26_JAN_2017_-_Letter_from_the_KO.pdf

26 JAN 2017

Contracting Officer’s Overview of Request for Proposal W9124G-17-R-0002 for Ft Rucker Rotary Maintenance

Industry Prospective Offerors, Thank you for your continued feedback on this solicitation. Your thorough review has identified a number of necessary clarifications and corrections. As I noted before, clearly you are paying close attention.

Many of your questions referenced previously deleted or changed paragraphs from Solicitation Amendment 1. Some questions reflected a concern over the evaluation criteria and our tradeoff approach. Our answer matrix addresses several issues related to those concerns.

One specific question was related to page count and whether or not staffing matrix sheets were counted in the limitation. Our solicitation was not crystal clear that they do not, so we immediately responded on Huddle. The question is again addressed in the answer matrix. The solicitation amendment makes it clear that these critical staffing matrix spreadsheets are not included in the page limitations. In another question related to page count, one offeror asked if slip pages to requirements documents that were required for implementing an approach that “may not be an enhancement” count. We struggled with that question and concluded that our initial approach was too strict; therefore, solicitation amendment 0002 includes revised language that clarifies that any slip pages in the requirements documents are excluded from the page limitations.

Finally, we saw several questions related to the type selection we will be performing. I can assure you we will be using a trade-off evaluation approach, not a low priced technically acceptable evaluation approach. We will also have robust exchanges including face-to-face discussions with offerors in the competitive range. As you know we have asked for your innovative approaches and we want to follow suit. We will ensure we have full and meaningful discussions with each offeror in the competitive range and reach a meeting of the minds; therefore, during discussions we will provide not only our written Evaluation Notices, but also will provide the Government’s evaluation narrative. We trust that any oversight, misunderstandings, and mistakes on our part will be quickly alleviated using this approach.

That said, I can assure you that we will not be sharing enhancements or individual approaches with other offerors. There is a big difference between changes to requirements documents for implementing an approach and those that “reduce the minimum requirement or threshold”. The latter results in an amended solicitation and exchanges with all active competitors while the former does not.

Amendment 0002 is posted with this letter. I have not covered all of the question areas in this letter.

Please review the questions, answers, and the amendment very carefully. Continue to follow the written solicitation; remember, those written Government requirements are all that matters. Overall we feel like you are understanding the solicitation and look forward to your innovative approaches.

Dean Carsello

Ft Rucker Rotary Maintenance Competition Lead Contracting Officer