WxOE Questions and Answers - 27 July 2023.pdf

Question/C omment

Page and Section Reference Questions Answers

1 The NAICS codes was 511210 and now has changed to 513210. Can the government discuss why the NAICS code was changed and why the government is now soliciting under

“Software publishers”.

NAICS code 511210 was listed as "Software Publishers" under the 2017 NAICS. 511210 has been removed and replaced with 513210 under the 2022 NAICS.

Can the government provide guidance with regards to the initial CLINS expected to be delivered in Year 1? We are trying to get a sense of how long after award until the first tests will begin.

The government expects the execution of CLIN 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, and 16 at the minimum for the first year. The Vendor shall have a period of no longer than seventy (70) days before the first Technical Test, during which the Vendor can modify and/or tailor its commercial software as necessary.

Regarding Product Demonstration - Will ArcGIS be available in the demonstration environment and if not, will the Contractor be able to bring a demonstration license?

ArcGIS is part of the CPCE/Sitaware application and will be available during integration and test. The vendor will provide their own map software included in their application.

Regarding Product Demonstration - Will there be any services other than Contractor provided software in the pre-award demonstration environment?

Yes. An instance of CPCE/Sitaware will be available. Access to a sharepoint files with the weather demonstration dataset and PM support personnel will be available during the integration and test to support the vendors.

5 Regarding Product Demonstration - Will the host VM (e.g. CentOS 7.x) be running in FIPS security mode? and if so, could this be disabled to allow for faster demonstration preparation FIPS may be disabled for demonstration purposes.

Comment: If more details on the product demonstration could be provided that would be helpful (section 3.2.1)

The general outline is a 2-day event; Day 1 will be vendor setup and test assisted by PM personnel as needed and Day 2 will be the performance test with weather data provided on a timed basis throughout the event. A 2-week open test and integration period for all vendors will be made available prior to the actual demo evaluation. More details will be provided with the final RFP and as we move closer to the evaluation dates.

7 Draft RFP Section C.3.c.iv.1) xii, page 12.

The Offeror must provide the current Draft SOW with each reference.

Please confirm we need to provide Final SOW not the Draft version with our submission. The Vendor/Contractor does not "provide" a SOW, they provide a response in conformance to the SOW that the government will provide with the formal RFP. I think that we need the vendor to confirm that they comply with all of the requirements in the

SOW.

8 Draft RFP. second sentence in the Executive Summary paragraph A.9, page 2

A separate tool, all exchanges with Offerors will occur with the Procuring Contracting

Officer and Contract Specialist.”

Please clarify this sentence. Can remove "a separate tool"

9 Draft RFP, Table 7, page 5. Please verify the number for Table 7. Should not this be Table 1? Change to Table 1 10 Draft RFP Volume 1 - Executive

Summary, paragraph 4, page 8.

“the Prime Offeror shall have an approved Secret facility clearance…in effect at time of award” and “if the Prime

Offeror does not have an approved Secret facility clearance at time of proposal, Offerors shall submit a plan with timeline to achieve those requirements within one hundred eighty (180) days from time of initial award

Please resolve this inconsistency. The Vendor shall support and participate in Testing in Secret environment, Secret authorization process, and cybersecurity testing. The absence of access to a Secret facility will prohibit Vendors to participate in the above mentioned activities.

11 Draft RFP Volume III -

Price Factor, page 10.

paragraph 3, page 1.

paragraph 2 - Price Factor, page 19.

Volume III - Price Factor (page

10) refers to a five-year ordering period, however, paragraph 3 (page 1) refers to a one-year base and four option year ordering period, and paragraph 2 - Price Factor

(page 19) refers to the “five (5) year Indefinite Delivery

Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) base contract ordering period”.

Please resolve these apparent inconsistencies. Noted. Will be changed to a one year base and 4 year ordering period.

12 Volume III - Price Factor pages 10 and 11.

Please verify that the information listed in Volume III - Price

Factor (pages 10 and 11) would only be required if determined necessary by the Contracting Officer after proposal submission.

This pricing information is required with submission of the vendor's proposal. These prices will become the actual firm fixed prices in any resultant contract for the expected ordering period.

13 Draft RFP Volume IV -

Past Performance Factor, page 11.

“Offerors shall submit

Government contracts for the

Prime

Offeror and each major subcontractor in performance or awarded during the past thirty-six (36) months (three (3) years), from the issue date of this solicitation…”

Since this effort appears to be focused upon commercial technology, should not the offerors also be able to submit past performance references for non-Government Contracts?

