AMENDED_SOLICITATION_W912HQ-17-R-0007.pdf

Solicitation Number: W912HQ-17-R-0007 – Request for Proposals

Amendment 0001 – 16 June 2017

This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in FAR Subpart 12.603 - Streamlined Solicitation for Commercial Items, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; proposals are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued. This Solicitation is issued as a Request for Proposals (RFP).This solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2005-94, effective 19 January 2017.

The requirement is 100% set aside for Small Business. The associated North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code is 541990, All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services with a small business size standard of $15,000,000.

Description:

A Firm-Fixed-Price, Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Multiple Award Task Order Contract (MATOC) to provide professional historical research support services to the US Army Corps of Engineers, Office of History (CEHO). These services will be used by the Office of History to complete its mission to support USACE divisions, districts, centers, and labs, the history and museum staffs at the U.S. Army Engineer School, and the Center of Military History.

Awards will be issued to up to three (3) qualified Contractors that offer the best value to the Government. The resulting IDIQ contract(s) include a base ordering period of one-year and two one-year option periods. There is no guarantee that the option periods will be exercised on any or all of the awarded contracts. The minimum guaranteed order for each awardee shall be $2,500.00 for the base year. The Contracting Officer is under no obligation to issue any task orders against this contract in excess of the minimum guarantee amount. Awarded contracts will share an estimated capacity of $2,000,000.00 over the life of the contract (base plus any exercised option years).

The Government reserves the right to move unused capacity between CLINs and performance periods as necessary. The only authorized ordering office is the Humphreys Engineer Center Support Activity (HECSA).

Contract Line Items (CLINS): This requirement and associated contract line item number (CLIN) is provided below:

CLIN# Description Quantities Units of

Measure PRICE

Base Year Labor *

(EST 8730 HRS)

Project

Base Year Materials**

N/A

$30,000.00 EST

Base Year Travel**

$15,000.00 EST

0004 Base Year

Manpower Reporting (CMRA) ɫ

NSP

Option Year 1 Labor *

Hours

Option Year 1 Materials**

$23,000.00 EST

Option Year 1 Travel**

$10,500.00 EST

1004 Option Year 1

Manpower Reporting (CMRA) ɫ

Option Year 2 Labor*

Hours

Option Year 2 Materials**

$15,000.00 EST

Option Year 2 Travel**

$6,000.00 EST

2004 Option Year 2

Manpower Reporting (CMRA)ɫ

* CLINS 0001, 1001, and 2001 will be derived from the Offeror submitted Price Schedule – Attachment C ** Offeror shall propose the listed Travel & Material Estimates. This is an estimated CLIN and will be negotiated at the task order level.

ɫ Offeror shall include CMRA pricing in Labor CLINs. These CLINS are not Separately Priced (NSP)

Date, Time and Place Offers are due:

The closing date for the delivery of a response to this combined synopsis/solicitation is on or before 2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) Wednesday, June 21st, 2017.

Proposals should be sent electronically (via email) to of the Point of Contact (POC) shown below by the closing date and time. The Proposal must be submitted in two volumes. The Technical Proposal shall be submitted in MSWord or PDF Format. The Price Proposal shall be submitted separately using the MS Excel Spreadsheet provided.

The Price Schedule has pre-filled estimated hours for each labor category and are not to be altered. The estimated hours are provided for pricing evaluation purposes.

Attachment A – Labor Categories lists the required qualifications for each labor category with the exception of the Admin/Clerical category which has no mandatory qualifications.

The Technical Proposal is limited to 100 pages in total, including resumes. Required Work Samples submitted will not count towards this page limitation. Vendors must have an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) at:

www.sam.gov. It is the offeror’s responsibility to ensure that the transmission is received by the Government prior to the closing date and time. Upon receipt of a proposal, the Government will acknowledge receipt of that proposal via email to the offeror.

All questions pertaining to the Solicitation should be sent to the Contract Specialist listed below via email before 2:00 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, June 7th, 2017. All questions answered will be via an amendment to the Solicitation and be posted to the web portal at www.fbo.gov.

http://www.sam.gov/ http://www.fbo.gov/

Point of Contact:

Mr. Richard J. Pecoraro, Contract Specialist Address: US Army Humphreys Engineer Center Support Activity (HECSA) 7701 Telegraph Road, Suite 1B01 Alexandria, VA 22315 Phone: 703-428-6485 Email: richard.j.pecoraro@usace.army.mil

Basis for award:

The award(s) will be made based on the best overall proposals that are determined to be the most beneficial to the Government, with appropriate consideration given to the five (5) evaluation factors: 1 - Relevant Experience, 2 - Key Personnel and Staffing, 3 - Technical Resources, 4 - Past Performance, and 5 - Price.

For specific evaluation criteria, refer to the included FAR Provision 52.212-2, Evaluations – Commercial Items. The Government intends to make awards without discussions. However, the Government may determine that discussions are necessary.

