Solicitation.pdf

TITLE: -Human Assessments of Translation

SOLICITATION NUMBER: SB1341-14-RQ-0703

RESPONSE DATE: September 5, 2014 at 12pm Eastern time.

CONTACT POINT: Divya Soni, Contract Specialist, (301) 975-6394

DESCRIPTION:

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a requirement for human assessment of machine translation.

THIS IS A COMBINED SYNOPSIS/SOLICITATION FOR COMMERCIAL

ITEMS PREPARED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE FORMAT IN FAR SUBPART 12.6-

STREAMLINED PROCEDURES FOR EVALUATION AND SOLICITATION

FOR COMMERCIAL ITEMS-AS SUPPLEMENTED WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

INCLUDED IN THIS NOTICE. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONSTITUTES THE ONLY

SOLICITATION; QUOTATIONS ARE BEING REQUESTED, AND A SEPARATE

WRITTEN SOLICITATION DOCUMENT WILL NOT BE ISSUED. THE SOLICITATION IS

BEING ISSUED USING SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION PROCEDURES UNDER THE

AUTHORITY OF FAR PART 13.

This solicitation is a Request for Quotation (RFQ). The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-76

1352.215-72 INQUIRIES (APR 2010)

Offerors must submit all questions concerning this solicitation in writing to divya.soni@nist.gov.

Questions should be received no later August 29, 2014. Any responses to questions will be made in writing, without identification of the questioner, and will be included in an amendment to the solicitation. Even if provided in other form, only the question responses included in the amendment to the solicitation will govern performance of the contract.

(End of Provision)

The associated North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 541930 with a small business size standard of $7.5 million.

This acquisition is 100% set-aside for small business.

Background:

The IAD Multimodal Information Group supports Human Language Technology (HLT) research and development objectives through collaborations with other agencies to advance HLT systems in support of speech analysis, video analysis, machine translation and speaker and language recognition technologies.

Machine Translation is a technology that automates the translation of a data (text, image or audio), either written or spoken, in one language to that of another. This translation technology is emerging as an effective communication tool for industry, academia, and our military, and this technology is enabling greater information access, a goal of the NIST Information Access Division. NIST supports the government-wide effort to increase machine translation capabilities through research and evaluation designed to address factors negatively effecting translation performance. NIST designs experimental test protocols, provides guidance to help ensure that test data is collected as appropriate for addressing identified challenges, develops metrics and implements community evaluation that focus research on specific problems preventing the technology from reaching its full potential.

This procurement requires the performance of tasks and deliverables the Multimodal Information Group requires to fulfill their mission of advancing the measurement science for machine translation evaluation of text input. More specifically this procurement will generate the human assessments of machine translation output for informal genres that can be scientifically compared to automated metrics in accordance with the attached Statement of Work (SOW).

Offerors shall provide firm-fixed-pricing for the following:

Line Item 0001:

Description: The Contractor shall provide services in accordance with the attached SOW.

Quantity: 1 EA

PROVISIONS AND CLAUSES:

The following provisions and clauses apply to this acquisition and are hereby incorporated by reference. All FAR clauses may be viewed at http://www.acquisition.gov/far/.

Provisions

52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors-Commercial Items 52.212-3 Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items

Offerors shall complete annual representations and certifications in accordance with FAR 52.212-3 Offerors Representations and Certifications- Commercial Items. If paragraph (j) of the provision is applicable, a written submission is required.

Clauses

52.212-4 CONTRACT TERMS AND CONDITIONS--COMMERCIAL ITEMS -

ALTERNATE I (AUG 2012)

52.212-5 CONTRACT TERMS AND CONDITIONS REQUIRED TO IMPLEMENT

STATUTES OR EXECUTIVE ORDERS--COMMERCIAL ITEMS (JAN 2013)

52.203-6, Restrictions on Subcontractor Sales to the Government (Sep 2006), 52.204-10, Reporting Executive Compensation and First-Tier

Subcontract Awards (Aug 2012) 52.209-6, Protecting the Government`s Interest When Subcontracting with Contractors

