Section M Evaluation Factors for Award.pdf

Section M – Evaluation Factors for Award

(a) The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. The following factors shall be used to evaluate offers:

(b) The Government anticipates awarding one contract as a result of this Request for Proposal (RFP), based upon the results of a complete and thorough Government evaluation of proposals in accordance with this section. The Government, however, reserves the right to not award any contracts in the event that no proposals are considered to be in the best interest of the Government. Contract award will be made to the "responsible" Offeror whose proposal represents the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable proposal to the Government based on the Volumes/Factors set forth herein. (See FAR Subpart 9.104, which describes the standards prospective contractors, must meet to be determined “responsible”.) To receive consideration for award, overall evaluations of not less than "Acceptable" must be achieved for Volume II and Volume III. An evaluation rating of "Unacceptable" at the Subfactor level will cause the entire Proposal Volume/Factor and the entire Proposal to be evaluated as "Unacceptable. NOTE: THE

GOVERNMENT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO AWARD A CONTRACT BASED UPON INITIAL

SUBMISSIONS, WITHOUT EXCHANGES AND/OR DISCUSSIONS. ALSO NOTE THAT FAILURE TO

SUBMIT A TIMELY PROPOSAL IN EXACTLY THE MANNER REQUIRED BY THE SOLICITATION MAY

RESULT IN THE GOVERNMENT REJECTING THE PROPOSAL AS NON-COMPLIANT/UNACCEPTABLE,

AT THE SOLE DISCRETION OF THE CONTRACTING OFFICER.

(c) The following Volumes/Factors shall be used to evaluate offers:

(1) Volume I – Price (Factor 1)

The Government will evaluate total price (including options) in accordance with FAR Subpart 15.305(a)(1) to ensure that prices are fair and reasonable.

Pricing will be evaluated on a comparison of proposed prices from all Offerors received in response to the solicitation.

Since this requirement is being solicited on a Lowest Price Technically Acceptable basis, the potential Offeror with the lowest bid that meets the Technical Capabilities and Past Performance criteria will receive the award.

(2) Volume II – Technical Capability (Factor 2)

Paper-based technical proposal. The Government will evaluate the proposed Inventory Management Software and technical approach to determine the extent to which the proposed solution demonstrates the capability to successfully satisfy the requirements of the attached Statement of Work. The evaluation will consider the functionality, usability, interoperability, security, scalability, implementation approach and the overall technical suitability of the proposed solution.

(3) Volume III – Past Performance (Factor 3)

The Offeror and its major subcontractor's past performance with Government and industry will be evaluated. The Government will evaluate customer satisfaction, responsiveness to customer needs, and past demonstration of providing quality and timely services. Emphasis will be on recent, relevant experience in the past five (5) years. The past performance factor considers each Offeror's demonstrated recent and relevant record of performance in services that meet the contract requirements. One rating is assigned for each Offeror based on relevancy and confidence assessment. Offerors with no relevant performance history will be given a rating of Acceptable.

The Government will focus its inquiries on the Offeror's (and major subcontractors') record of performance as it relates to all solicitation requirements, including cost, schedule, performance and management of subcontractors. A significant achievement, problem, or lack of relevant data in any element of the work can become an important consideration in the evaluation process. Therefore, Offerors will be reminded to include the most recent and relevant efforts (within the past five years) in their proposal. Absent any recent and relevant past performance history or when the performance record is so sparse that no meaningful confidence assessment rating can be reasonably assigned, the Offeror will be assigned an “unknown confidence (Neutral) rating” and its proposal will not be evaluated either favorably or unfavorably on past performance. The Government may use data provided by the Offeror in its proposal and data obtained from other sources, including data in Government files or data obtained through interviews with personnel familiar with the contractor and their current and past performance under Federal, State or Local government or commercial contracts for same or similar services as compared to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Data used in conducting performance risk assessments shall not extend past five years prior to the issue date of the RFP, but may include performance data generated beyond the past five years without regard to the contract award date.

Offerors shall submit all Government and/or commercial contracts for the prime Offeror and each major subcontractor in performance or awarded during the past five years, from the issue date of this RFP, which are relevant to the efforts required by this RFP. The Government may consider a wide array of information from a variety of sources, but is not compelled to rely on all of the information available.

The Government will also use the Performance Risk Assessment Questionnaire's to evaluate the Offeror's Past Performance.

The past performance factor considers each Offeror's demonstrated recent and relevant record of performance in supplying products and services that meet the contract requirements. There are two aspects to the past performance evaluation: relevancy and performance confidence assessment.