For this reason, the Offeror’s proposal must be complete and contain their most favorable terms.

Terms and Conditions:

The following clauses and provisions are incorporated and will remain in full force and effect in the resultant award. The full text of these provisions and clauses may be accessed electronically at: http://www.farsite.hill.af.mil.

FAR 52.203-3 (Apr 1984) Gratuities;

FAR 52.204-4 (May 2011) Printed or Copied Double-Sided on Postconsumer Fiber Content Paper;

FAR 52.209-2 (Nov 2015) Prohibition on Contracting with Inverted Domestic Corporations—Representation;

FAR 52.209-10 (Nov 2015) Prohibition on Contracting with Inverted Domestic Corporations;

FAR 52.212-1 (Jan 2017) Instructions to Offerors – Commercial Items (See Addenda);

FAR 52.212-3 (Jan 2017) Offeror Representations and Certifications --Commercial Items FAR 52.212-4 (Jan 2017) Contract Terms and Conditions - Commercial Items FAR 52.217-5 (Jul 1990) Evaluation of Options FAR 52.232-40 (Dec 2013) Providing Accelerated Payments to Small Business Subcontractors;

FAR 52.212-5 (Jan 2017) Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement mailto:richard.j.pecoraro@usace.army.mil http://www.farsite.hill.af.mil/

Statutes or Executive Orders - Commercial Items are incorporated by reference, however, for paragraphs (b) and (c) the following clauses apply:

FAR 52.203-6 (Sep 2006) Restrictions on Subcontractor Sales to the Government (Sept 2006), with Alternate I (Oct 1995) FAR 52.204-10 (Oct 2016) Reporting Executive Compensation and First-Tier Subcontract Awards;

FAR 52.209-6 (Oct 2015) Protecting the Government’s Interest When Subcontracting with Contractors Debarred, Suspended, or Proposed for Debarment;

FAR 52.209-9 Updates of Publicly Available Information Regarding Responsibility Matters (Jul 2013);

FAR 52.219-6 (Nov 2011) Notice of Small Business Set-Aside;

FAR 52.219-8 (Nov 2016) Utilization of Small Business Concerns;

FAR 52.219-14 (Jan 2017) Limitations on Subcontracting;

FAR 52.219-28 (Jul 2013) Post Award Small Business Program Representation;

FAR 52.222-3 (Jun 2003) Convict Labor;

FAR 52.222-21 (Apr 2015) Prohibition of Segregated Facilities;

FAR 52.222-26 (Sep 2016) Equal Opportunity;

FAR 52.222-35 (Oct 2015) Equal Opportunity for Veterans;

FAR 52.222-36 (Sep 2016 Equal Opportunity for Workers with Disabilities;

FAR 52.222-37 (Feb 2016) Employment Reports on Veterans;

FAR 52.222-40 (Dec 2010), Notification of Employee Rights Under the National Labor Relations Act;

FAR 52.222-50 (Mar 2015) Combating Trafficking in Persons;

FAR 52.222-54 (Oct 2015) Employment Eligibility Verification;

FAR 52.223-18 (Aug 2011) Contractor Policy to Ban Text Messaging while Driving;

FAR 52.232-33 (Jul 2013) Payment by Elec. Funds Transfer – System for Award Management;

DFARS 252.201-7000 (Dec 1991) Contracting Officer’s Representative;

DFARS 252.203-7000 (Sep 2011) Requirements Relating to Compensation of Former DoD Officials;

DFARS 252.203-7002 (Sep 2013) Requirement to Inform Employees of Whistleblower Rights;

DFARS 252.204-7003 (Apr 1992) Control of Government Personnel Work Product;

DFARS 252.204-7012 ( Oct 2016) Safeguarding Covered Defense Information and Cyber Incident Reporting;

DFARS 252.204-7015 (May 2016) Notice of Authorized Disclosure of Information for Litigation Support;

DFARS 252.209-7004 (Oct 2015) Subcontracting with Firms that are Owned or Controlled by the Government of a Country that is a State Sponsor of Terrorism;

DFARS 252.222-7007 (Jan 2015) Representation Regarding Combating Trafficking in Persons;

DFARS 252.223-7006 (Sep 2014) Prohibition on Storage, Treatment, and Disposal of Toxic or Hazardous Materials – Basic;

DFARS 252.232-7003 (Jun 2012) Elec. Submission of Payment Requests and Receiving Reports;

DFARS 252.232-7010 (Dec 2006) Levies on Contract Payments;

DFARS 252.244-7000 (Jun 2013) Subcontracts for Commercial Items

PROVISIONS/CLAUSES INCORPORATED BY FULL TEXT

Addenda to 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors – Commercial

Along with the required information outlined in 52.212-1(b), Submission of offers, the offeror shall provide the following information:

Factor 1: Relevant Experience: The offeror shall provide a narrative description that clearly describes how the company’s experience is relevant and supportive of their ability to complete the work described in sections 3.1.3 to 3.1.12 of the PWS. In describing the relevance of its experience, offerors should consider the similarity of their experience in terms of project scope and complexity, historical resources used (historic documents, photographs, artifacts, etc.), and the products (monographs, reports, finding aids, digitized material, oral history interviews, exhibits, etc.) produced.