Debarred, Suspended, or Proposed for Debarment (Dec 2010) 52.209-10, Prohibition on Contracting with Inverted Domestic Corporations (May 2012) 52.219-6, Notice of Total Small Business Set-Aside (Nov 2011) 52.219-28, Post Award Small Business Program Rerepresentation (Apr 2012) 52.222-3, Convict Labor (Jun 2003) 52.222-19, Child Labor--Cooperation with Authorities and Remedies (Mar 2012) 52.222-21, Prohibition of Segregated Facilities (Feb 1999) 52.222-26, Equal Opportunity (Mar 2007) 52.222-35, Equal Opportunity for Veterans (Sep 2010) 52.222-36, Affirmative Action for Workers with Disabilities (Oct 2010) 52.222-37, Employment Reports on Veterans (Sep 2010)

52.223-18, Encouraging Contractor Policies to Ban Text Messaging While Driving (Aug 2011)

52.225-13, Restrictions on Certain Foreign Purchases (Jun 2008) 52.232-33, Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer-System for Award Management (Jul 2013)

Department of Commerce Acquisition Regulation (CAR) clauses. Please submit a written request to the Contract Specialist for the full text of these clauses.

1352.201-70 CONTRACTING OFFICER’s AUTHORITY (APR 2010) 1352.201-72 CONTRACTING OFFICER’s REPRESENTATIVE (COR) (APR 2010)

1352.208-70 RESTRICTIONS ON PRINTING AND DUPLICATING (APR 2010)

1352.209-73 COMPLIANCE WITH THE LAWS (APR 2010)

1352.209-74 ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST (APR 2010)

1352.233-70 AGENCY PROTESTS (APR 2010)

1352.233-71 GAO AND COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS PROTESTS (APR 2010)

1352.237-75 KEY PERSONNEL (APR 2010)

GOVERNMENT REVIEW, COMMENT, ACCEPTANCE AND APPROVAL (APR 2010)

(a) Documentation, including drawings and other engineering products and reports, required by the contract to be submitted for review, comment, acceptance or approval will be acted upon by the Government within 30 calendar days after receipt by the Government, unless another period of time is specified.

(b) Review, comment, acceptance or approval by the Government as required under this contract and applicable specifications shall not relieve the contractor of its obligation to comply with the specifications and with all other requirements of the contract, nor shall it impose upon the Government any liability it would not have had in the absence of such review, comment and acceptance or approval.

Department of Commerce Agency-Level Protest Procedures Level above the Contracting Officer is also incorporated. It can be downloaded at http://www.nist.gov/admin/od/contract/agency.htm.

National Institute of Standards and Technology Clauses.

NIST LOCAL 04 BILLING INSTRUCTIONS

(a) NIST prefers electronic Invoice/Voucher submissions and they should be emailed to INVOICE@NIST.GOV. (b) Each

Invoice or Voucher submitted shall include the following: (1) Contract Number. (2) Contractor Name and Address. (3) Date of

Invoice. (4) Invoice Number. (5) Amount of Invoice and Cumulative Amount Invoiced to-date. (6) Contract Line Item Number

(CLIN). (7) Description, Quantity, Unit of Measure, Unit Price, and Extended Price of Supplies/Services Delivered. (8) Prompt

Payment Discount Terms, if Offered. (9) Any other information or documentation required by the contract. (c) In the event electronic submissions are not used, The Contractor shall submit an original invoice or voucher in accordance with the payment provisions of this contract to: NIST: Accounts Payable Office 100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 1621 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-1621

INSTRUCTIONS:

System for Award Management

In accordance with FAR 52.204-7, the awardee must be registered in the System for Award Management (www.sam.gov) prior to award. Refusal to register shall forfeit award.

Due Date for Quotations

Offerors shall submit their quotations so that NIST receives them not later than 12:00 p.m.

Eastern Time on September 5, 2014. FAX and hard-copy quotations shall not be accepted.

Quotations shall be e-mailed to divya.soni@nist.gov. Offerors’ quotations shall not be http://www.nist.gov/admin/od/contract/agency.htm http://www.sam.gov/ deemed received by the Government until the quotation is entered into the e-mail address inbox set forth above.

