Section L and M_Aircraft Maintenance Stand.pdf

Section L & M

SECTION L

1. GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

1.1 This section provides general instructions for preparing offers as well as specific instructions on the format and content of the offer. Offerors are required to meet all solicitation requirements, including terms and conditions, representations and certifications, and technical requirements in addition to those identified as evaluation factors. Taking exception to any provision in the solicitation without addressing the exception with the Contracting office before the offer due date specified within the solicitation will render the offer ineligible for award.

1.2 The anticipated Firm-Fixed-Price (FFP) contract award under this solicitation will be a total small business set-aside made in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Products and Commercial Services, and FAR 13.5 Simplified Acquisition Procedures for Certain Commercial Products and Commercial Services following the policies and procedures for solicitation, evaluation, and award.

1.3 Only offers received from eligible small businesses under NAICS code 336413 will be considered for award.

1.4 The evaluation of offers will be best on a best value basis in accordance with FAR 13.106-1 using a comparative evaluation of offers in accordance with FAR 13.106-2.

1.5 The Government intends to award this contract without further exchanges with offerors.

Notwithstanding this intent, the Government reserves the right to conduct exchanges with Offerors and request revised offers.

1.6 Vendors are hereby instructed that, regardless of any language that may be used in this solicitation, this procurement is being conducted under FAR 13.5 Simplified Acquisition Procedures.

Offerors are advised that in accordance with FAR 13.106-2, the Government, at its discretion, may avail itself to one or more of the evaluations procedures in FAR Part 14 or 15.

1.7 An Offeror’s offer is presumed to represent the Offeror’s best efforts to comply with the solicitation requirements. Clarity and completeness of the offer are of the utmost importance. The offer must be written in a practical, clear, and concise manner. It must use quantitative terms whenever possible and must avoid qualitative adjectives to the maximum extent possible. Offerors must state how all requirements will be met. Statements such as "the Offeror understands" and "the Offeror shall/can comply", along with responses that paraphrase the RFP, are inadequate. The use of phrases such as "standard practices" (with a specific government reference or industry reference) does not indicate that an Offeror understands the requirement.

1.8 The offer shall be complete as submitted and not include references to data or information previously submitted. Data previously submitted to the Navy, if any, will not be incorporated “by reference” into the offer and will not be considered in the evaluation of the offer.

1.9 At the Government’s discretion, the Contractor’s offer may be incorporated into the final contract, either in whole or in part.

1.10 The Offeror’s offer shall remain valid for at least 90 calendar days after the offer due date.

1.11 Questions regarding any aspect of this procurement must be submitted in writing via email only.

The subject line of all email correspondence should state: RFQ N00244-25-R-0025 QUESTIONS in the subject line.

1.12 Other methods of submitting questions are not authorized and may not be acknowledged or addressed. Both questions and answers will be posted to the Government Point of Entry for all parties to view. The Government will make every attempt to answer all questions in a timely manner. However, questions submitted within seven (7) business days of the posted closing date may not allow for ample time to respond, and Offerors cannot be guaranteed a response will be issued. All questions must be submitted by date referenced on solicitation.

2. OFFER FORMAT AND CONTENT

2.1 Information provided shall be specific to each section

2.2 The offeror’s offer shall consist of four (4) sections:

Section I – Offer, FAR 52.212-3, and Offeror Representations and Certifications specified herein.

Section II – Technical

Section III – Past Performance

Section IV – Price

Section Name Page Limit Section I – Offer and FAR 52.212-3 Unlimited Section II –Technical (5) pages Section III – Past Performance (3) pages Section IV – Price (1) page

* Section II shall not contain any price or cost information

** Page limits do not include cover pages or table of contents. However, these pages shall not include any material information that needs to be evaluated.

Note: To ensure fairness to all offerors, the above page limitations must be strictly enforced by the Government’s evaluation process. Material over and above the page limitation will not be reviewed and/or evaluated by the Government.

2.3 Each Section should be clearly delineated.

2.4 The Government prefers one-inch margins on all sides and single-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font with normal spacing, and pages of each section numbered consecutively. Digital copies shall be provided in Microsoft Word, PDF, and Excel.

2.5 Electronic copies shall be provided via e-mail no later than the stated due date and time and shall contain all of the specified sections to be considered for award. Documents shall be submitted in Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, or Microsoft Excel format.

3. SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS

3.1 SECTION I: OFFER

3.1.1 Complete and submit the following documents, constituting Section I:

(a) Standard Form 1449, “Solicitation, Offer and Award” with blocks 17a, 30a, 30b, and 30c completed with original signatures and completed CLIN pricing

(b) Completed Representations and Certifications of solicitation provisions or certification of completion within the offerors System of Award Management (SAM) profile.

(c) Acknowledgement of any/all RFP amendments, by signature and title on each applicable Standard Form 30

3.2 SECTION II: TECHNICAL

NOTE: There shall be no cost or pricing information included in Section II.