Factor 2: Key Personnel and Staffing: The offeror shall provide details (résumés) on the education, training, and prior experience of their proposed Key Personnel. Offerors shall also describe the availability of Key Personnel proposed for multiple task-orders.

The offeror shall supply the Government with a plan to maintain/provide appropriate staffing in support future task orders with emphasis on the ability to provide support for possible multiple concurrent task orders.

The Labor Categories of Supervisory Archivist, Supervisory Historian, and Project Manager are designated as Key Personnel. After contract award, Contracting Officer approval is required to replace any designated Key Personnel.

Factor 3: Technical Resources: The offeror shall submit evidence of its technical resources, to include the availability of archival, curatorial, and digitization facilities and equipment; facilities, including the necessary hardware and software for graphic design, layout, and publication; and facilities to design and fabricate a variety of museum quality displays. If the offeror does not have all of the technical resources required to perform the Historical Support Services specified in the PWS, they must present their plan to acquire such technical resources for future task orders in support of the PWS requirements.

Factor 4: Past Performance: (i) Offerors shall submit past performance information for a maximum of 5 contracts or subcontracts completed or on-going within the last 5 years from the release date of this solicitation. On-going contracts must be at least 50% complete as of the release date of this solicitation. Offers shall provide a project narrative and reference information in narrative form to address each of the bullets below. All points of contact, addresses, telephone numbers, data, fax numbers, etc.

should be verified by the Offeror prior to submission to the Government as part of the Offeror’s proposal. Points of contact should be knowledgeable of past performance from a contractual, managerial, and technical perspective.

• Project Title and Description

• Relevancy to this PWS

• Project Start & Ending Dates

• Contract Value

• POCs, Phone, Fax, Address, Email

• Performance recognition documents received within the last five years on projects relevant to this PWS such as awards, award fee determinations, customer letters of commendation, and any other forms of performance recognition

(ii) The Past Performance Questionnaire (attachment B) is provided for the offeror to submit to the client for each contract the offeror includes in its proposal for Factor 4 – Past Performance. Ensure correct phone numbers and e-mail addresses are provided for the client point of contact. Completed PPQs should be submitted with the offeror’s proposal. If the offeror is unable to obtain a completed PPQ from a client for a contract(s) before proposal closing date, the offeror should complete and submit with the proposal the first page of the PPQ, which will provide contract and client information for the respective contract(s). The offeror should follow-up with clients/references to ensure timely submittal of questionnaires. If the client requests, questionnaires may be submitted directly to the Government’s point of contact, Mr. Richard Pecoraro via email:

richard.j.pecoraro@usace.army.mil before the due date for proposal submission.

Offerors shall not incorporate by reference into their proposal PPQs previously submitted for other Request for Proposals (RFP). However, this does not preclude the Government from utilizing previously submitted PPQ information in the past performance evaluation.

(iii) In addition to the above, the Government may review any other sources of information for evaluating past performance. Other sources may include, but are not limited to past performance information retrieved through the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS), including Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS), using all CAGE codes/DUNS numbers of team members (partnership, joint venture, teaming arrangement, or parent company/subsidiary/affiliate) identified in the Offeror’s proposal, inquiries of owner representative(s), Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS), Electronic Subcontract Reporting System (eSRS), and any other known sources not provided by the Offeror.

Factor 5: Price: The offeror shall complete the Price Schedule (spreadsheet provided as Attachment C) for the Base and all Option periods. All labor categories must be priced to be considered for an award. Labor prices shall reflect fully burdened labor rates at the offeror’s facility. Labor rates in this schedule will be used in the pricing of all task orders and task order modifications issued throughout the life of the contract.

FAR 52.212-2 Evaluation—Commercial Items (Oct 2014)

(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: 1 - Relevant Experience, 2 - Key Personnel and Staffing, 3 - Technical Resources, 4 - Past Performance, and 5 - Price.

Factor 1 – Relevant Experience. The Government will evaluate the offeror’s relevant experience to ascertain the probability of successfully performing the required efforts of this PWS. Higher ratings will be provided to offerors who show experience in performing the tasks listed in sections 3.1.3 – 3.1.12 of the PWS which are of similar scope and complexity as well as use of historical resources and products produced.

Factor 2 – Key Personnel and Staffing. The Government will evaluate the extent to which the offeror demonstrates that the proposed key personnel qualifications and experience meet or exceed the requirements of the PWS and are sufficient to effectively accomplish the work required as well as the ability of the offeror to maintain adequate staffing for future task orders and concurrent task orders.

