A07-Solicitation-W56JSR_18_R_0002_0002_Attachment_0006-Questions_&_Answers.xlsx

Sheet1

We don’t have TS FCL but our Teaming Partner (sub-contractor) has TS FCL. Will this suffice until we get our own TS FCL? The assigned Facility Security Clearance is required at the onset of performance. Offerors must affirm the ability to obtain the required Facility Security Clearance for performance.

Additionally, since the resulting contract is between the Government and the prime contractor, and not subcontractors, the prime contractor must have the required security clearance.

2 Section L-2.2.2 Volume II - Past Performance says: “Offerors shall submit no more than three (3) recent past performance references for work performed under government contracts.”

e. If offeror performed as a subcontractor, prime contractor company name, point of contact name, telephone number, and email address in lieu of or in addition to the contact information required in (b), (c), and (d) above”

Can you also please allow Teaming partner’s (Sub-contractor) Projects as valid Past Performances at least for Two (2) required Past Performances? Subcontractor past performance will not be permitted as part of the Offeror proposal.

As a small business set-aside contract, greater than 50% of the work must be performed by the prime contractor. Also, it is not uncommon for prime contractors to change subcontractors following contract award. For these reasons, the prime contractor must compete on the basis of its own past performance.

3 Section M-2.3.2 says: “To establish a standard on the minimum realistic direct labor rates, the following table will be utilized. Hourly direct labor rates proposed below this level will be considered unrealistic, and will render the Offeror ineligible for award. These minimum realistic direct labor rates apply to rates proposed for all four (4) places of performance.”

Please clarify that we can add the “overhead, benefits, G&A, etc. to these “direct Labor Rates “ when we propose the “rates to you” , the Customer?

k. Description of the specific tasks or activities performed by the offeror itself under the contract, and to which PWS paragraph task under W56JSR-18-R-0002 the past performance would be associated.

Question: Can the Government please confirm the amount of FTE’s to price for the first Task Order? Attachment 0005 shows 37 FTEs, however Section L (page 81) Direct Labor Hours and Section M (page 87) Estimated LOE is 49.5 FTEs.

Per Solicitation Section L-1.1.08: "For informational purposes only, the Level Of Effort (LOE) for the anticipated first task order is in Solicitation Section J "List of Attachments" as Attachment 0005. This is an estimate as of the release date of this solicitation, and does not bind the Government in any future obligation."

Thus, the 37 FTEs is an estimate on the LOE of the first task order, while the 49.5 FTEs detailed is the annual LOE Offerors must propose to.

6 Reference: Attachment 0005

Question: Will the government confirm if the FTE count for the first Task Order is the total FTE count for this requirement, or will additional task orders be released for additional personnel, after Task Order 1?

Per Solicitation Section L-1.1.08: "For informational purposes only, the Level Of Effort (LOE) for the anticipated first task order is in Solicitation Section J "List of Attachments" as Attachment 0005. This is an estimate as of the release date of this solicitation, and does not bind the Government in any future obligation."

Thus, the 37 FTEs is an estimate on the LOE of the first task order, provided for informational purposes only, and not a binding requirement on the Government.

As an Indefinite-Delivery-Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) contract, the Government must order the minimum guaranteed quantity (page 3/87), "The guaranteed minimum quantity for this IDIQ contract is $ 100,000.00", and may issue additional task orders as circumstances require.

7 Reference: Volume III Chapter 2 – Pricing Methodology

Question: Can the Government please confirm if a DCMA Provisional Rate Letter is sufficient to support indirect labor rates if the contractor does not have a Forward Pricing Rate Agreement in place?

The Government may use multiple methods of analyzing costs for realism and reasonability. A DCMA Provisional Rate Letter may provide support for proposed indirect cost rates, and solicitation W56JSR-18-R-0002 does not have a page limitation for Volume III "Cost Price" Chapter 4 "Supporting Documents".

Offerors are encouraged to provide either DCMA Forward Pricing Rates Agreements (FPRAs) or Provisional Rate Letters if they have them.

8 Reference: Section M M-2.3.3 Evaluation and Weighting of Labor Position Locations:

Question: Can the Government clarify if the contractor is to weigh the Labor Categories by location, or is this something the Government plans to do as a part of their evaluation?

Contractors shall propose the direct labor rates per labor category, location, and time period. Offerrors are advised to propose realistic and reasonable rates per labor category/location/time period, as the successful Offeror's proposed rates will become part of the IDIQ contract for setting the estimated price of task orders.

Section M-2.3.3 details a cost/price evaluation method the Government will use to account for the different locations and estimated likelihood by which labor positions will be need per each location. This procedure will be performed by Government Cost/Price Evaluators, and not contractors.

9 Reference: PWS Appendix D, Information Assurance

Question: Will the government please identify which positions are deemed IA/IT functions? Will the Government provide the IA classification (IAT/IAM/IA SAE etc. I, II, or III) for any positions that are deemed IA/IT functions along with the approved certifications that are permitted, to meet Computing Environment requirements?

Per DoD 8570.01-M, December 19, 2005 C2.2.1. This Manual identifies categories and specialties within the IA workforce. Categories are IA Technical (IAT) and IA Management (IAM). In the case of this contract, End User access is all that is required. There is no software code development or changes to released software on this contract, therefore there is no requirement for elevated/privileged IA/IT certifications 10 Reference: Section L, L-10 Proposal Adequacy Checklist (DFARS 252.215-7009)

Question: As certified cost or pricing data is not required, will the government remove the requirement for the offeror to complete the Proposal Adequacy Checklist?

