B01.01 Combined Synopsis & Solicitation - Podcast Editing dated 2025.04.18.docx

REPLY TO

ATTENTION OF

) Department of the Army

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

HUMPHREYS ENGINEER CENTER SUPPORT ACTIVITY

7701 TELEGRAPH ROAD

ALEXANDRIA, VA 22315-3860

Contracting Office: CEHEC-CT 14 APR 2025

COMBINED SYNOPSIS - SOLICITATION

SOLICITATION NUMBER: W912HQ25R0006

TITLE: RSM RIVER MECHANICS PODCAST EDITING

1. GENERAL INFORMATION

This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial services 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. Proposals are being requested. This solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2025-03, dated 03 JAN 2025.

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

This acquisition is being solicited as a total small business set-aside. Competitive set-aside procedures will be used. The North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 512290 Other Sound Recording Industries, with a size standard of $22.5M.

2. NATURE OF ACQUISITION

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Institute for Water Resources (IWR) 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 Thursday, 24 April 2025, 4:30PM US Eastern Standard Time (EST). Proposals must be received no later than Thursday, 08 May 2025, 4:30PM US Eastern Standard Time (EST). Electronic proposals submitted via email are required. All questions and proposals shall be sent to the Contract Specialist, Ms. Kieran Jacobson at email: Helen.Jacobson@usace.army.mil. A copy of all questions and proposals should be 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.

3. DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES

Background:

The mission of the IWR Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC) is to serve as the USACE Center of Expertise in the technical areas of surface and groundwater hydrology, river hydraulics and sediment transport, reservoir system analysis and a number of other closely associated technical subjects. HEC's primary goal is to support the nation in its water resources management responsibilities by increasing USACE’s technical capability in hydrologic engineering and water resources planning and management. Additionally, HEC provides services to other Federal, state, local and international agencies engaged in these technical areas.

IWR-HEC produces a Regional Sediment Management (RSM) River Mechanics Podcast. The intent of the podcast is to capture institutional wisdom and process insight of river-mechanics experts to collect and disseminate lessons learned over distinguished, multi-decadal, river-mechanics careers in a podcast format. River mechanics, sediment transport, and fluvial geomorphology are wisdom-based disciplines. Practitioners typically learn much more about these topics from conversations with senior subject matter experts than from manuals, conferences, or even classes. The RSM River Mechanics Podcast leverages innovative tech-transfer mechanisms to capture some of this institutional wisdom and deliver it to the sediment community.

HEC seeks services to edit the podcast recordings. The raw audio includes interviews with the most respected researchers, professors, and practitioners in fields relevant to the RSM River Mechanics Podcast. Guests are selected primarily for technical expertise and usually have little experience with interviews. They are often not as articulate as they would like to be. HEC is looking for an editor who will carefully and thoughtfully spotlight their content and honor their career by making them sound as smooth and well-spoken as possible.

Requirement:

Provide professional editing and sound mixing for episodes of the RSM River Mechanics Podcast. This contract procures editing services to improve the quality of audio interviews recorded in person, making detailed edits to the host and guest tracks and sound engineering decisions to produce professional, industry-standard, audio products.

These episodes will be - almost entirely - interview podcasts with audio from a host and one-to-three guests. Occasionally we record them opportunistically in a live setting with an audience (e.g. conference panel) which affects the quality of the audio. Future episodes are also likely to include “clip episodes” or trailers which will include segments from multiple interviews interspersed with explanatory audio. Most of the episodes are recorded live by the host, who is not an audio specialist. The quality of the delivered audio can vary and, in the past, has included some ambient noise that has affected the difficulty of the edit.

Period of Performance:

The period of performance (POP) is sixty (60) days from the date of contract award; there are four Option Tasks which each have a POP of fifty (50) days from Option award.

Place of Performance:

The Offeror’s facility. See the Performance Work Statement (PWS) for additional information.

4. BASIS FOR AWARD

All offers will be comparatively evaluated based on the factors described below: Technical Understanding and Approach, Management Approach and Scientific Background, Past Performance and Price. Offers must be submitted using the CLIN structure below in Factor 4 - Price.