Factor 3 – Technical Resources. The Government will evaluate the offeror’s capability to successfully perform those PWS tasks which require use of technical resources. Higher ratings will be provided to offerors who clearly articulate how the necessary technical resources will be obtained in order to successfully accomplish the PWS tasks in a timely and cost effective manner.

The Technical Factors 1-3 Ratings, excerpted below, focus on strengths, deficiencies, weaknesses, risks and uncertainties of the offeror’s proposal. The color rating depicts how well the offeror’s proposal meets the factor requirements.

Color Rating Description

Blue

Outstanding

Proposal meets requirements and indicates an exceptional approach and understanding of the requirements. Strengths far outweigh any weaknesses. Risk of unsuccessful performance is very low.

Purple

Good

Proposal meets requirements and indicates a thorough approach and understanding of the requirements. Proposal contains strengths which outweigh any weaknesses. Risk of unsuccessful performance is low.

Green

Acceptable

Proposal meets requirements and indicates an adequate approach and understanding of the requirements. Strengths and weaknesses are offsetting or will have little or no impact on contract performance. Risk of unsuccessful performance is no worse than moderate.

Yellow

Marginal Proposal does not clearly meet requirements and has not demonstrated an adequate approach and understanding of the requirements. The proposal has one or more weaknesses which are not offset by strengths. Risk of unsuccessful performance is high.

Red

Unacceptable

Proposal does not meet requirements and contains one or more deficiencies. Proposal is un-awardable.

Factor 4 – Past Performance. The Government will evaluate the offeror’s record of past performance to ascertain the probability of successfully performing the required efforts of this PWS. This evaluation includes considering the relevancy of the submitted past performance along with the quality of work on those recent efforts. Relevant contracts are those, completed or ongoing, for work that is the same or similar in nature, complexity, and dollar value to the work required in this solicitation. Contracts must have been completed within the last five (5) years from the solicitation release date.

Ongoing contracts must be at least 50% complete by the solicitation release date. The past performance evaluation will use the following performance confidence and relevancy ratings:

PAST PERFORMANCE RELEVANCY RATINGS

Rating Definition

Very Relevant

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

Relevant Present/past performance effort involved similar scope and magnitude of effort and complexities this solicitation requires.

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

Not Relevant Present/past performance effort involved little or none of the scope and magnitude of effort and complexities this solicitation requires.

PERFORMANCE CONFIDENCE ASSESSMENT

Rating Definition

Substantial Confidence

Based on the offeror’s recent/relevant performance record, the Government has a high expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

Satisfactory Confidence

Based on the offeror’s recent/relevant performance record, the Government has a reasonable expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

Limited Confidence

Based on the offeror’s recent/relevant performance record, the Government has a low expectation that the offeror will successfully perform the required effort.

No Confidence

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

Unknown Confidence (Neutral)

No recent/relevant performance record is available or the offeror’s performance record is so sparse that no meaningful confidence assessment rating can be reasonably assigned.

Factor 5 - Price. This factor will not be rated, but will be evaluated to determine whether it is reasonable. Price reasonableness will be determined through price analysis techniques as described in FAR 15.404-1(b). The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable and may be rejected if the prices are determined to be unbalanced.

The relative order of importance for factors 1-4, in descending order, is Factor 1, Relevant Experience, Factor 4, Past Performance, Factor 2, Key Personnel and Staffing, then Factor 3, Technical Resources. To receive consideration for award, a rating of no less than “Acceptable” must be achieved for the Technical factors. Offerors will be cautioned that the award may not necessarily be made to the lowest price offered. NOTE: ALL NON-PRICED FACTORS, WHEN COMBINED, ARE

SIGNIFICANTLY MORE IMPORTANT THAN PRICE.

(b) Options. The Government will evaluate offers for award purposes by adding the total price for all options to the total price for the basic requirement. The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable if the option prices are significantly unbalanced.

Evaluation of options shall not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s).

(c) 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.

FAR 52.216-19 Order Limitations (Oct 1995)

(a) Minimum order. When the Government requires supplies or services covered by this contract in an amount of less than $2,500.00, the Government is not obligated to purchase, nor is the Contractor obligated to furnish, those supplies or services under the contract.

(b) Maximum order. The Contractor is not obligated to honor:

(1) Any order for a single item in excess of $500,000.00;

(2) Any order for a combination of items in excess of $750,000.00; or

(3) A series of orders from the same ordering office within 30 days that together call for quantities exceeding the limitation in subparagraph (1) or (2) above.

(c) If this is a requirements contract (i.e., includes the Requirements clause at subsection 52.216-21 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)), the Government is not required to order a part of any one requirement from the Contractor if that requirement exceeds the maximum-order limitations in paragraph (b) above.