(4) EVALUATION PROCESS.

The Price Proposal Volume will be evaluated in accordance with the evaluation criteria established in Volume I. The Technical Evaluation panel will provide a detailed evaluation and assign a combined technical/risk rating for the Technical Volume. The Past Performance Volume will receive only a performance evaluation rating.

The technical panel will rate each Volume (Factor) and Subfactor by consensus for each proposal submitted and will prepare initial and final reports. If consensus is not obtainable, a minority report prepared and signed by the dissenting evaluators shall be presented to the Contracting Officer for consideration.

Offerors are advised that the Government intends to award without discussions but reserves the right to conduct discussions to the extent deemed necessary at the sole discretion of the Contracting Officer, to further investigate any weaknesses, deficiencies, or other subjects identified by the technical panel as germane to the evaluation process. The Government technical evaluation panel will evaluate proposals in accordance with the process and evaluation criteria stated herein and will document the evaluation by providing a narrative discussion of the evaluation of each proposal in terms of the evaluation criteria and proposed strong points (strengths), weak points (weaknesses), and deficiencies. This narrative discussion shall be incorporated into a report, which will be presented to the Contracting Officer to assist in the competitive range determination, if needed. Upon establishment of the competitive range, and to the extent deemed necessary at the sole discretion of the Contracting Officer, written discussion items (DI) will be issued to remaining Offerors, using control numbers, to further investigate any weaknesses, deficiencies, or other subjects identified by the technical panel as germane to the evaluation process. These DIs are considered exchanges/discussions in accordance with FAR Subpart 15.306(d). The Contracting Officer may also issue DIs relating to any matter that requires written revisions to a proposal for which a binding agreement is required/desired. The technical panel will be responsible for briefing the Contracting Officer at all steps of the evaluation process. The Technical panel shall provide its report to the Contracting Officer for a final briefing, if necessary.

(5) RATING METHODS/DEFINITIONS

(a) TECHNICAL FACTOR: One of the following ratings will be assigned:

TECHNICAL RATINGS

Rating Definition

Acceptable Proposal meets requirements of the solicitation.

Unacceptable Proposal does not meet requirements of the solicitation.

(b) QUALITY/PERFORMANCE CONFIDENCE ASSESSMENT: Assess the quality of the Offeror's past performance on those recent efforts that were determined relevant by determining how well the contractor performed on the contracts. Documented results from Performance Risk Assessment Questionnaires, interviews, CPARS, and other sources form the support and basis for this assessment.

Once the Relevancy and Contract Performance of the past performance contracts has been established, the Offeror will be assigned one Performance Confidence Assessment for the Past Performance Volume as described by the table below:

PAST PERFORMANCE RELEVANCY RATINGS

Rating Definition

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

Relevant Present/past performance effort involved much of the magnitude of effort and complexities this solicitation requires.

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

Not Relevant Present/past performance effort did not involve any of the magnitude of effort and complexities this solicitation requires.

PAST PERFORMANCE RATINGS

Rating Description

Acceptable Based on the Offeror's recent/relevant performance record, the Government has a reasonable expectation that the Offeror will successfully perform the required effort, or the Offeror’s performance record is unknown. (See note below.)

Unacceptable Based on the Offeror's recent/relevant performance record, the Government has no reasonable expectation that the Offeror will be able to successfully perform the required effort.

Note: In the case of an Offeror without a record of relevant past performance or for whom information on past performance is not available or so sparse that no meaningful past performance rating can be reasonably assigned, the Offeror may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance (see FAR 15.305 (a) (2) (iv)).

Therefore, the Offeror shall be determined to have unknown (or "neutral") past performance. In the context of acceptability/unacceptability, a neutral rating shall be considered “acceptable”.

(c) PRICE FACTOR: Price Proposals will not be given an adjectival rating, but will be evaluated to determine reasonableness.

(d) Options. The Government will evaluate Price for award purposes in accordance with FAR Subpart 15.404-1 by adding the total price for the base period plus all option periods. The Evaluation of options shall not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s).

(e) A written notice of award or acceptance of an offer, mailed or otherwise furnished to the successful offeror within the time for acceptance specified in the offer, shall result in a binding contract without further action by either party. Before the offer's specified expiration time, the Government may accept an offer (or part of an offer), whether or not there are negotiations after its receipt, unless a written notice of withdrawal is received before award.

The award will be based on the offeror with the lowest priced proposal, meeting the technical and past performance requirements.