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Showing results for tags 'solicitation'.
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SCENARIO: The subject requirement has been solicited in the past on MATOC basis and only one vendor bid and received the award. In an effort to increase competition for the new requirement, extensive market research and industry days have been held. The goal is to have more than one vendor to promote competitive pricing on the T.O level. QUESTION: Can an agency (Other than DOD) use language in the solicitation to reserve the right not to award to less than two offerors. Essentially, saying if only one bid comes in we will not move forward with the award. DOD has additional guidance on how to deal with this. Our Agency does not have any additional guidance to supplement the FAR on this topic. Any ideas on creative legal language to prevent protest etc and canx sol?
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Has anyone recently used FAR 15.102 oral presentations in any source selections? If so, what were your experiences? The good, bad, and the ugly. How did you use them? As a substitute for written information? Just to augment written information? If you have used them (or are simply just aware of any) do you know of any prior/sample RFP's you could direct me? Thanks -
I'm not new to federal contracting but I thought this would be a good place to ask this question, and hope that in some eyes, I'm not overcomplicating things. I've often ascribed the borrowing of FAR Part procedures as the borrowing of a section of a FAR but I've been asked whether that's accurate and didn't have a good enough answer. For example someone in my office wants to borrow 1 line from part 15 in a FAR Part 13 acquisition. My answer was that they're borrowing the evaluation procedure, not the evaluation sentence under FAR Part 15 yada yada. But then I'm asked what the definition of a procedure is and I didn't have an answer. It's not defined under FAR Part 2. So my question is, what is a procedure in the context of using a "combination of procedures" from any parts of the FAR to craft an acquisition?
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Hello all, I'm new to this contracting forum so please forgive me if this question has already been asked and answered before. So I am in the middle of writing up my formal response to a protest I've received. I've been searching the FAR up and down and can't seem to find the exact FAR reference I am looking for and was wondering if this forum could be of assistance. I’ve looked in FAR parts 5, 10, 12, 13, 14, and 15, including DFARS references. The back story is: a vendor provided us with a market research quote on 6/29/17. Solicitation was posted on GSA from 8/14/17 - 8/18/17 and I received 3 quotes, including this vendor’s quote. Their quote was found to be technically acceptable but was higher than their original market research quote and was not chosen for award because they did not provide the best value to the government with price being the determining factor. They are protesting that we should have accepted their original quote from 6/29/17. The FAR reference I am looking for should say something like "Quotes from offerors in response to a solicitation can only accepted." Does anyone know of a reference like that in the FAR or a similar one that I can use for my formal protest letter? The FAR references that I think might talk to this is: FAR 13.106-2(a)(2), FAR 14.103-2, FAR 14.301(a)(1), FAR 15.201(c)(3), and FAR 15.208(a). I attempted to resolve this issue through cordial conversations, according to the guidance in FAR 33 “Protests”, prior to the protest and I explained to the vendor that quotes can only be accepted in response to a solicitation, not market research quotes. He didn't like that answer. So now I'm in a protest. I want to make it crystal clear to the vendor in my letter so as to avoid a GAO protest. Thank you for your time and assistance!
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Details for the upcoming solicitation for THE WALL are available on FedBizOpps (FBO):design-build structure, solicitation 2017-JC-RT-0001. Any thoughts on evaluation factors? https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=b8e1b2a6876519ca0aedd748e1e491cf&tab=core&_cview=0 "The Dept. of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) intends on issuing a solicitation in electronic format on or about March 6, 2017 for the design and build of several prototype wall structures in the vicinity of the United States border with Mexico. The procurement will be conducted in two phases, the first requiring vendors to submit a concept paper of their prototype(s) by March 10, 2017, which will result in the evaluation and down select of offerors by March 20, 2017. The second phase will require the down select of phase 1 offerors to submit proposals in response to the full RFP by March 24, 2017, which will include price. Multiple awards are contemplated by mid-April for this effort. An option for additional miles may be included in each contract award."