Addendum to FAR 52.212-1, Quotation Preparation Instructions

1) Price Quotation: The pricing quotation shall be separate from any other portion of the quotation. The offeror shall propose a firm-fixed-price for CLIN 0001. Price quotations shall remain valid for a period of 90 days from the date quotations are due.

2) Technical Quotation: The technical quotation shall address the following:

Technical Capability: The Offeror shall provide a written, detailed Technical and Management Approach for how it proposes to satisfy the requirements of the SOW. The detailed technical approach shall demonstrate the offeror's understanding and familiarity with the work required.

Past Performance: The offeror shall provide past performance information regarding relevant contracts over the past five (5) years with Federal, state, or local governments, or commercial customers. If the offeror intends to subcontract with another firm(s) for part of this requirement, that firm’s past performance information shall also be provided. If the offeror has no relevant past performance, it may include a statement to that effect in its quotation. The government reserves the right to consider data obtained from sources other than those described by the offeror in its quotation. It is recommended that approximately 3-5 contracts be referenced.

The description of each contract/order described in this section shall not exceed one half page in length. For each contract/order, the offeror shall provide the following information:

1. Contract number;

2. Description and relevance to solicitation requirements including dollar value;

3. Period of Performance – indicate by month and year the state and completion (or “ongoing”) dates for the contract;

4. Reference Contact – If a non-Government contract, identify the name and address of the client with current telephone number and email address of a point of contact of the client responsible for the contract;

5. Contracting Office – If a Government contract (Federal or state), identify the Procuring Contracting Officer (PCO), administrative Contracting Officer (ACO), and Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR), and their names, current telephone numbers and email addresses.

6. Problems Encountered – include information regarding information regarding any problems encountered on the contracts described above and corrective actions taken to resolve those problems.

Acceptance of Terms and Conditions: This is an open-market solicitation for services as defined herein. The Government intends to award a Purchase Order as a result of this solicitation that will include the clauses set forth herein. The quotation should include one of the following statements:

“The terms and conditions in the solicitation are acceptable to be included in the award document without modification, deletion, or addition.”

OR

“The terms and conditions in the solicitation are acceptable to be included in the award document with the exception, deletion, or addition of the following:

Offeror shall list exception(s) and rationale for the exception(s)

Note: This procurement is not being conducted under the GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) program or another Government-Wide Area Contract (GWAC). If an offeror submits a quotation based upon an FSS or GWAC contract, the Government will accept the quoted price.

However, the terms and conditions stated herein will be included in any resultant Purchase Order, not the terms and conditions of the offeror’s FSS or GWAC contract, and the statement required above shall be included in the quotation.

QUOTATION EVALUATION:

Evaluation Factors

Award shall be made to the offeror whose quotation offers the best value to the Government price and other factors considered. The Government will evaluate quotations based on the following evaluation criteria: 1) Technical Capability 2) Past Performance, and 3) Price. All non-price factors, when combined, are more important than price.

Technical Capability: The Government will evaluate the Offeror’s proposed Technical and Management Approach to assess the Offeror’s ability to successfully complete the requirements stated in the SOW. The Government will evaluate the degree to which the proposal defines the offeror's understanding and familiarity with the work required.

Past Performance: The Government will evaluate the Offeror's past performance information and, if appropriate, its proposed subcontractors' past performance to determine its relevance to the current requirement and the extent to which it demonstrates that the offeror has successfully completed relevant contracts in the past five years. In assessing the offeror's past performance information, NIST will evaluate, as appropriate, successful performance of contract requirements, quality and timeliness of delivery of goods and services, cost management, communications between contracting parties, proactive management and customer satisfaction.

Evaluation of this factor will be based on information contained in the technical portion of the quotation and information provided by references. The Government will evaluate past performance information by contacting appropriate references, including NIST references, if applicable.

The Government may also consider other available information in evaluating the Offeror’s past performance. The Government will assign a neutral rating if the offeror has no relevant past performance information.

NOTE -- If an offeror does not have a history of relevant contract experience, or if past performance information is not available, the offeror will receive a neutral past performance rating.

Price: The Government will evaluate price for reasonableness.

Past Performance and Price shall not be evaluated on quotes that are determined technically unacceptable under the Technical Capability Evaluation factor.