(d) Notwithstanding paragraphs (b) and (c) above, the Contractor shall honor any order exceeding the maximum order limitations in paragraph (b), unless that order (or orders) is returned to the ordering office within 10 days after issuance, with written notice stating the Contractor's intent not to ship the item (or items) called for and the reasons. Upon receiving this notice, the Government may acquire the supplies or services from another source.

FAR 52.216-22 Indefinite Quantity (Oct 1995)

(a) This is an indefinite-quantity contract for the supplies or services specified, and effective for the period stated, in the Schedule. The quantities of supplies and services specified in the Schedule are estimates only and are not purchased by this contract.

(b) Delivery or performance shall be made only as authorized by orders issued in accordance with the Ordering clause. The Contractor shall furnish to the Government, when and if ordered, the supplies or services specified in the Schedule up to and including the quantity designated in the Schedule as the "maximum". The Government shall order at least the quantity of supplies or services designated in the Schedule as the "minimum".

(c) Except for any limitations on quantities in the Order Limitations clause or in the Schedule, there is no limit on the number of orders that may be issued. The Government may issue orders requiring delivery to multiple destinations or performance at multiple locations.

(d) Any order issued during the effective period of this contract and not completed within that period shall be completed by the Contractor within the time specified in the order.

The contract shall govern the Contractor's and Government's rights and obligations with respect to that order to the same extent as if the order were completed during the contract's effective period; provided, that the Contractor shall not be required to make any deliveries under this contract after 12 months after the expiration date of the contract.

FAR 52.217-9 Option to Extend the Terms of the Contract (Mar 2000)

(a) The Government may extend the term of this contract by written notice to the Contractor within 14 days; provided that the Government gives the Contractor a preliminary written notice of its intent to extend at least 30 days before contract expires.

The preliminary notice does not commit the Government to an extension.

(b) If the Government exercises this option, the extended contract shall be considered to include this option clause.

(c) The total duration of this contract, including the exercise of any options under this clause, shall not exceed 3 Years.

DFARS 252.216-7006 Ordering (May 2011)

(a) Any supplies and services to be furnished under this contract shall be ordered by issuance of delivery orders or task orders by the individuals or activities designated in the contract schedule. Such orders may be issued from the contract’s effective date through the contract’s expiration date.

(b) All delivery orders or task orders are subject to the terms and conditions of this contract. In the event of conflict between a delivery order or task order and this contract, the contract shall control.

(c)(1) If issued electronically, the order is considered ``issued'' when a copy has been posted to the Electronic Document Access system, and notice has been sent to the Contractor.

(2) If mailed or transmitted by facsimile, a delivery order or task order is considered ``issued'' when the Government deposits the order in the mail or transmits by facsimile.

Mailing includes transmittal by U.S. mail or private delivery services.

Orders may be issued orally only if authorized in the schedule.

Performance Work Statement Historical Support Services

1 Introduction

The Office of History, Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (CEHO), located in Alexandria, Virginia, is responsible for collecting, preserving, interpreting, and disseminating the history of the Corps of Engineers. To accomplish its mission, CEHO’s staff of historians, curators, archivists, and editors research, write, and review a wide variety of historical products; collect, arrange, catalog, and preserve historical documents, photographs, and artifacts; and conduct a wide-ranging oral history program. To complete its mission, CEHO requires the services of a historical support Contractor to support the office, USACE divisions, districts, centers, labs, history and museum staffs at the U.S. Army Engineer School, and the Center of Military History.

1.1 Scope

The Contractor shall furnish all personnel and materials necessary to provide historical support services, including but not limited to the following: conduct archival and secondary research; write or review an essay, study, or monograph on a specified topic or subject related to the history of the Corps of Engineers; provide graphic design, layout, and publication services for a range of historical products; provide editorial and indexing services; provide archival support services, including the review, arrangement, conservation, and description of historic materials, including documents, photographs, audio recordings, and electronic data; conserve and digitize a wide variety of historic materials including photographs, slides, maps, documents, audio recordings, motion film, and various forms of digital audio; furnish museum support services, including collection management, preservation, and conservation, and producing historical displays; provide library services, including collection development, weeding services, cataloging, and arranging; and, conduct, transcribe, and accession oral history interviews into the Office of History’s oral history collection.

2 General Requirements

This section describes the general requirements for this effort. The following sub-sections provide details of various considerations on this effort.

2.1 Non-Personal Services

The Government shall neither supervise Contractor employees nor control the method by which the Contractor performs the required tasks. Under no circumstances shall the Government assign tasks to, or prepare work schedules for, individual contractor employees. It shall be the responsibility of the Contractor to manage its employees and to guard against any actions that are of the nature of personal services, or give the perception of personal services. If the Contractor believes that any actions constitute, or are perceived to constitute, personal services, it shall be the Contractor's responsibility to notify the Procuring Contracting Officer (PCO) immediately.

