Sascha Kemper

15 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

And that's why you don't need a J&A to extend the agreement.

 

Thanks, Vern!

Hello esteemed Contracting Community,

I have 3 BPAs (done under FAR Part 13) for audit services. They were awarded together and have the same period of performance (5 years, 2019 to 2024). The PoP is ending this summer and the original requiring office would like to extend the PoP of all 3 BPAs by 5 years. I've looked in Wifcon, read FAR 13.104 and 13.106 and 13.303-2 and 13.303-7 trying to figure out if a J&A is needed to non-competitively extend all 3 BPAs. FAR part 6.001 states that it is not applicable to Part 13. Additionally, my agency guidance states that competition happens at the order level, not the BPA level. As such, I think that I can extend the PoP by 5 years without having to do a J&A? Am I wrong? Please let me know if I need to provide additional details to assist with this question. Thanks!

On 10/6/2016 at 3:53 AM, Jamaal Valentine said:

I offer that simply in an attempt to respond to your question. I do not recommend that approach.

Find a few discriminating evaluation factors and give it a shot. Sounds like past experience, performance, and price is adequate enough since you are familiar with the regular pool of offerors. What do you hope to gain by evaluating "technical excellence, management capability (might need to leave that one out), and personnel qualifications"? Are you going to incorporate elements of the successful offeror's proposal into the contract?

Got it. Thanks, Jamaal!

No, we don't incorporate elements of the successful offeror's proposal into the contract. The other factors are suggested by FAR part 15 and are what lends itself to evaluating the proposals we receive to discern between the offerors. 

20 hours ago, Jamaal Valentine said:

I should have also asked what the intended evaluation factors are? Certain factors may make your goal impractical (e.g. technical approach narratives, key personnel, facilities, past performance/experience).

Based on what you buy, I presume your office and customer have become familiar with the offeror pool. Is the make-up of the competition pool varied or constant? If evaluators are familiar with offerors approaches, key personnel, past contracts, etc. it may be difficult to mask their identity.

You can ask for santized proposals void of identifying information (logo, letterhead, name, etc.), but this may only be a veneer of 'blind competition' for the reasons stated above.

What happens if an offeror's proposal includes identifying information? Is it removed from competition?

I recommend asking the CO to clarify what it is they want you researching. Is it simply redacting or not submitting offers identifying authorship or something more complex?

Evaluation factors would be technical excellence, management capability (might need to leave that one out), and personnel qualifications. Past performance is being reviewed by the contracting office on a pass/fail basis.

Your second point is our concern - we have a small number of established partners that make up the offeror pool, but technical approaches (due to what we buy) are not necessarily giveaways for the the evaluators.

My CO was looking for best practices' tips for the entire process, e.g. does it work better if we ask offerors to withhold all identifying info, redact certain parts, if we ask offerors to register and then we assign names to use in the proposal. If we use this approach, what's the cleanest way to do it (also for offerors who haven't been asked to do this before).

19 hours ago, apsofacto said:

How does one check the references of an anonymous proposal?  I'm skeptical of this approach- seems like it is not worth the heartache.

Sascha, what problem is the CO trying to solve?  Trying to defuse accusations of favoritism towards a particular firm?  Some problems may not be solvable . . .

References would be checked by the CO's office, not by the evaluation committee. The problem is we have a small pool of offerors that our CORs know well, so we're trying to remove favoritism or preferences for certain offerors.

My agency procures technical assistance services (development assistance) usually through CPFF contracts (sometimes award fee or firm fixed price). It's largely personnel based assistance (if that makes sense), e.g. helping a host country gain WTO membership, developing Customs systems/offices, agriculture development, banking sector, etc. It could include some hard- and software, but the majority of what we pay for is labor. We have a couple of procurements coming up, but the program descriptions are still being developed.

My supervisory CO has asked me to research how to do a "blind competition," which I understand is a process whereby companies interested in submitting offers do not use their own identity in their technical (and cost?) proposals. The purpose of the blind competition is to establish a true(r) objectivity on behalf of the technical evaluation committee. I have searched the wifcon pages and done a general online search, but have not found any guidance on how to set up a blind competition. I am looking for best ways to set-up/structure a blind competition, e.g. does it work better if offerors are instructed to write their technical proposals in such a way so as to not identify themselves or we ask them to register and then assign a number or other name to them? What are other lessons learned, best practices, guidance, pitfalls, etc.?

Thanks in advance for any inputs!