B01.01 CSS - W912HQ24R0016.docx

Combined Synopsis/Solicitation Number: W912HQ24R0016 Title: Waterborne Trade & Deep-Draft Vessel Service Data & Information Incorporating Geographic\AIS (Automatic Identification System) Tracking of Vessel Movements for Waterborne Transport Services Serving the United States to Inform Economic & Engineering Evaluations of Federally-Sponsored Waterway Systems under Stewardship of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)

I. GENERAL INFORMATION

This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in FAR 12.603 – Streamlined Solicitation for Commercial Items, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice and FAR Part 13 procedures. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation. Offers are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued. This solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2024-03, dated 23 February 2024.

A Firm Fixed Priced (FFP) award will be made in accordance with the following:

This acquisition is being solicited unrestricted and is open to both small businesses and other than small businesses. The North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 519210 Libraries and Archives: with a size standard of $21.0M.

II. NATURE OF ACQUISITION:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineer Center (HEC) has a requirement to purchase the services stated below. This procurement will be awarded under Simplified Acquisition Procedures for Commercial Services. All questions must be received by Friday 20 September 2024, 4:30 pm eastern US. Proposals must be received no later than Wednesday 25 September 2023, 4:30 pm eastern US. Electronic proposals submitted via email are required.

All questions and proposals shall be sent to the Contract Specialist, Mr. Bart Dziadosz at email: Bartholomew.Dziadosz@usace.army.mil and a copy furnished to the Contracting Officer, Mr. David A. Kaplan at email: David.A.Kaplan@usace.army.mil.

It is the Offeror’s responsibility to ensure the proposal has been received by the contracting office via email. Fax proposals will not be accepted. Late proposals will be processed in accordance with FAR 52.212-1(f) “Late submission, modifications, revisions, and withdrawals of offers.” Upon receipt of the electronic offer, the Government will acknowledge receipt of that offer via email to the Offeror.

III. SCHEDULE OF SUPPLIES/SERVICES:

Background:

USACE is tasked with admin and technical support of the federally sponsored waterborne navigation mission on a nationwide basis as part of its civil works function. Correspondingly, USACE is the primary federal agency that provides engineering and technical support for development, operation and maintenance of the nation’s waterways and collaboratively works with other federal authorities including the United States Coast Guard (USCG) and others to formally enforce or uphold jurisdiction and stewardship of the nation’s navigable waterways where or to the extent considered by Congress to be in the national interest.

Organizational elements within USACE which have direct need for acquisition and application of subject data include the Waterborne Commerce Statistics Center (IWR-WCSC, located in New Orleans, Louisiana) of the Institute for Water Resources (IWR), and the primary or capital region office of IWR (IWR-WRC, located in Alexandria, Virginia). Subject data and information are also collaboratively shared with and used by District-level waterborne navigation project analysts specific to individual project or waterway system improvement studies and evaluations.

IWR-WCSC serves as the primary USACE activity for the primary intake, compilation and processing of waterborne commerce data for USACE. IWR-WRC additionally gathers, processes, refines and analyzes maritime data and information for direct application to waterway project and program evaluations in support of the USACE civil works program for waterborne navigation. Data and information assembled by IWR-WCSC and IWR-WRC are employed in the engineering and economic evaluations of Federally sponsored waterway channel system improvements for deep-draft coastal harbors and approach channels in addition to intracoastal and internal or inland waterway(s) systems. Such improvements include placement of new general navigation features (GNFs) such as channels or vessel maneuvering areas and enhancements to existing features. Enhancements may include deepening and enlargement of transit channels and vessel maneuvering areas to accommodate evolving changes and operational requirements for vessel fleet physical characteristics and fleet service regime driven by trade combined with demand and economies of operation for supporting waterborne transport services.

Deliverables and Schedule.

