Q A_1_08162016.pdf

Question Answer 1 The labor categories/position descriptions in B.3 on pages 4‐6 are pretty generic. However, the Admin II and III positions include requirements that the person filling the position must have either "extensive" or "comprehensive" knowledge of the processes and procedures of the office or organization they will be supporting. How can offerors respond to these requirements if 1) this is a new requirement with no incumbents,

2) we do not know what offices or organizations will be supported, and

3) the government hasn't provided a description of these "processes" or "procedures". Our recommendation is to remove the requirements from the two position descriptions.

1) The "parent" requirements are general in nature because they are all incompassing. A task order will define the specific skill sets required for the position under the order.

2) Only one office/organization is supported by this contract, the enterprise acquisition office for the DOC, or any successor office that performs the same role should the name change.

3) The processes and/or procedures will be defined at te task order level.

Offerors should respond based on the level of expertise and qualifications typically associated with the various labor categories (LCATs) and as described in Section B.3 for consistency and clarity.

2 In paragraph C.4, page 10, the government states that contractor support may be required in either region 1 or 2 or both. When will the government determine the specific on‐site work locations?

Task orders will define the exact location and duration support is required.

3 Do the requirements defined in paragraph C.11 on page 12 apply only to the contractor's work‐site or to both contractor provided and government provided locations? Can you clarify the requirement?

Paragraph C.11 applies to all personnel performing work under this contract.

Because contractor employees will be required to work onsite on Government facilities, they will need to be badged and protect the equipment/facilities both physical and virtual.

4 There is no line item in the pricing file for either of the key personnel – program manager or contract manager. Would you provide a CLIN for the key personnel to include hours required for each year?

The two key personnel for whom should be expected manage the contract and to be contacted by the Government for general maintenance and operation of the contract are part of the business operations of the awardee, not to the direct benefit of the Government. Therefore, the costs of these functions/positions are not billable as direct costs to the Government and must be factored into overhead.

All overheads are captured in the fully burdened rates of the identified LCATs.

Q&A #1

RFP: SS1301‐16‐RP‐0010

Questions Through August 16, 2016

5 Please provide an indication of hours required per year per labor category.

Are all of the positons full time or are some of them part time?

Some positions will be full time, others part time, depending on the LCAT and the workload demand. Some LCATs will require multiple people while others one or none. The purpose of the "requirements" contract is to provide the ability to scale as required. This will be accomplished through the issuance of task orders.

6 Section B, page 6, paragraph 11, Commodity Orders, states, “Ordering activities for supplies and services are designed to be accomplished quickly and efficiently. Orders shall be placed against existing contracts and agreements within the EAO. The price for completion of twenty (20) commodity ordering packages.” The final phrase appears to be seeking a single price from the offeror for completion of twenty (20) undefined commodity ordering packages. This also appears to align with the J.1 Labor Rates spreadsheet, which requests this information for Years 1‐5 of the contract for Regions 1 and 2. Please define the commodity ordering packages to make it possible for the offeror to assign a price for these packages.

Commodity ordering packages are for items that are strategically sourced and currently include things like software licences and renewals, computers, network equipment, etc.

These are ordering activities performed by the Ordering Specialists and are designed to be pay for performance rather than for level of effort.

7 Section B, page 6, paragraph 12, Service Orders, states, “Ordering activities for supplies and services are designed to be accomplished quickly and efficiently. Orders shall be placed against existing contracts and agreements within the EAO. The price for completion of ten (10) service ordering packages.” The final phrase appears to be seeking a single price from the offeror for completion of ten (10) undefined service ordering packages. This also appears to align with the J.1 Labor Rates spreadsheet, which requests this information for Years 1‐5 of the contract for Regions 1 and 2. Please define the service ordering packages to make it possible for the offeror to assign a price for these packages.

Same as question 6 except these are for services. Due to the necessity of services to receive a proposal in some form and a slightly longer evalution timeline, the lot of service orders differs from that of commodities. Services currently include that for staff augmentation, cost estimating, requirements development support, contract closeout, etc.

8 Section L, p. 66, L.2, 1352.209‐70 Potential Organizational Conflict of Interest (APR 2010), paragraph (2) – This section states, “As a part of the proposal, the offeror shall provide the Contracting Officer with complete information regarding previous or ongoing work that is in any way associated with the contemplated acquisition.” If the offeror has not previous or ongoing work that is in any way associated with the contemplated acquisition, is the offeror correct in assuming that no response to this requirement is necessary?

