.

USDA will review volumes I and II then assign each a Confidence Rating. For a total of two confidence ratings. The Contracting Officer shall make an assessment of the proposed price and the Confidence ratings and trade one off for the other to determine the best value for the government.

Basis For Award

This is a Performance Price Trade-Off; Prior Experience and Written Technical, when combined, are more important than price and can be traded off for the best value. Non-price factors relative weighting is as follows: Written Technical Package is more important than Prior Experience.

Prior Experience will be evaluated with respect to magnitude, complexity and similarity to the work that will be required under the prospective contract. Prior experience will also be evaluated to the bullets listed in Volume I (Pg. 4). Then it will be assigned a Confidence Rating.

Written Technical (Volume II) will be evaluated with respect to the bullets listed above on Volume II above (Pg. 4 & 7) and will be assigned a Confidence Rating.

Non-Price Factors – Confidence Ratings

The confidence ratings are defined as follows:

Section 5: Attachments Attachment 1: Performance Work Statement Attachment 2: Commercial Item Provisions and Contract Clauses Attachment 3: Vendor Questions Matrix Attachment 4: Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP)

High Confidence (Low Risk)

The Government has high confidence the vendor understands the requirement, proposes a sound approach, and will be successful in performing the contract with little or no Government intervention.

Some Confidence (Moderate Risk)

The Government has some confidence the vendor understands the requirement, proposes a sound approach, and will be successful in performing the contract with some Government intervention.

Low Confidence (High Risk)

The Government has low confidence the vendor understands the requirement, proposes a sound approach, or will be successful in performing the contract even with Government intervention.