Mayonayze Posted May 17, 2017 Report Share Posted May 17, 2017 I am reviewing a DRFP Q&A where the Government states that their expected means of calculating the TEP in a best value evaluation for a highly complex multiple award IDIQ CLS program will be to simply sum the labor rates in a labor rate table attachment. I have never seen this before, and am wondering what the merits/limitations are of this price evaluation methodology in a best value competition. For clarification: LCAT / HOURLY RATE PM /120 PC / 70 SE / 110 ME / 90 JE / 50 TEP 440 Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lionel Hutz Posted May 17, 2017 Report Share Posted May 17, 2017 If I understand the situation correctly, the agency is requesting hourly labor rates but is not factoring in the estimated usage of each labor category when calculating the TEP. Such a method of calculating TEP is not acceptable as it does not reflect the expected cost to the government and could produce a misleading result. See for example the protest of R&G Food Service, Inc., d/b/a Port-A-Pit Catering, B-296435.4; B-296435.9. (http://www.gao.gov/decisions/bidpro/2964354.pdf) It states, in part: Quote Agencies must consider cost to the government in evaluating proposals, and while it is up to the agency to decide upon some appropriate and reasonable method for the evaluation of offerors’ prices, an agency may not use an evaluation method that produces a misleading result. The method chosen must also include some reasonable basis for evaluating or comparing the relative costs of proposals, so as to establish whether one offeror’s proposal would be more or less costly than another’s. For example, in Health Servs. Int’l, Inc., the solicitation contemplated the award of a fixed-price, indefinite-quantity contract and offerors' proposals were required to include hourly rates for six categories of labor. We sustained a protest challenging the agency's price evaluation because it was based solely upon offerors' average hourly labor rates, without consideration of the estimated quantities of each labor category the agency expected to order, and thereby failed to establish whether one offeror's proposal was in fact more or less costly than another's. (Citations omitted.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joel hoffman Posted May 17, 2017 Report Share Posted May 17, 2017 I agree with Lionel and have read similar protest decisions. There needs to be more definitive pricing information to evaluate than individual labor rates, such as a sample task or seed task with actual labor categories and proposed hours that will allow comparisons of overall price for price reasonableness, possibly realism, and for comparison between proposers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boof Posted May 17, 2017 Report Share Posted May 17, 2017 Remember that GSA has pioneered awarding IDIQ contracts with no pricing at all for which there will be competition at the task order level. The GAO overruled the protest against that method. So it is not so clear cut anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon Shumway Posted May 17, 2017 Report Share Posted May 17, 2017 48 minutes ago, Boof said: Remember that GSA has pioneered awarding IDIQ contracts with no pricing at all for which there will be competition at the task order level. Isn't the DOD currently bringing this back? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Mansfield Posted May 17, 2017 Report Share Posted May 17, 2017 Yes, but DoD will have statutory authorization to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon Shumway Posted May 17, 2017 Report Share Posted May 17, 2017 @Don Mansfield niiiiice! Good move. #MCGA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayonayze Posted May 18, 2017 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2017 15 hours ago, Boof said: Remember that GSA has pioneered awarding IDIQ contracts with no pricing at all for which there will be competition at the task order level. The GAO overruled the protest against that method. So it is not so clear cut anymore. How was that section M structured? Did it state that it wasn't going to evaluate price as part of the best value evaluation? This section M clearly states that price is part of the evaluation and has a distinct weighting compared to other evaluation factors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REA'n Maker Posted May 18, 2017 Report Share Posted May 18, 2017 On 5/16/2017 at 9:11 PM, Mayonayze said: Thoughts? I've got exactly one: "dumbest thing I've ever heard, and the knucklehead who came up with it should be drummed out of the profession". On 5/17/2017 at 2:41 PM, Boof said: Remember that GSA has pioneered awarding IDIQ contracts with no pricing at all for which there will be competition at the task order level But this "evaluation scheme" implies price will be evaluated by saying that they will sum rates! Maybe this is the time to step away from focusing on the clearly goofy attempt at crafting an SSP and move on to asking what exactly it is they are trying to accomplish? This looks like one of those ones where GAO would say to a post-award protest "good point, but you should have made that point before the solicitation closed". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob7947 Posted May 19, 2017 Report Share Posted May 19, 2017 Quote For clarification: LCAT / HOURLY RATE PM /120 PC / 70 SE / 110 ME / 90 JE / 50 TEP 440 What clarification? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rsenn Posted May 22, 2017 Report Share Posted May 22, 2017 It is implicit that they think all labor categories will use the same number of hours, whether that be one hour or 2080 hours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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