sbm1102

We typically ask for offerors to provide resumes of key personnel with their proposals.  But when it comes to designating what the key personnel positions are, should we dictate which positions are considered key personnel in the solicitation or should we leave it up to offerors to determine what the key personnel positions are?  I've seen it done both ways.

Will the order exceed $10 million? If not, then you don't have to worry about a protest. See FAR 16.505(a)(10)(i). I want an answer to that question before I spend any time on this.

Yes, the order will be more than $10 million.

Also, the ordering process is not described in great detail in the base ID/IQs so we always describe the evaluation/source selection process in great detail in the TOs...and plan to do so as well in this effort. The problem is that for the last 3 years, we state in our TOs that FAR 16 procedures apply and then go on to follow the FAR 15 procedures. We've been our worst enemy, and I'm trying to fix that. Trying to get the program office to come along has been a challenge because they seem to think that unless they get a 50 page proposal to read, they will end up with the lowest price offeror who doesn't know what they are doing.. We've finally gotten them to come around a bit, but I know the contractors will also have trouble with this change at first. I just want to make sure that I state very clearly what we intend on doing in the RFP.

I am a CO on a multi-award ID/IQ contract with a broad statement of work where work is more specifically defined in the SOWs of individual TOs. In the past year or so since the base ID/IQ contracts were awarded, the source selection procedures for competing TOs followed the FAR 15 model. Right now, we are soliciting for a follow-on TO and giving fair opportunity to all contractors.

I have read FAR Parts 15 and 16, have read Vern Edward's "Competitive Processes in Government Contracting: The FAR Part 15 Process Model and Process Inefficiency", seeked advise from legal counsel, and have reached out to other COs for their advise on how to streamline the evaluation process using FAR 16 versus FAR 15...and it's been difficult to get anything solid.

What we plan on doing is asking each offeror to essentially answer 5 questions pertaining to their technical and staffing approaches. The evaluators are going to review the responses, document the strengths and weaknesses of the responses, and determine which offeror is the most highly qualified from a technical proposal. There will be no proposal scoring, and we're not even developing an evaluation plan.

After technical evaluations, we will then factor in pricing and determine which offeror provides the best value. We're not ready to go LPTA on the requirement yet because of the nature of the work and the associated performance risks. Also, we are making sure not to use any of the FAR 15 terms in our RFP such as "competitive range", "discussions", etc. My question really has to do with discussions. If we want to enter into negotiations with only the most highly qualified vendor, is that allowable? Can we request a revised proposal from only that one vendor? What is the proper word to describe this communication...is it "exchanges"? Does anybody have experience with doing a FAR 16 source selection and have any advise on the kind of language we need to include in the instructions to offerors explaining the evaluation methodology? I want to make sure that we clearly communicate our strategy and stick to it because I know that will save us in the end if things go haywire and an offeror protests.

Thanks in advance to all who reply. This is my first post.