2.2 Business Relations

The Contractor shall successfully integrate and coordinate all activity needed to execute the requirement. The Contractor shall manage the timeliness, completeness, and quality of problem identification. The Contractor shall provide corrective action plans, proposal submittals, timely identification of issues, and effective management of Subcontractors.

The Contractor shall seek to ensure customer satisfaction with, and professional and ethical behavior, by all Contractor personnel.

2.3 Contract Administration and Management

The following subsections specify requirements for management and administration of contracts and personnel.

2.3.1 Contract Management

The Contractor shall establish clear organizational lines of authority and responsibility to ensure effective management of the resources assigned to the requirement.

2.3.2 Contract Administration

The Contractor shall establish processes and assign appropriate resources to effectively administer the requirement. The Contractor shall respond to Government requests for contractual actions in a timely fashion. The Contractor shall have a single point of contact between the Government and contractor personnel assigned to support contracts or task orders.

2.3.3 Personnel Administration

The Contractor shall provide the following management and support as required. The Contractor shall provide for employees during designated Government non-work days or other periods where Government offices are closed due to weather or security conditions. The Contractor shall maintain the currency of their employees by providing initial and refresher training as required to meet the PWS requirements. The Contractor shall make necessary travel arrangements for employees. The Contractor shall provide necessary infrastructure to support contract tasks. The Contractor shall provide administrative support to employees in a timely fashion (time keeping, leave processing, pay, emergency needs).

2.4 Subcontract Management

The Contractor shall be responsible for any subcontract management necessary to integrate work performed on this requirement and shall be responsible and accountable for Subcontractor performance on this requirement. The prime Contractor will manage work distribution to ensure there are no Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI) considerations.

2.5 Contractor Personnel, Disciplines, and Specialties

The Contractor shall accomplish the assigned work by employing and utilizing qualified personnel with appropriate combinations of education, training, and experience. The Contractor shall match personnel skills to the work or task with a minimum of under/over employment of resources. The Contractor shall ensure the labor categories as defined in the Labor Categories document (see Attachment A), labor rates, and man-hours utilized in the performance of each task order issued hereunder will be the minimum necessary to accomplish the task.

2.6 Location of Work

The Government anticipates that much of the work required will be at the contractor’s facility, with occasional work performed at Government facilities in the Washington metropolitan area. Services provided in the District of Columbia, as well as in the neighboring jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia, including the Office of History’s office in Alexandria, Virginia, will be considered local and the Contractor will not be reimbursed for travel expenses in those areas. The cost of travel outside of the Washington metropolitan area will be set forth in each task order and reimbursed in accordance with the Joint Travel Regulations. Unless otherwise noted, the Contractor will provide all of the equipment necessary to perform the work under this contract. The cost of material and ancillary support costs (copying, shipping documents, etc.) shall be established in each task order. Close contact between the Contractor and the COR during each assignment is required to ensure prompt and acceptable accomplishment of work.

2.7 Travel / Temporary Duty (TDY)

Travel to government facilities or other locations may be required and will be specified in the individual task order PWS. All travel requirements (including plans, agenda, itinerary, or dates) shall be pre-approved by the Government (subject to local policy procedures), and travel is on a strictly cost reimbursable basis. Costs for travel shall be billed in accordance with the regulatory implementation of Public Law 99-234 and FAR 31.205-46 Travel Costs.

2.8 Performance Period

The Base Period of Performance (POP) shall be 12 months after award of the contract.

Options shall be for additional 12 month periods. A maximum contract POP, Base and Options, shall not exceed 36 months.

3 Performance Requirements

The following section specifies the Performance Objectives and Performance Elements for the contract.

3.1 Historical Support Services

3.1.1 The Contractor shall host a task order kickoff meeting for each task order issued under this contract.

The task order kickoff meeting will be a conference call between the Government and Contractor to discuss the schedule and to review document availability and roles.

Meeting will be held within five (5) business days after task order award as designated by the Government.

3.1.2 The Contractor shall develop and provide a draft and final work plan for the task order.

The Contractor shall prepare draft and final work plans that describe the processes for executing each task order. The Contractor shall manage each task order in accordance with the work plan to assure that all services are performed, reviewed, and provided in a manner that meets professional quality standards. Also included in each task order will be one conference call to discuss the Government’s comments on the draft work plan.

The draft work plan will be required to be provided to the Government within five (5) business days after kickoff meeting. The Government will have five days to review the plan. The Contractor will submit a final work plan within five days of receiving the Government’s comments.

3.1.3 The Contractor shall conduct primary and secondary research at archives, libraries, and other repositories that the Government may designate.

Based on that research, the Contractor may survey an assigned body of records and produce an inventory of those records to include: notes on the size of the collection;

description of the types of records in the collection and their condition; and an assessment of the historic value of the collection. Where applicable, the Contractor may be instructed to obtain paper or digital copies of those records or the applicable finding aids to be accessioned into the CEHO Research Collection. The Contractor may conduct research in assigned repositories to obtain visual materials (e.g., photographs, maps, plans and drawings, film, videotape, slides) and provide paper, film, or high resolution digital copies along with the applicable captions, credits, and a descriptive metadata entry for each file. The digitization standards for all materials produced under the resulting contract will be specified in the individual task orders.