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If I have a requirement that will ultimately need the contractor to have certain security clearances to receive the award, and I am conducting full and open competition, can my synopsis posting require potential offerors to submit their clearance information for verification, and then we only provide those offerors who met the clearance requirement to receive a copy of the solicitation? Does that still provide for full and open competition? My thought was that the FAR 6.101(a) requires us to "...promote and provide for full and open competition in SOLICITING offers and awarding Government contracts" (emphasis mine). Since a synopsis is not a solicitation, and is simply a notice of a forthcoming solicitation, I do not see how we are providing for full and open competition through the solicitation if we are only handing out the solicitation to the pre-approved offerors who responded to the synopsis and had their clearances verified. Yes, overall we have given everyone an opportunity to submit an offer if they meet the security requirements, however it required the synopsis for us to do so. I think we need to give everyone an opportunity through the solicitation only, without using the synopsis as a screening tool. Other pertinent info: The synopsis adequately describes the process for submitting the clearance verification request and being eligible to receive the solicitation. the nature of the required work allows a synopsis and solicitation to be publically posted without compromising national security, thus a J&A pursuant to FAR 6.302-6 was not pursued. In addition, this would mean that the FAR 5.102(a)(5) national security exception to making the solicitation available on the GPE could not be used as well. My proposed solution would be to post a synopsis that adequately describes what the solicitation procedures will be (i.e. once the solicitation is posted, you will need to submit clearance verification information, and if you meet the clearance requirements, you will be given further solicitation documentation to be able to submit an offer). Then the solicitation would be posted publically on the GPE, and it would require potential offerors to submit their clearance information for verification prior to them receiving certain documents that would allow them to propose. The outcome is the same as the previous paragraph, but this way the solicitation was publically posted and the solicitation in and of itself provided for full and open competition, as opposed to the synopsis and solicitation providing for full and open competition only when considered jointly. -
I have always believed that the government may allow a contractor to write the SOW or requirements for the government. The government can use these specifications in their solicitation, but the contractor cannot bid on the resulting contract from those specifications that they supplied because it would be a conflict of interest. I have searched through the FAR and cannot find any specific FAR language that absolutely prohibits the practice. This would be a unique service where there is a limited number of contractors available to complete the work with different methods of completing the contract. Any thoughts. Thanks. This is still in pre-solicitation but will be a time sensitive procurement due to a very narrow weather window.
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There is a prosolicitation posted on Fed Biz Opps that my company plans to respond to at the solicitation phase. We notice that the customer can save millions of dollars if they chose an alternate scope of work. We would like to formally ask the customer to revise the scope based on our recommendations. Is there a procedure for doing this prior to solicitation phase?
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When is it appropriate to use the clause, FAR 52.232-18 'Availability of Funds' in solicitations? Working for the Army it has been observed that often times, especially for O&M requirements towards the end of the FY, a contracting office may issue solicitations without express assurance from a requiring activity that a certain, reasonable amount of funds are available for and will be commited to the specific requirement being solicited. In such cases Contracting Officers include the clause, FAR 52.232-18 'Availability of Funds' in the solicitation with the expectation that the requirement may not make it to contract award (could be because the requiring activity doesn't like the price, or has decided to re-prioritize it's funds elsewhere). This practice has been questioned, however, since that clause is prescribed by by FAR 32.705-1(a) for use 'in solicitations and contracts if the contract will be chargeable to funds of the new fiscal year and the contract action will be initiated before the funds are available.' And further, the Army has an agency specific restriction found at AFARS 5101.602-2(a)(1) that states, 'Except as authorized in FAR Subparts 17.1 and 32.7.., before issuing a solicitation, the contracting officer must have a written statement (or equivalent) indicating that sufficient funds are available.' One interpretation of this is that the exceptions at FAR Subparts 17.1 and 32.7 apply to multi-year and/or incrementally funded contracts, and outside those types of requirements, 52.232-18 is inappropriate and the Contracting Officer should have express funding assurance before issuing a solicitation. Another interpretation is that the FAR allows wide latitude in many cases (this being one of them), and the prescription at FAR 705-1(a) only suggests some but not all potential appropriate situations for including FAR 52.232-18 and soliciting without specific funding assurance. It has also been argued that using FAR 52.232-18 while operating under a CRA is almost always appropriate, since, essentially, all solicitations meet the presription at 32.705-1(a) and are 'subject to availablity of funds'. While investigating this issue other pertinent regulations & policy guidance has been consulted, including FAR subparts 1.6, 17.1 & 32.7 (and associated DFARS/AFARS regs), the DoD FMR (vol14 ch2), and the JAG fiscal law deskbook (ch4).