As it stands, the Past Performance Factor is looking for Government contracts

14 Section C.3.c.iv.1) xii, page 12. The Offeror must provide the current Draft SOW with each reference.

Should not the reference be to “the current SOW” for the cited past performance reference rather than “the current Draft SOW”? This will be changed to "current SOW" with release of the final RFP.

15 RFP Volume IV - Past

Performance Factor, paragraph

6, page 14

“another contractor’s facility” Should not the reference instead be to “another contractor”? Noted. Can change to "another contractor"

16 Draft RFP d. Discussions iii page

15.

Each Offeror must submit copies of its complete NDA with the following companies: TBD

Please confirm when the Government will identify the Non-Government Advisors This will be added during the release of the Final RFP.

17 Draft RFP. in Subfactor 1 -

Product Demonstration, page

17.

the Government will assign ratings…based on an Offeror’s proposed solution to an individual step set forth in the

Product Demonstration Event

Plan

Please confirm whether “the Government will assign ratings…based on an Offeror’s proposed solution to an individual step set forth in the Product Demonstration Event Plan”

(emphasis added) rather than to the Product Demonstration Subfactor

This is correct as is. The government will assign ratings based on the Offeror's solution to an individual step in the Product Demonstration plan.

18 Draft RFP Paragraph 2, Price

Factor, page 19. Volume III -

Price Factor, pages 10 and 11

This section repeatedly refers to the evaluation of unbalanced pricing, however, Volume III - Price Factor (pages 10 and 11) indicates that unbalanced pricing would only be evaluated if the Contracting Officer determines that additional information is required to determine price reasonableness. Please clarify.

Volume III Price Factor only states that if the Offeror's prices appear unbalanced, the

Offeror shall provide documentation explaining the apparent unbalanced pricing.

19 Draft RFP Confidence

Assessment paragraph, page

21.

Please confirm the rating table reference should be to Table 6 rather than Table 5. Confirmed. The Past Performance Assessment Rating table should be listed as Table 5.

20 Draft RFP Confidence

Assessment paragraph, page

“to receive consideration for award, an Offeror must receive a rating of Acceptable”

Please verify the accuracy of this sentence since that rating does not correlate with those in Table 6 (page 22). The confidence rating is combined with the recency and relevancy ratings to create an overall rating for Past Performance. If an offeror does not receive an overall rating of

"Acceptable," they will not be eligible for award.

21 Draft RFP C.3.c.iv.5, page 14. The Government must receive this list no later than the proposal due date. The POC list shall be submitted in MS Word for Windows table format to include the following fields:

Solicitation Number; Company

Name; Contract Number;

Government Agency; POC Last

Name, First Name; POC Title;

POC Telephone Number; POC E-mail Address; and Date E-Mail to POC (month/day).

Please confirm the POC does not count against page limitation for Volume IV Past Performance. There is no page count limit for IV Past Performance Factor.

22 DRAFT RFP - B. Anticipated CLIN

Structure

Section A 3. States: “Delivery

Schedule: This single award, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract will have an ordering period consisting of one (1) year base period and four (4) option years.” and Section D. (Section

M) 2. Price Factor states: “A price reasonableness approach will be utilized by the

Government to determine that the proposed prices offered are fair and reasonable and that a

“buy-in” or unbalanced pricing between CLIN or base and option period is not occurring.”

and Volume III Price Factor –

Attachment 3 identifies a five-year ordering period

Please reconcile these discrepancies as to whether this will be a five-year ordering period or a base with four option periods. Will fix. Base year with 4 year ordering periods

23 Attachment 0002 - Draft

Weather Performance

Requirements Document- 27

June 2023

Requirement No 14.1.22 (page

12) states: “The WxOE

Application shall provide interoperability with the systems specified in the

Government provided SV-1 and

SV-6.”

Can the Government please clarify the location of SV-1 and SV-6 or provide the same? They do not explicitly appear anywhere in this document SV1 and SV6 will be provided with the final RFP package.

24 Draft RFP C.2.e, page 4 Note: Offerors are offered the opportunity to participate in an open integration period of time

(approximately 2 weeks) using

Commercial Cloud Services provided by the Government, along with sample weather data sets (for testing purposes). The purpose of this integration period is to prepare the Offeror for the Product Demonstration

Plan. Please refer to the

Product Demonstration Event

Plan.