3.1.4 The Contractor shall research and write an essay, study, or monograph on a specified topic or subject related to the history of the Corps of Engineers.

The narrative shall be comprehensive, analytical, and balanced. It shall be written in a clear, crisp style attractive to the general public, shall reflect the careful research and thought necessary to find acceptance in the scholarly community, and shall include the appropriate footnotes, glossary, index, and bibliography. Where appropriate, in addition to the text, products will include film, paper, or high resolution digital copies of proposed photographs, maps, and illustrations, complete with captions and credits and a metadata entry for each digital file. For digital images, the minimum resolution/size will be 600 ppi at four by six inches. The digitization standards for all materials produced under the resulting contract will be specified in the individual task orders. When necessary, the Contractor will also provide the necessary photo releases for use of those images by the Government.

3.1.5 The Contractor shall provide graphic design, layout, and publication support services for historical products such as reports, brochures, books, and posters.

Adhering to industry standards, the Contractor will perform desktop publishing and layout to produce innovative, attractive, and inviting designs for the various products.

Larger projects, such as book-length manuscripts, are anticipated to contain prefatory material (foreword, preface, etc.), manuscript text, end notes, bibliography, and appendices. Some products will require the Contractor to design and produce maps, charts, or diagrams based on original sources in a standard, publication-wide format.

For each product, the Contractor will produce a final electronic package that conforms to all current industry-standard specifications for printing and publication (including web publishing). The Contractor may also be required to format new or existing layouts for e-books and publishing historical products.

3.1.6 The Contractor shall provide an array of editing services to improve written products that range from image captions and credits to book-length manuscripts.

Services requested may include substantive editing of written works of history with the goal of maintaining an author’s voice while at the same time identifying inconsistencies, logical faults, information gaps, or other errors in the substance of the work; clarifying language or organization of the narrative; and conforming the work to accepted style guidelines. For other projects, the Contractor may be tasked only with proofreading and copyediting—applying consistent style and usage; correcting spelling, grammatical, typographical, and other obvious errors; and basically ensuring a clean manuscript.

Services may be tasked at a level falling anywhere along this range of editing services and may apply to any type of historical product produced by the Office of History or other USACE elements.

3.1.7 The Contractor shall provide archival support services, including the review, arrangement, conservation, and description of historic materials such as documents, photographs, audio recordings, and electronic data for accession into USACE historical holdings such as the Office of History’s Research Collection.

Materials to be inventoried and accessioned may include paper, photographs, or electronic records. Where applicable, the Contractor will prepare finding aids of sufficient detail and clarity to describe the collection and promote historical research.

New material may be added to CEHO’s historical holdings as separate collections or may be integrated into its existing file architecture. In the case of electronic records, the documents will be arranged and stored on CEHO’s shared drive and backed up on another storage medium. Paper records and photographs will be arranged and stored in archival containers.

3.1.8 The Contractor shall digitize a variety of material including photographs, slides, documents, monographs, maps, motion picture film, and audio recordings.

The Contractor will also transfer existing digital material to new digital formats. All digitization formats, as well as the required resolution, will be established in the individual task orders. The Contractor will also provide the Government with the necessary metadata to enable the material to be accessioned into the Office of History’s Research Collection.

3.1.9 The Contractor shall provide curatorial support services including: conduct object inventories; perform basic preservation and conservation; label, rehouse, and photograph historic artifacts; and update catalog records in the Office of History’s collection of historic artifacts.

The Contractor will also create and update artifact records and perform research where necessary. In addition, the Contractor may be called upon to move artifacts to new storage locations and to construct a proper storage environment for museum artifacts.

3.1.10 The Contractor shall develop historical displays (both physical and online virtual exhibits) using artifacts, images, and text from CEHO’s Historical and Research collections and augmented with material from other collections as required.

In developing a historical display, the Contractor will conduct the necessary historical and archival research, select appropriate artifacts and photographs, and prepare the necessary explanatory text, captions, credits, and visual material. After review and approval by the Government, the Contractor will design, produce, and install the exhibit.

Installation may include the fabrication of display cases, mounts, signage, and lighting.

3.1.11 The Contractor shall prepare for and conduct oral history interviews on the entire career or some specific portion of the career (such as an assignment) of an active duty or retired engineer officer or civilian employee or someone significant to the history of the Corps of Engineers.

Interviews will be conducted following procedures outlined in the U.S. Army Center of Military History’s guide to oral history and CEHO’s oral history procedures. All interviews will be conducted using high quality digital recorders with external XLR microphones and will be recorded in uncompressed WAV format. The Contractor will prepare a list of key words to facilitate the preparation of the transcript.