Yes.

Per FAR 15.403-1(b)(1) and current expectations of adequate competition, it is anticipated that Certified Cost or Pricing Data will not be required. DFARS provision 252.215-7009 will be removed from solicitation W56JSR-18-R-0002.

11 L.2.2.3.2. Offerors and any subcontractor(s) are responsible for ensuring compliance with the Service Contract Act (SCA) for all applicable labor categories. If an offeror believes that labor categories are subject to the SCA, it must identify such labor categories as SCA Labor within the summary.xls/xlsx and prmeth.doc/docx/xls/xlsx/pdf proposal file(s). Offerors must also disclose the state and county in which the proposed SCA labor categories will be performing the effort, the Wage Determination Schedule used for the proposed SCA labor rates, and the Occupation Code and Title for each proposed SCA labor category. The proposal must specifically identify proposed compensated and uncompensated overtime hours in accordance with FAR 52.237-10.

Question 1. Can the Government provide a list of current SCA categories?

Question 2. If Task Orders may be ordered in lots of labor hours, per labor category, how much advance notice will the Awarded Offeror be given to fill those positions?

Question 3. If Task Orders may be ordered in lots of labor hours, per labor category, then will the Government confirm that it is requesting surge support? If so, will the resources be expected to complete the remainder of the contract year they are hired in or is it temporary work? Language has been added to Solicitation page 3 to clarify that the deadlines for staffing newly ordered labor positions is the same as detailed at PWS Section 3.1.6.

Lots of labor hours will be ordered in units of 40 hours, the 40 hours being a full time employee for one week. The quantity of labor positions relative to the quantity of labor hours ordered will be detailed per each task order.

If the Government requires additional support services beyond those detailed in present task orders, the Government will issue a new task order or modify a current task order to obtain the required additional labor hours.

13 Basis for Award M1.1 states “In the case of an offeror without a record of recent 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 will not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance. Therefore, the Offeror shall be determined to have a neutral confidence rating for the past performance factor, which will be treated as equal to Acceptable Confidence.”

Question 4. How will that affect the overall technical acceptability rating based on the combined Technical and Past Performance? Is ‘Acceptable Confidence’ included in the combined rating or will the past performance not be evaluated? It almost appears better not to submit ‘marginal in scope’ past performance and be rated “Acceptable Confidence” than to submit something that could result in low confidence.

There is no combined rating encompassing both the Technical and Past Performance proposal volumes; the two proposal volumes will be separately evaluated.

The rating for "Confidence Assessment" applies to the Past Performance volume, and not the Technical volume.

Offerors with negative or "marginal in scope" past performance may choose not to detail it in the Past Performance proposal. However, this may result in non-compliance with solicitation instructions at L-2.2.2 "Offerors shall submit copies of any and all of the following received on any contract. . .".

Also, per M-2.2 "If an offeror states they have no recent past performance and the Government obtains negative past performance information from a source other than an offerors proposal, the information may be used to determine the performance confidence rating for that offeror." In this case, the negative past performance may be discovered and the offeror has not utilized the opportunity of L-2.2.2 to discuss mitigating circumstances or corrective actions taken.

14 Can the prime use the past performance of subcontractors?

Answer: Subcontractor past performance will not be permitted as part of the Offeror proposal. Offerors are reminded that this solicitation will be on a LPTA basis, so the past performance evaluation cannot be used to "trade-off" for higher cost, and a 'Neutral' rating for no past performance history is still technically acceptable

M-1.1 One (1) contract will be awarded to the offeror whose proposal is evaluated to be the Best Value to the Government through a Trade-Off analysis. Technical acceptability is based upon the Technical and Past Performance evaluation factors, and compliance with the terms and conditions of the solicitation.

Question 5. M-1 BASIS FOR AWARD The government states that this will be a Best Value contract award. Yet it says above in the other section of the RFP that this will be a LPTA. Which is it?

The Government always seeks to make a "Best Value" contract award, whether via Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) or Trade-Off source selection methods.

Draft solicitations released prior to the formal solicitation reflected earlier intentions for a LPTA source selection approach. The cited text "Subcontractor past performance will not be permitted as . . . and a 'Neutral' rating for no past performance history is still technically acceptable" is drawn from draft solicitation documents posted on 03/15/2018. Draft solicitations are provided informally, and are neither binding nor part of any formal solicitation released afterwards.

Subsequent changes to the acquisition strategy resulted in a formal solicitation that will use a Trade-Off source selection method. Formal solicitation W56JSR-18-R-0002 has no mention of "LPTA" or "Lowest Price Technically Acceptable".

15 Positions noted in the PWS

Question 6. Please provide an explanation of why the position requirements seem overly technical for the level required by the PWS.

Draft solicitations released prior to the formal solicitation reflected earlier intentions for a LPTA source selection approach. Subsequent changes to the acquisition strategy resulted in a formal solicitation that will use a Trade-Off source selection method. Formal solicitation W56JSR-18-R-0002 has no mention of "LPTA" or "Lowest Price Technically Acceptable".

17 2. Could the government indicate whether past performance references of subcontractors will be accepted and evaluated for Volume II – Past Performance? Subcontractor past performance will not be permitted as part of the Offeror proposal.

As a small business set-aside contract, greater than 50% of the work must be performed by the prime contractor. Also, it is not uncommon for prime contractors to change subcontractors following contract award. For these reasons, the prime contractor must compete on the basis of its own past performance.