Factor 1 – Technical Understanding and Approach:

The Offeror must submit a technical proposal detailing how the Offeror’s will complete requirements specified in the PWS. The Offeror must limit their technical proposal to no more than twenty (20) typed pages. Key personnel resumes are highly encouraged and do not count against the page limitation. Key personnel resumes are limited to no more than 2 pages each.

The offeror’s proposal will be evaluated to determine the offeror’s demonstrated capability to perform the requirements in the PWS.

a. Describe your approach to editing podcasts.

· Describe the technical steps you take when you are editing interview audio.

b. Describe your philosophy and the aesthetic approach to a technical interview edit.

c. Provide link to at least one published podcast (with technical content and multiple episodes) edited within the last four years. Indicate the episodes edited (if the contractor did not edit all the episodes in the submitted podcast).

· Offerors may submit a 10-minute clip of raw audio from one of these episodes to demonstrate the quality of the edit through a before-and-after comparison. If the contractor submits a clip for comparison, make a detailed note of the episode and time of the published podcast HEC should compare it to.

d. Describe your Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) process.

Offerors must include their proposed level of effort (labor hours) broken down per each labor category per each PWS task that they are proposing. Offerors must include a grand total level of effort proposed.

Factor 2 – Management Approach and Scientific Background:

This requirement is for editing a technical podcast describing complicated river mechanics, sediment transport, and fluvial geomorphology. The Contractor requires demonstrated capability within a scientific background to help guide the edits (e.g. make cuts for redundancy or conciseness). Describe your background in applicable science related fields which demonstrate your understanding of what material would be appropriate to remove.

Offerors will be evaluated based to determine the strength or weakness of their scientific background in applicable science fields that are relevant to performing the work as described in the PWS.

Factor 3 – 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. A minimum of one and a maximum of three examples of past performance may be submitted. The examples must from within the 3 years preceding the date of the solicitation.

Past performance may be submitted using the attached Past Performance Questionnaire (PPQ). All PPQs must be received prior to the due date and time for proposals, or they will be late. See FAR 52.212-4(f) for additional information.

Factor 4 – Price:

The resulting contract will be firm fixed price. Price reasonableness will be used for evaluation. The price factor will be evaluated using the price analysis techniques described at FAR 15.404-1.

Grand Total

The price proposal must include the subtotal price per each PWS task to complete the required services in accordance with the PWS, including all indirect rates and profit. The price proposal must include the grand total to complete all tasks. Price will be evaluated on a total evaluated price basis (assumes all options will be awarded).

Basis for Evaluation:

Discussions: 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). Offerors should submit their best offer with the initial proposals.

Importance of Evaluation Factors Factor 1 – Technical Understanding and Approach is more important than Factor 2 – Management Approach and Scientific Background which is more important than Factor 3 – Past Performance.

The non-price factors, when combined, are significantly more important than the price.

Price will not be scored or 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.

Factor 1 – Technical Capability, and Factor 2 – Organizational Management and Structure will be evaluated using the following combined technical/risk adjectival ratings detailed in the table below:

Combined Technical/Risk Ratings:

Color Rating Adjectival Rating

Description

Factor 3 – 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 may 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. 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:

Past Performance Relevancy Ratings:

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 4 – 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 solicitation will contain a price schedule that the offerors will be required to complete. The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable and may be rejected if the prices are significantly unbalanced.

5. PROPOSAL PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS

FAR 52.212-1 – INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS – COMMERCIAL SERVICES

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 Ms. Kieran Jacobson at email: Helen.Jacobson@usace.army.mil and a copy shall be emailed to Mr. David A. Kaplan, Contracting Officer at email: David.A.Kaplan@usace.army.mil. 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. Offerors must receive a minimum rating of Green/Acceptable for Factors 1 and 2 and a minimum rating of Neutral Confidence for Factor 3.

e. Offer Content: See section IV – Factor 1 and 2, above

6. 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 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 Understanding and Approach

(ii) Management Approach and Scientific Background

(iii) Past Performance

(iv) Price

Factor 1 – Technical Understanding and Approach is more important than Factor 2 – Management Approach and Scientific Background which is more important than Factor 3 – Past Performance.

The non-price factors, when combined, are significantly more important than the price. The government reserves the right to award to other than the lowest price offer or other than the highest non-price factors rated offer. The government reserves the right to reject all offers.

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.

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