3.1.12 The Contractor shall develop web pages or web sites related to Army engineer history using industry standard software tools that are compatible with existing web sites maintained by the Office of History or other government entities.

The web-based content, including text, illustrations, graphics, and audio-video material, may be prepared using Government- or Contractor-supplied information. The pages and sites will be well organized, visually appealing, and easy to use. The formats and specifications for web pages or sites produced under the resultant contract will be specified in the individual delivery orders. Web pages shall comply with Section 508 requirements.

3.2 Program/Project Management.

3.2.1 The Contractor shall participate in meetings for program management as deemed necessary by either party.

At the discretion of the Government, the meetings may be held virtually, at Headquarters USACE in Washington, D.C., the Humphreys Engineer Center in Alexandria, Virginia, or at another facility that the Government may designate.

3.2.2 The Contractor shall provide program management for work assigned.

Program management will include a single POC with contracting authority. The Contractor must have the ability to handle multiple task orders and Subcontractors simultaneously as well as the ability to hire and retain personnel associated with work assigned.

4 Special Requirements

This section describes the special requirements for this effort. The following sub-

4.1 Security

4.1.1 Local Security Policy.

All Contractor employees who require physical access to government controlled facilities or logical access to government information and or information systems are subject to a fitness determination and appropriate vetting. To assist in the vetting process, the Contractor must submit a notice of visit form for each employee who will perform work on the contract, including at the minimum, the name, social security number and date of birth of each employee performing work on the contract that need physical and or logical access.

Documents containing personally identifiable information may only be submitted via encrypted email, by first class mail or it may be hand carried to the security office.

Notice of visits must be submitted through the government contracting officer representative (COR) or technical representative who will deliver them to the security office. All notice of visits must be received three business days in advance of the Contractor reporting for work.

The Contractor will work through the COR or technical representative for the contract who will serve as the liaison between the security office and the Contractor. Contractor employees who are not sponsored by a government employee will not be granted access to any facilities under HECSA control nor will HECSA security approve logical access to information systems if a notice of visit containing either the DOD ID number or the social security number is not provided to the security office.

Contractor personnel who do not require a common access card may be granted physical access based on favorable results of an NCIC III records check. Contractors who need a common access card must have the minimum of a favorably adjudicated NACI. If no investigation is on file the CAC will not be issued until a favorable FBI fingerprints check is received by the security office and the NACI has been initiated in PSIP. HECSA Security will initiate all NACI investigations. Contractors who require access to classified information must be performing work on a classified contract and the Contractor is responsible for initiating all required investigations for the appropriate security clearance.

If an employee has been the subject of a previous favorably adjudicated investigation, it may be reciprocally accepted if there has not been a two year break in service and there is no presence of new and potentially unfavorable information that casts doubt about the subject’s suitability. When a background check is reciprocally accepted but is more than 5 years old, the security office may initiate an NCIC III check to ensure no new unfavorable information exists.

Contractor employees whose access to classified information has been suspended or revoked will not be authorized logical access to government information systems IAW AR 25-2 paragraph 4-14 b (2) until that investigation is favorably adjudicated. These personnel will also not be allowed unescorted access to government facilities until the investigation has been favorably adjudicated by the Command Security Manager. OPM Final Credentialing Standards allow agencies to deny a CAC or PIV card to any individual who has had their access to classified information denied or revoked. Further due process is not required in these situations. The Contractor must provide employees who can be cleared to perform work and must immediately provide replacement employees for those who cannot be cleared.

All Contractor employees, to include Subcontractor employees, requiring access to Army installations, facilities, and controlled access areas shall complete AT Level I awareness training within 30 calendar days after contract start date, or 30 days after a new employee or Subcontractor employee is added, and annually thereafter. The Contractor shall submit certificates of completion for each affected Contractor employee and Subcontractor employee, to the COR or to the contracting officer, if a COR is not assigned, within 5 calendar days after completion of training by all employees and Subcontractor personnel. AT Level I awareness training is available at the following website: https://atlevel1.dtic.mil/at.

4.1.2 Operational Security (OPSEC) Standing Operating Procedure/Plan.

The Contractor shall develop an OPSEC SOP/Plan within 90 days of contract award.

The OPSEC SOP/Plan must be reviewed and approved by the requiring activity (RA) OPSEC Officer. The SOP/Plan will include the Government's critical information, why it needs to be protected, where it is located, who is responsible for it, and how to protect

it. In addition, the Contractor shall identify an individual who will be an OPSEC coordinator.

The Contractor will be provided the organization’s critical information (CIL) list and OPSEC plan. The Contractor must ensure all employees, including Subcontractor employees, are aware of the organizations critical information list and how to protect that information.

4.1.3 OPSEC Training.

All new Contractor employees will complete Level I OPSEC Training within 30 calendar days of their reporting for duty. Additionally, all Contractor employees must complete annual OPSEC awareness training.