If no response to this clause is included in the cost/price and business proposal (Vol III), it will be deemed that the offeror does not have a potential conflict based on previous or current work.

9 Section L, p. 66, L.2, 1352.209‐70 Potential Organizational Conflict of Interest (APR 2010), paragraph (2) – This section states, “As a part of the proposal, the offeror shall provide the Contracting Officer with complete information regarding previous or ongoing work that is in any way associated with the contemplated acquisition.” Where should the offeror provide this information within the proposal?

Provide any information related to this clause in the cost/price and business proposal (Vol III) under the "Representations and Certifications" section identified in Section L page 73.

10 Section L, p. 69, L.3, Proposal Preparation, 1352.215‐70, Proposal Preparation (FEB 2016), paragraph A. General Instructions, Page Limitation

– This section states, “Pages shall be numbered sequentially from “1” through the total number of pages in the volume. The proposal shall not exceed the page limits stated for each volume.” Since Volume I includes two non‐page‐limited scenario responses that are outside the 25‐page limit of Volume I and are required to be submitted as Appendices #1 and #2, is it acceptable to number the appendices separately from the overall page count (e.g., A1‐1 through A1‐n for Appendix #1, and A2‐1 through A2‐ n for Appendix #2)?

Yes. Responses to the scenarios (Appendencies) may be numbered in any manner desired, "A‐1, A‐2, B‐1, B‐2, 1‐1, 1‐2, 2‐1, 2‐2" etc. If the Volume is numbered sequentially, any pages past 25 that are not part of the scenario responses will be removed from consideration.

11 Neither Section L nor Section M designate requirements for the key personnel (Program Manager and Contracts Manager), and these categories are not described in the labor category descriptions include in Section B. Please provide requirements for the Program Manager and Contracts Manager.

See #4 above regarding direct and indirect costs. The PM and CM need to have requisite skills to manage an acquisition staff and related functions, coordinate efforts, be responsive, plan and solve problems should they arise. They are the Contractor's primary POC's for the Government during performance. They are part of the offeror's technical approach to satisfying the requirement. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the offeror to define the skill sets best to fulfill these roles.

12 Please confirm this is going to be a single award contract? Confirmed. A "requirements" contract can only be awarded to a single vendor.

13 Section C.3.1 provides that the contractor shall provide staff support to the assigned work location within 10 days of TO issuance. Given that most employers require employees at last 2‐weeks notice of termination, shouldn't this be a longer period?

While one of the benefits of a requirements contract is the direct issuance of task orders, without the need for proposals in many cases, the premise is that a tas order proposal request (TOPR) will be issued giving the Contractor time to respond to the TOPR before a task order is issued. Therefore the 10 days will provide sufficient time to identify potential candidates and for them to provide 2 weeks notice. However, your point is understood and the 10 days will be at least 21 days for directed orders (those without TOPRS).

14 Section F.4, PRS #4, Performance Threshold: How does a contractor control the filing of unsubstantiated complaints, so as to meet this standard? Perhaps the substantiated complaint standard could be adequate?

Agree, unsubstantiated constraints have been removed.

15 Section I, 52.244‐2(d) & 0) have been filled‐in with "none". Is this informing us that consent will not be required, as part of our proposal review or subsequent to award, or that consent will not be provided?

Certain areas of this clause appear to be available for fill‐in at time of award.

Consent to subcontract is not required by the Contracting Officer.

16 Please confirm that the Service Contract Act does not apply to this procurement/contract?

These labor categories do not qualify as “service employees” in accordance with 29 CFR 541. The SCA is not applicable to this solicitation

17 Do the EIT/Section 508 standards apply for the submission of our proposal for the base contract or are they intended to apply at the task order level? If the latter, given that the contractor will provide acquisition labor support and utilize government equipment, systems, software internet, etc, what products are expected that could subject the contractor to the 508 standards?

Section L.3.A. provides acceptable formats for proposal submission. It is not anticipated through normal performance of this contract that work will be conducted requiring 508 compliance. However, should part of the analytical functions, especially around strategic sourcing, be performed using innovative tools supplied by the Contractor, they may have a 508 compliance component.