Per the general description of need and use for data and information generally outlined in the preceding introduction, IWR (IWR-WRC and IWR-WCSC) have identified technical requirements for the acquisition of maritime-related data and information regarding vessel movements and patterns of vessel service combined with supporting information pertaining to vessel specifications, ports and respective cargo handling facilities and infrastructure (docks or berthing, etc.). Initial research and inquiry regarding readily-available data and information products or services that appear to generally fulfill specifications indicate several such products or services are commercially available. Generally, these products were created for use by commercial maritime interests for market intelligence, logistics evaluation and maritime asset management but in the interest of cost efficiency these same products or services may also fulfill the primary procurement and technical specifications of concern to USACE and the Government. Within this context, additional review of the current and foreseeable products market appears to reasonably affirm that applications employing real-time or near real-time AIS (Automatic Identification System) tracking with integrated or easily-linked information for vessel specifications, tracking of vessel transit, port location and port facilities will acceptably fulfill crucial technical requirements for waterborne navigation evaluations.

A summary of primary requirements and considerations includes the following:

1.) Real-time or near real-time tracking of vessel movement(s) or transit(s) with sufficient resolution across time and geography to reasonably assess transit time of occurrence and duration, speed and geographic location for open water or ocean-going transit and transit within protected waterways or harbors. Transit time within protected or internal waterways and harbors with maximized granularity of elapsed time is of particular interests for evaluation of vessel operations and related evaluations for waterway capacity, vessel costs, and vessel engine emissions.

2.) Tracking of vessel movements from origin(s) to destination(s); not only at the general port-to-port level but with capability (to the greatest extent possible) to discern or drill down to the waterway segments or GNFs used in addition to the docks or quays (and associated facilities) employed for a given vessel call.

3.) Ready availability of data for historical vessel movements (subject to 1.) and 2.); preceding) for as many years as possible with a history extending back at least three (3) whole calendar years from the current year in addition to the time elapsed for the current calendar year of operation or available data.

4.) Integral or easily\readily linked location and descriptive information for ports and respective dock facilities.

5.) Integral or easily\readily linked information for individually tracked vessels (including identification and physical parameters in addition to geography or course of transit).

6.) The ability to readily download and extract or export relevant data and information.

7.) Sufficiency in coverage of waterborne or maritime vessel movements worldwide with respective census of the world’s ports and deep-draft fleet. Coverage should capture nearly or virtually all relevant vessel movements by type and size supporting waterborne cargo or commercial vessel service and trade with particular emphasis on vessel services serving the United States.

8.) Costs; direct or explicit costs for data and information product acquisition with considerations of internal time and efficiency for applied use respective to 1.) through 7.); preceding.

Period of Performance: The period of performance will include one base year and four (4) one-year option periods.

Place of Performance:

The Offeror’s facility. See the Purchase Description (PD) for additional information.

IV. BASIS FOR AWARD

All offers will be comparatively evaluated based on the factors described below: Technical, Past Performance and Price.

FACTOR 1 – TECHNICAL:

The Offeror must submit a technical proposal detailing the capability to provide the data as specified in the attached Purchase Description. The Offeror must limit their technical proposal to no more than thirty (30) typed pages. Key personnel resumes are encouraged and may be included. Key personnel resumes do not count against the page limitation. Key personnel resumes are limited to no more than 2 pages each.

Factor 1, “Technical Understanding and Approach”: The offeror’s proposal will be evaluated to determine the offeror’s understanding the requirement and ability to provide data as specified in the Purchase Description. The offeror’s proposal submitted in response to the solicitation shall be evaluated on the depth and breadth of the data that can be provided and the demonstrated ability to provide this data throughout the period of performance without interruption.

Factor 2 “Past Performance”: The offeror’s past performance will be reviewed to determine recency, relevancy, and the quality of performance on the past contracts. The Government will evaluate the offeror’s record of past and current performance to ascertain the probability of successfully performing the required efforts of the PWS.

Factor 3 “Price”: The resulting award will be a firm fixed-price contract. Price reasonableness will be used for evaluation. The price factor will be evaluated using the price analysis techniques described at FAR 15.404-1, consisting of comparison of competitive offers received in response to the solicitation and comparison to the independent government cost estimate (IGE).

Grand Total

Prices must show the total price per year to provide the required data in accordance with the PD. This requirement will be awarded as a firm-fixed price contract.

