PD216ohio

As I drill down through the citations in Turner, etc... I get to M.Braun, Inc., B‑298935 wherein it states: Again, I see a trend of support that incorporation of 52.212-1 becomes a modification to the general rules of an RFQ.... Unless I am misunderstanding what I am seeing. I am not a lawyer.

Hi Ji20874, In Turner it states "FAR provisions in Parts 14 and 15, governing the late delivery of bids and proposals, generally do not apply to the late delivery of a quotation. However, where as here the RFQ contains a late submission provision that quotations must be received by a stated deadline to be considered, quotations cannot be considered if received after the deadline. See Data Integrators, Inc., B-310928, Jan. 31, 2008, 2008 CPD para. 27 at 2." In my instance, such provisions were made by the incorporation of the listed 52s in my original post... at least that is my argument. It seems supported by Turner wherein the inclusion of such provision changes the rules of the RFQ as it did in Turner where the protestor was considered late in their quotation. As you stated, late submissions are typically allowed but Turner points out that the rules are modified by provision in that case. This is why I have the question if the incorporation of 52.212-1, without modification, qualifies as a provision that changes the rules of an RFQ as it did in Turner, for instance.

A side question for you.... how long did it take you to get approved with the JCO? I was approved after some months of waiting... but came to find out I need additional permissions/coordination to access cfolders drawings. It's been just a very long and arduous process.

Hi Everyone, I am a new member here and am from the vendor side of things. This is my first post so I hope I am posting in the right area. I have recently bid a project that is identified as an RFQ on the 1449 although it is also referred to as a RFP in the SOW. After the due date, an email was sent to all offerors asking for them to submit their relevant experience with the explanation that a form, on which to do so, was accidentally omitted from the solicitation docs. I did protest, pre-award at the agency level, that such an allowance should not be made since the solicitation clearly stated the the evaluation would be based on price and experience. A bidder should know what that means and should have submitted an experience profile of some sort. The agency disagreed. Now, here we are post-award. We were not the successful bidder. I requested a debriefing that asked a number of questions, including when each bidder submitted their experience profile and what the base bids were (this solicitation had base items and option items). The response was that this was a solicitation under FAR part 13 and therefor the agency was not required to answer my questions to that extent. I was simply informed that the awardee price was X and my price was Y and that both of our experience evaluations were the same. The solicitation did incorporate the following as listed: FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors – Commercial, does apply to this acquisition with no addenda to the provision. FAR 52.212-2, Evaluation – Commercial Items, does apply to this acquisition. The specific evaluation criteria to be included are detailed in Section M of this combined synopsis/solicitation. FAR 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications – Commercial Items, does apply to this acquisition with no addenda to the provision, and is located in Section K of this combined synopsis/solicitation. FAR 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions – Commercial Items, does apply to this acquisition with no addenda to the provision. The incorporation of the above seems to modify some aspects of this being a FAR 13 solicitation. 52.212-1 raises the level of debrief criteria AND makes any modification after the due date unacceptable. I am trying to determine to what extent the incorporation of the above FAR 52s modifies the rules of a simplified acquisition. It seems that it does so quite tremendously. I feel that in Turner Consulting Group, Inc., B-400421, Oct. 29, 2008, it is determined that the inclusion of FAR 52.212-1, without modification, changed the rules of a simplified acquisition so that it must conform with the incorporated rules. I suspect that most or all OTHER bidders may not have included their experience in a timely manner. I recognized the need to include it and did so in time. I am still awaiting the agency to fulfill my debriefing request which they might be convinced to now do (after I cited case law in support of doing so). If I cannot get satisfactory answers or if those answers support my belief that other bidders were late with submitting their experience, I will have to file a protest. But of course who wants to do that unnecessarily? The other aspect of this matter is the evaluation of the submissions. They are price and experience with experience being nearly equal to price. Is there a formula that might make this more clear? Let's assume that none of the others submitted experience in time but that does not mean their bid is considered non-responsive or late (they just don't have the benefit of experience added into their score for award), how much does experience bear in the overall score aka how much higher can I have bid if I am the only one with experience? Thank you all so much for any input. I've really enjoyed reading through this forum and am sure I'll get some very informed responses.

As an offeror myself, I tend to ask a lot of questions. I am fairly new to gov contracting but have been awarded two projects. On both of them, I asked a ton of questions post award. Both project CORs admitted later on that they didn't think I could do the jobs (I assume because of my questioning practice). Upon completion of both projects, the CORs and the contracting officers heaped praise upon me for jobs well done. I tend to be detail oriented and am not eager to accept answers that are not clear. Not to cause offense, but I feel like many of the projects I have bid were very poorly written and the responses to my questions are too often vague. I get the impression that many contracting officers are busy with many things and my questions are an additional burden so the answers are lackluster. I have also read the questions that other bidders submit on published Q&As and I have to cringe sometimes. I do understand your position on those who appear less than "intelligent". I see the same thing but I don't think the qualifiers you've laid out are proper indications of intelligence. Perhaps repetition comes from lack of clarity in answers or probably more so that the asker and the answerer are not on the same page and don't quite realize it. I think most potential bidders are careful or afraid of aggravating the CO, especially prior to award lol. Perhaps this too is a reason their questions aren't as pointed as need be? My biggest pet peeve are non-responsive COs during the bid phase and even worse, non-responsive COs after the bid date. I have had at least two projects that I have bid that I never heard the result of and can only assume were abandoned without notice to any bidders. I think it is important to realize that we bidders do typically put a lot of time into our bids and it that needs to be taken into account. FYI, this is my first post here. Don't take anything as criticism but as honest input from the bidding side.