18 Regarding Scenario #1 of the Technical Volume instructions.

a. We understand the scenario is to be used for evaluation purposes, however, given the Commercial Item provisions of the RFP (Evaluation and Terms and Conditions), and that the scenario specifies a system not available in the commercial market, wouldn't this be an out‐of‐scope action?

b. The Scenario provides that the customer's request is proper and complete and that our start point is receiving the customer's acquisition package (proper and complete) and that our end point is the solicitation issuance. There is some confusion, however created by the statement that "the complete acquisition package includes all required documents to build and issue the solicitation." Are we to assume in our response to the scenario that the customer's acquisition (requisition) package is indeed complete (as stated and delineated in the scenario) and that our job is to finish the process and package up to the point of issuance?

a. Not unless you are being asked to build the non‐commercial system. The services being requested are commercially available, both in the private and public sectors. The government furnished tool has no relevance to the performance of the requirement.

b. The customer has submitted their acquisition package consisting of a purchase request (requisition), IGCE, SOW, 508 and security checklist as required to perform the acquisition function. You, as a contract specialist working in this office must now begin work to source the requirement, meeting all FAR and DOC process, procedural and documentation steps through the issuance of the solicitation. The end result will be a complete pre‐award contract file, minus the receipt of proposals, evaluations and source selection phases leading to contract award.

19 Regarding the Cost/Price Volume instructions and evaluation

a. Attachment J.1, Commodity Order and Service Order pricing. We can find no discussion of these pricing line items in 8.3 Schedule of Rates, Section L Volume Ill Cost/Price Instructions, or in Section M Price Evaluation. Please explain.

b. Region 2 rates are to be weighted against Region 1 at a ratio of 1.6 to 1.

Is this telling us that the Region 2 rates are 60% more important for evaluation purposes than Region 1 or is it saying that the government will add 60% to each of the Region 2 rates then, after aggregating them with Region 1, reevaluate the offeror's pricing?

a. See answers 6 & 7 above.

B. All LCAT prices in regions 1 & 2 will be evaluated using the estimated quantities of labor hours expected for each LCAT respectively over the 5 years of performance. (Estimated hours will not be released) The total of all LCAT pricing for region 2 will then be weighted by 1.6. The weighted region 2 will then be added to the total of region 1 LCATs without additional weight (or a factor of 1) resulting in a single evaluated price per offeror. What can be surmized is that while both regions are important and add to the total evaluated price, there is a belief that the preponderance of the work over the life of the contract may be conducted in region 2, making those prices of more significance in the determination of best value.

20 The RFP states that on‐site support is required on the part of the Contractor and that requirements for this support will be provided in the issued task orders. Are the Key Personnel (the Program Manager and Contracts Manager) also required to be on‐site?

No.

21 The RFP states that all offers are to be mailed through a commercial/Government carrier. Is delivery via Fedex and UPS acceptable in addition to USPS Express?

Yes, Fedex and UPS are good choices for commercial carrier deliveries.

22 In response to the Scenario's addressed under Section L & M within Volume I ‐ Technical; is the Dept of Commerce looking for a complete list of documents with applicable sections or sample templates?

See #18b above and Section L.3.

23 There are 12 different labor categories listed; will a separate SOW be provided in support of Task Order 01 addressing the required labor categories, number of full‐time equivalents (FTE's) and place of performance?

Yes, all task orders will contain a specific SOW/PWS for that work element.

24 This is to be a Time and Materials contract; please advise what type of materials the contractor is anticipated to provide in support of this requirement, per Volume 1 ‐ Technical within paragraph (c) the contractor is address the labor and materials.

Some task orders may be T&M, some FFP and yet others a hybrid of the two depending on the requirement. Materials in this sense generally refer to other direct costs that may be required through performance. Travel is a good example.

In all cases, they will be identified in task orders.

25 In Section L.3. Proposal Preparation, Section A, General Instructions, the Government states, “Proposals shall be submitted prior to the closing date and time to the attention of the Contracting Officer at the address identified on the cover page of this Solicitation.” It also states, “All offers shall be mailed through a commercial/Government carrier. “ Based on our review with commercial carriers, they are not able to deliver to a specific point of contact at this location and cannot confirm delivery meets the due date and time. Will the government allow vendors to hand deliver proposals on the due date?