3.2.1 The technical offer shall be written so that the government can make a thorough evaluation and arrive at a sound determination as to whether the offer has the capability to provide an aircraft maintenance stand meeting the listed requirements and will provide a representative to provide initial set-up and training.

3.2.2 The Offeror shall demonstrate that they can provide a full-wrap F/A-18 Phase Aircraft Maintenance Stand meeting the minimum requirements in the statement of work.

3.3 SECTION III – PAST PERFORMANCE

3.3.1 The past performance evaluation factor assesses the degree of confidence the Government has in an Offeror’s ability to supply products and services that meet users’ needs, based on a demonstrated record of performance.

3.3.2 Offerors should provide relevant past performance information (with contract numbers) for similar or related contracts completed during the last three years from the date of proposal submission for up to three (3) past performance references Each Offeror has the opportunity to provide in its offer any information regarding its past performance of contracts similar to the Government's requirement that it would like the Government to consider. The Offeror may include Federal, State and Local Government and private sector contracts.

3.3.3 For any contracts that did not/do not meet original schedule or technical requirements, provide a brief explanation of the reason(s) for the shortcomings and any corrective action(s) taken to avoid recurrence.

3.3.7 To obtain information the Government is free to contact references other than those provided by the Offeror to evaluate past performance of Offerors.

3.3.8 If the offeror possesses no relevant past performance, it must affirmatively state this fact in the Section III submittal.

3.4 SECTION IV – PRICE

3.4.1 The price offer shall cover all aspects of the proposed effort including shipping and travel.

3.4.2 Offerors are reminded that firm-fixed-price contracts are not subject to any adjustment on the basis of the contractor’s cost experience in performing the contract pursuant to FAR 16.202-1.

3.4.4 The Government reserves the right to ask offerors for additional pricing information if needed to determine price reasonableness.

SECTION M

1.0 EVALUATION CRITERIA

1.1 This procurement will be conducted in accordance with FAR 13.5 using a best value evaluation using a comparative evaluation of offers. The award resulting from this solicitation will be a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) commercial contract solicited through the open market via www.sam.gov. Award will be set-aside for small business.

1.2 Award will be made to the responsible offeror whose offer, conforming to the solicitation requirements, is determined to be the most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. The acquisition will utilize a comparative evaluation in accordance with FAR 13.106-2 to make a best value award decision.

1.3 An initial competitive pool of contractors to be evaluated will be established by evaluating the three (3) lowest priced offers. The government may, at its sole discretion, expand the competitive pool by any number of additional offerors at any stage of the procurement process as many times as it sees fit. If the competitive pool is to be expanded by less than the total number of responsible offerors, inclusion will be based on lowest price. Therefore, each initial offer should contain the offeror’s best terms from a price and technical standpoint.

1.4 Award will be made to the responsible offeror, in accordance with FAR Part 9.1, whose offer conforms to the solicitation requirements and is determined to be the Best Value Offeror after performing a comparative evaluation, where price and other factors are considered.

1.5 To make a determination of Best Value, the Government shall first perform a side-by-side comparative analysis (comparing contractor responses to one another) of the submission of each Offeror in the competitive pool. Then, the Government will compare the submission of each Offeror in the competitive pool considering price and perform Tradeoffs (if any), to determine the overall Best offeror.

The non-price factors are approximately equal in importance to each other and when combined, are equal in importance to Price. The Government reserves the right to consider an offer other than the lowest price that provides additional benefit(s).

1.6 The Government intends to award this contract based on initial offers. Therefore, the Offeror's initial offer should contain the Offeror's best terms from a cost or price and technical standpoint.

However, the Government reserves the right to have exchanges and request revised offers. The Government may limit the number of offerors it engages with exchanges for purposes of efficiency at its discretion.

2.0 EVALUATION FACTORS

2.1 The Government will evaluate offers based on the following factors:

Factor I – Technical

Factor II – Past Performance

Factor III - Price

2.2 Factor I (Technical) and Factor II (Past Performance Confidence) are of equal importance. The non-cost factors [Factor I (Technical), Factor II (Past Performance Confidence), when combined, are equal to Factor III (Price).

3.0 FACTOR I – TECHNICAL

3.1 The Government will evaluate each offeror against each of the other offerors in the competitive pool with respect to their compliance with the solicitation requirements. Specifically, the Government will evaluate the:

3.1.1 Technical Approach. The Government will evaluate the Offeror’s offer to determine the Offeror’s ability to provide a maintenance stand meeting the requirements in the statement of work.

3.2 The Government will not use any form of scoring schema nor use any adjectival grading in its evaluation. It will base its overall determination of suitability on the quality and completeness of responses compared to the other offerors, resulting in an offeror considered technically Best Suited, an offeror considered second Best Suited, and so on for all Offerors in the competitive pool. In the instance of technical parity between offerors in the competitive pool, more than one offeror may be considered Best Suited, second Best Suited, and so on.