The Government intends to award a contract without discussions with respective offerors. Offerors shall submit sufficient information and, in the format, specified in the Proposal Preparation Instructions. Offerors may be asked to clarify certain aspects of their offer (e.g., the relevance of technical capability information).

Factor 1 “Technical Understanding and Approach will be evaluated using the following combined technical/risk adjectival ratings:

Combined Technical/Risk Ratings:

Color Rating Adjectival Rating

Description

Factor 2 “Past performance” for the previous three years will be evaluated in accordance with FAR 15.305(a)(2) and the DoD Source Selection Manual. The criteria to establish relevancy will be stated in the solicitation. Consideration will be given to those aspects of an offeror’s contract history that would give the greatest ability to predict whether the offeror will satisfy the current requirement. The Government will use data provided in the offeror’s proposal and data obtained from other sources, such as the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS). In the case where an offeror does not have record of relevant 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 may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance in accordance with FAR 15.305(a)(2)(iv). Therefore, the offeror shall be determined to have unknown past performance. Offerors determined to have unknown past performance will receive a neutral rating. Past Performance will be evaluated on relevancy and confidence using the following ratings:

a. Past Performance Relevancy Ratings:

b. Past Performance Confidence Assessments

No Confidence

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

Factor 3 “Price” 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 significantly unbalanced.

Importance of Evaluation Factors Factor 1 “Technical Understanding and Approach” is more important than Factor 2 “Past Performance”.

The non-price factors, when combined, are approximately equal to price.

V. QUOTE PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS

52.212-1 Addendum – Instructions to Offerors – Commercial Items To ensure timely and equitable evaluation of quotes, offerors must comply with instructions contained herein. Offers must be complete, detailed and respond directly to the requirements of this solicitation.

a. Interested parties capable of providing the requirement must submit a signed and dated offer on company letterhead with unit prices, extended prices, discount terms, tax identification number, CAGE code, and SAM Unique Identifier in response to this solicitation. The requirements of this synopsis/solicitation, including specification, "Schedule of Supplies/Services" and terms and conditions, the offeror agrees to all solicitation requirements. Offerors must clearly identify any exception to the solicitation terms and conditions and provide complete accompanying rationale.

b. All offer information shall be emailed to the Contract Specialist and Contracting Officer detailed above. The offer must be signed and dated by an authorized official of the company. Electronic submissions via e-mail are required.

c. Offerors must provide price information in addition to the subtotal for each Task and the total price to complete the required services. Price information must include the hourly rate (fully burdened) proposed for each labor category and the quantity of labor hours per each labor category per each task.

d. To be eligible to receive an award resulting from this Combined Synopsis Solicitation, Contractors must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) database, no exceptions. To register, please visit http://www.sam.gov.

e. Offer Content: See section IV – Factor 1 - 3, above

VI. CONTRACT TERMS AND CONDITIONS:

The following provisions and clauses apply to this acquisition and can be viewed electronically at https://www.acquisition.gov/ in accordance with 52.252-1. The use in this solicitation of any Department of Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (48 CFR Chapter 2) provision with an authorized deviation is indicated by the addition of "(DEVIATION)" after the name of the regulation.

The Following Provisions and Clauses Are Incorporated By Reference:

The Following Provisions and Clauses Are Incorporated by Full Text:

FAR 52.212-2: Evaluation -- Commercial Items 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:

(i) Technical Capability

(ii) Past Performance

(iii) Price

Factor 1 “Technical Understanding and Approach” is more important than Factor 2 “Past Performance”.

The non-price factors, when combined, are approximately equal to price.

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 52.212-3 ALT I Offeror Representations and Certifications -- Commercial Items is incorporated by reference in this combine synopsis and solicitation. Offerors must include a statement that certifies the Offeror’s Representations and Certifications are up to date in System for Award management.

FAR 52.212-5 Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders.

The following FAR Clauses cited within FAR 52.212-5 are applicable to this acquisition:

The following FAR and DFARS Clauses are applicable to this acquisition in addition to those above in the table for clauses within FAR 52.212-5.