"Is the 2-week integration period for vendors to receive a sample data set and integrate the data into their own product demo, or are vendors expected to integrate into actual

DoD information systems such as the CPCE, for example, prior to the demo?

Vendors will be provided access to the demonstration/evaluation stacks for their testing and integration. The vendors will be able to install, integrate, and test their software in this environment. PM personnel will be available to assist in the integration and answer vendor questions.

25 DRFP, pg 3 B. Anticipated CLIN Structure

CLIN0021 – (OPTION)

Unlimited Enterprise Software

License

CLIN0022 – (OPTION) Annual

Sustainment Unlimited

Enterprise License

Will the Government provide clarification on the scope regarding the requested “Unlimited Enterprise” software license option for CLIN0021?

How many users would be expected to be using the Unlimited Enterprise License?

How many different locations would be expected to be supported for sustainment (CLIN0022)?

The "Unlimited Enterprise" allows the government to deploy as many copies of the vendor's software to as many locations as it needs. There are no predefined restrictions or limitations associated with the Enterprise license approach.

26 SOW, pg 19 3.10.1 WxOE Solution Delivery

“Each license should support up to ten (10) WxOE users concurrently.”

Is it the Government’s intent to have 10 users be able to use one (1) license for all license purchases under this contract? The intent is to have 4 simultaneous users per license and the SOW will be updated to reflect 4 users per license.

27 SOW, pg 25 26 4.1.1 Technical Test Licensing

4.1.2 Soldier Touch Point (STP)

Licenses

Tables 6 and 7 show a license quantity of 3 and the narrative lists 4 clients shall be supported for this task. Will the Government confirm the intent for this approach is to support up to 12 end users for the test licenses for these tasks?

The Govt's intent is to have 4 users/clients per license. For the final draft RFP, the SOW will be updated to reflect a methodology where the Gov't will install 3~5 annual licenses to support extended test/developmental efforts and monthly licenses to support short term test events.

28 SOW, pg 26 4.1.3 Operational Assessment

Licenses

Tables 8 shows a license quantity of 4 and the narrative lists 4 clients shall be supported for this task. Will the Government confirm the intent for this approach is to support up to

16 end users for the test licenses for this task?

The Govt's intent is to have 4 users/clients per license. For the final draft RFP, the SOW will be updated to reflect a methodology where the Gov't will install 3~5 annual licenses to support extended test/developmental efforts and monthly licenses to support short term test events.

29 SOW, pg 25 26 4.1.1 Technical Test Licensing

4.1.2 Soldier Touch Point (STP)

Licenses

4.1.3 Operational Assessment

Licenses

“The Contractor will be responsible for working at the

Government site to install and configure its WxOE software on

Government-provided infrastructure (e.g., CPCE TSI).”

“The Contractor shall build/integrate new data adapters to enable its WxOE solution to connect to live or simulated sources of data.”

Test License requirements in SOW paragraphs 4.1.1, 4.1.2, and 4.1.3 include scope for support services including on-site installation, data adapters, and related integration. Will the Government’s confirm its intent to include the cost for these services in the test license pricing? If so, will the Government provide the Government site locations where these services will be required, so appropriate travel cost can be included in the test license pricing?

The cost of stated services will not be included in the license pricing but, will be included in separate CLIN under (technical test, Soldier Touch Point, Operational Assessment).

The SW licenses used for the testing will be procured under the SW License CLIN. The

Government will provide site locations where these services will be required.

30 TEP, Company Info Tab Row 11, Offeror DUNS Please change this field to “Offeror UEI”. Agree 31 TEP, CLIN Pricing Tab Instructions to offerors (#4. 5-

YEAR ORDERING PERIOD)

states: “The Calculation of the five (5) year ordering period is based on the unit prices for the referenced CLINs at the

Referenced Quantities pulled from the CLIN Pricing Tab. This calculation pulls form the "5-

Year Ordering Period"

Worksheet and includes plug numbers for CLIN 0015

"Engineering Change Proposal

NSP" and no entry is required on this TAB.”

No connectivity to “pull” pricing from the CLIN Pricing tab to the 5-Year Ordering Period tab exists in the worksheet. Are the contractors expected to add formulas to the worksheet for these calculations?

Yes.

KS - RACHEL MORESI

IS&A Intel Apps WxOE

DRAFT RFP

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES

KO - MEGHAN WHITMORE