4.0 FACTOR II – PAST PERFORMANCE

4.1 The assessment of the Offeror’s past performance will be used by the Government as a means to evaluate the relative capability of the Offeror and other competitors to successfully meet the requirements of the SOW and as a measure of risk for contract award. The government’s assessment of risk is not intended to be the product of a mechanical or mathematical analysis of an offeror’s performance on list of contracts, but rather the product of subjective judgment of the government after it considers all available relevant and recent information.

4.2 Each past performance reference will be evaluated to determine whether the work performed by the Offeror is recent and relevant to the instant requirement. Relevant past performance is performance under contracts accomplished within the past three (3) years from the date of proposal submission that is of the same or similar scope, complexity, and magnitude to that which is described in the solicitation.

Common aspects of relevancy include, but are not limited to, the following: similarity of product/service/ support, complexity, dollar value, contract type, use of personnel (for services), and extent of subcontracting.

4.3 The Government will assign one relevancy rating for each past performance effort submitted using the four levels of relevancy as shown in “Past Performance Relevancy Rating” Table below. Past performance of greater relevancy will typically be a stronger predictor of future success and have more influence on the past performance confidence assessment than past performance of lesser relevance. Past performance reference that that has no relevance to the instant requirement will not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably and will not be considered in the overall assessment of Past Performance Confidence.

4.4 Table M-1 “PAST PERFORMANCE RELEVANCY RATING”

Rating Definition

Very Relevant Present/past performance effort involved essentially the same scope and magnitude of effort and complexities this solicitation requires.

Relevant Present/past performance effort involved similar scope and magnitude of effort and complexities this solicitation requires.

Somewhat Relevant

Present/past performance effort involved some of the scope and magnitude of effort and complexities this solicitation requires.

Not Relevant

Present/past performance effort involved little or none of the scope and magnitude of effort and complexities this solicitation requires.

4.5 Each past performance reference under each offeror’s Past Performance submission that is found to have at least some relevance to the instant requirement will be evaluated to determine the quality of the offeror’s performance under that reference. The Government will focus its inquiry of the Offerors record of performance as it relates to timeliness, quality, cost control, and customer satisfaction.

4.6 Quality of the relevant past performance will form the basis for the Offeror’s overall rating for Past Performance.

4.7 In the case of an offeror without a record of relevant past performance, or for whom information on past performance is not available, the government will evaluate the offeror neither favorably nor unfavorably on past performance. Such offerors will receive a rating of “Neutral Confidence.” A "Substantial Confidence" or "Satisfactory Confidence" past performance rating is worth more than a "Neutral Confidence" past performance rating.

Past performance will be rated using the ratings defined below:

TABLE M-2 “PAST PERFORMANCE CONFIDENCE”

Overall Rating Definition Substantial Confidence Based on the offeror’s recent/relevant performance record, the Government has a high expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

Satisfactory Confidence Based on the offeror’s recent/relevant performance record, the Government has a reasonable expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

Neutral Confidence No recent/relevant performance record is available, or the offeror’s performance record is so sparse that no meaningful confidence assessment rating can be reasonably assigned.

The offeror may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on the factor of past performance.

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

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

5.0 FACTOR III – PRICE

5.1 Offerors are reminded that a finding of “No Confidence” in Factor II will result in the entire offer being determined unacceptable, and therefore will not be further evaluated under Factor III – Price.

5.2 All offers will be ranked by the total evaluated price. Total Evaluated Price will be calculated by totaling the CLIN prices.

5.3 Price will be evaluated to determine that the proposed price is fair and reasonable in accordance with FAR 13.106-3. Price reasonableness will be determined using one or more techniques identified in FAR 13.106-3(a) such as comparison of competitive offers.

5.4 While the Government will not evaluate and/or determine a “realistic cost”, the Government will review the pricing structure and ELIN prices to determine if the offeror has submitted a materially unbalanced pricing. Unbalanced pricing exists when, despite an acceptable total evaluated price, the price of one or more contract line items or subline item(s) appear to be significantly overstated or understated as indicated by the application of price analysis techniques.

5.4 Price will be evaluated by totaling the prices for all line items for which the Government has requested the offeror provide a price.

6.0 DEFINITIONS

Table Definitions Recency As it pertains to past performance information, is a measure of the time that has elapsed since the past performance reference occurred. Recency is expressed as a period of time during which past performance references are relevant.

Relevancy As it pertains to past performance information, is a measure of the extent of similarity between the service/support effort, complexity, dollar value, contract type, and subcontract/teaming or other comparable attributes of past performance examples and the solicitation requirements; and a measure of the likelihood that the past performance is an indicator of future performance.

Risk As it pertains to source selection, is the potential for unsuccessful contract performance. The consideration of risk assesses the degree to which an offeror’s proposed approach to achieving the technical factor or subfactor may involve risk of disruption of schedule, increased cost or degradation of performance, the need for increased government oversight, and the likelihood of unsuccessful contract performance.

RESPONSIBILITY DETERMINATION

A Responsibility Determination will be conducted in accordance with FAR 9.104 utilizing any information available to the Government (FAPIIS, CPARS PPIRS, SAM, etc.). If an offeror is determined non-responsible, award will not be made to that contractor.