Hand deliveries will not be accepted. Commercial/Government carriers will deliver to the DOC mailroom. The time/date stamp of delivery to the mail room will be the determining factor. Both Fedex and UPS make multiple deliveries to DOC daily. It is recommended that if the plan is to have delivered on the day proposals are due, be sure to require the earliest delivery. Otherwise, it may be prudent to have delivery made the working day prior to the date due.

26 In Section L.3., Proposal Preparation, Section A, Page Limitation. Are resumes and the cover letter excluded from the page count, as well?

Resumes count toward page limit. The cover letter is required in Volume III which does not have a page limit.

27 In Section L.3., Proposal Preparation, Section A, General Instructions, The government states, Printing shall be easily readable (12‐pitch type or 10 point proportional spacing). Will the government accept graphics and tables in 10 point font as an acceptable minimum?

Yes

28 If vendors Reps and Certs are current in SAM, will the government accept a company name, address, DUNS number, and Cage Code so this information can be validated?

Yes and the rest of the information required on the cover page (Vol III)

29 Attachment J.1 – Labor Rates and Pricing includes a FFP section for Commodity and Service Orders. Will the government please further describe what is required here as there is no mention of these orders in Section L of the RFP instructions? Is the offeror to assume that the pricing of the Commodity and Service Orders is to incentivize its staff?

See 6, 7 and 19 above. No, this is not an incentive for staff. This is alternative price for performance methodology that may be employed rather than staff augmentation for order processing. The incentive is that the Contractor has the ability to increase revenue through better performance of order processing.

30 Is this a new requirement for the Government? If not what is/are the former contract #’s that this work was completed under?

Please read FBO announcement for this information.

31 The attachment J.1 Labor Rates spreadsheet lists the labor categories and allows a space for rates for each one by Region. However, there are no allocation of # of hours for each labor category provided, so no way for offerors to proposal a total price in the spreadsheet. Will the Government provide an updated spreadsheet that includes a place # of hours for each labor category, by region? If not, can offerors modify the spreadsheet to allow estimated hours and total price to be calculated?

Please read Section M.2(c ) and #19 above.

32 Regarding Section C3.1‐3.6 of the RFP, the Government does not give the number of deliverables or products that each labor category is responsible for providing in the scope of this contract. Without this information, it is difficult to provide an accurate basis of estimate. Will the Government provide the number of deliverables per month for each labor category?

Deliverables required by contract are listed in C.15. LCATs will perform a function.

The performance of that function respective to their skill descriptions are the deliverable.

33 Section M.2(c)Price on page 78 states that “Proposed prices identified in Section B of the solicitation will be evaluated by multiplying the price per respective year by the Government’s estimated labor quantities required in each corresponding respective year‐‐ years one (1) through five (5). The totals for each labor category for the five (5) years will then be added together to reach a single aggregated price per region. The Region 2 aggregated price will then be heavier weighted, 1.6 to 1 to the Region 1 aggregated price. Regions 1& 2 prices will then be combined for a single evaluated price per offer. Estimated labor quantities will not be disclosed.”

This solicitation does not include “B Tables” for pricing by CLIN. Will the Government clarify where in Section B that we should identify proposed prices for this evaluation?

Section B refers to attachment J.1. J.1 replicates Section B in a format to input prices per LCAT, per year, per region. That's all you have to do, provide an hourly price for each as requested. Be sure to fill out and submit in Excel format electronically so you can avoid being non‐responsive.

Important to note, these are not CLINs. Section B defines the framework of this requirements contract. CLINs will be identified in orders under the contract.

34 Section L, page 70 of the RFP defines the requirements for Scenario #1.

The definition says "Receipt of proposals and all the activities thereafter are not part of this scenario "Question ‐ Is a mock Request for Proposal for the high performance computer system a requirement of the scenario?

That is part of the scenario requirement: RFP = solicitation.

35 Section L, page 70 of the RFP defines the requirements for Scenario #1.

The definition says the acquisition if for "a high performance computer system”. Question ‐ Is the acquisition for a single computing device or is it for multiple devices linked together to form a system i.e. is the buy for a single super computer, fitting into an existing computer center and network or is the buy for a system of facilities, telecommunications, computing device, work stations, inclusive of installation, and maintenance?

The question is largely irrelevant to the requirement. It is a major system acquisition for a high performance computer system at a value of $122m. It is not for construction, A&E or R&D. The requirement does not require a technical dissertation on high performance computing, it requires the process and documentation steps of acquiring such an item.