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Comparative analysis with technical factors in equal wieght


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15 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

There is no description of the basis of award

Disagree as you may I believe my statement does provide that the reasoning or justification for award will be two technical factors of equal weight and price.   In fact I find nothing in FAR 16.505 that there must be a description of basis of award during the fair opportunity notice period. 

4 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

For Part 15 Source selections,

Here in is the problem.   You have now elected to specifically enlist FAR part 15  which by my read of the overall thread is your thinking all along.  Get away from it and live with the fact that "t(T)he contracting officer may exercise broad discretion in developing appropriate order placement procedures. The contracting officer should keep submission requirements to a minimum. Contracting officers may use streamlined procedures, including oral presentations." and "the policies in subpart  15.3 do not apply to the ordering process."  So in truth leave FAR 15 and especially 15.3 at the door.    My read of the DFARS at subpart 216.5 supports such an ideal as well.

To the OP and continued discussion I will agree that "complex" requirements must be considered but I am with @formerfed such complexity should have been known at the outset and the strategy for an IDIQ solution would (should)  address such a situation in the selection process for parent awardees.  And if it is felt that complexity will possibly exist after award of the parent IDIQ's then craft fair opportunity processes and state them in the parent IDIQ that allows for "u(U)sing a multiphased approach when effort required to respond to a potential order may be resource intensive (e.g., requirements are complex or need continued development), where all contractors are initially considered on price considerations (e.g., rough estimates), and other considerations as appropriate (e.g., proposed conceptual approach, past performance). The contractors most likely to submit the highest value solutions are then selected for one-on-one sessions with the Government to increase their understanding of the requirements, provide suggestions for refining requirements, and discuss risk reduction measures."   

Bottom line use IDIQ with the streamlined processes and discretion allowed and get away from making a fair opportunity task order selection look like a FAR part 13, 14, or 15 process.   It is not it a selection process for task or delivery orders that must consider the guiding principles of FAR part 16 and that is stipulated in the parent contract that every contractor signatory to the parent contract has agreed to!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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If the government hasn’t provided the fair opportunity selection criteria in the solicitation and base contract 16.504 (a)(4)(iv) for the type and complexity of the task order being discussed herein,  then it should stand to reason that it should be included in the Fair Opportunity Notice. 

What you propose doesn’t inform the pool members anything other than the factors and their relative importance to strategize how to be submit a competitive task order proposal for a large, complex task order. My proposed sentence informs them of the selection criteria without any reference to Part 15.

Ive been involved in the task order process that has been used for billions of dollars of task orders for Army construction and design build projects which included similar selection criteria statements.

It makes sense.

 If you think the minimal info tat you proposed to the pool members is adequate then I disagree.

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15.101-1 Tradeoff process.

       (a) A tradeoff process is appropriate when it may be in the best interest of the Government to consider award to other than the lowest priced offeror or other than the highest technically rated offeror.

       (b) When using a tradeoff process, the following apply:

            (1) All evaluation factors and significant subfactors that will affect contract award and their relative importance shall be clearly stated in the solicitation; and

            (2) The solicitation shall state whether all evaluation factors other than cost or price, when combined, are significantly more important than, approximately equal to, or significantly less important than cost or price.

       (c) This process permits tradeoffs among cost or price and non-cost factors and allows the Government to accept other than the lowest priced proposal. The perceived benefits of the higher priced proposal shall merit the additional cost, and the rationale for tradeoffs must be documented in the file in accordance with 15.406.

Going back to the definition of trade off, the FAR pretty much lays out details.  So there’s no real need to add more language other than stating evaluation factors and relative importance unless you want.  You evaluate responses,  assess benefits, decide if benefits are worth a higher price, and make a decision.  The problem I see is the more you add to what is required, the greater risk a disgruntled vendor can find a fault or crack.

 

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16 hours ago, formerfed said:

Going back to the definition of trade off, the FAR pretty much lays out details.  So there’s no real need to add more language other than stating evaluation factors and relative importance unless you want.  You evaluate responses,  assess benefits, decide if benefits are worth a higher price, and make a decision.  The problem I see is the more you add to what is required, the greater risk a disgruntled vendor can find a fault or crack.

 

Formerfed-  my point is that, if you intend to use some type of tradeoff method, you must tell the pool members that you are using a “tradeoff” method or simply describe the selection criteria ( e.g., what my sentence says). From experience, I doubt that an ID/IQ  contract would include the specific selection criteria, unless all task orders would be issued using the same selection criteria. Our multiple award task order contacts were designed to allow the government to use a variety of pricing methods for task orders, such as IFB or trade off or low price technically acceptable, etc., to fit particular tasks.

Using the term trade off, by reference to that term, which is  only described in part 15, could result in a Protest forum linking certain processes to Part 15.

Of course, the government could use some other type of selection criteria that involves a trade off. However, it would have to describe those selection criteria either in the base contract or in the notice a fair opportunity..

in the original post in this thread, it should be obvious that the OP was looking for selection criteria wording hat probably was not described specifically in the base contract. The OP wanted to know what experience others had with equally weighted technical factors and if his detailed description of the processes and selection criteria seem to make sense.

my primary concern was that he uses the term comparative analysis without any explanation, and then includes the possibility of a trade off analysis, then has a lengthy description of the selection criteria. His use of “comparative analysis” is ambiguous. It has more than one meaning due to the proclivity of DOD to complicate everything in its source selection process. Here in this thread, there were at least two possible meanings of the term comparative analysis.

The OP would not have to use either the term trade-off or comparative analysis if he just describes the selection criteria that inherently include comparisons between proposals (e.g., as I posited in my one sentence). Thus, there would be no direct reference to the FAR part 15 or DOD supplement processes.

The bottom line is that you have to tell the contractor something about how they can strategize to provide the best value for the government to win the competition.

Oversimplification is as bad as overcomplication 

 

 

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Joel,

You did a good job of bringing us back to the OPs dilemma and question.  He wasn’t asking about what we ended up with discussing now.  I can’t disagree with what you said though.

Ill go back to ji20874’s initial post

Quote

all you have to say in the solicitation is that all three factors (two technical plus price) are of approximately equal importance and the Government will select the best value offer using a tradeoff approach.

That satisfies all the FAR part 16 ordering requirements and is straightforward.

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45 minutes ago, formerfed said:

Joel,

You did a good job of bringing us back to the OPs dilemma and question.  He wasn’t asking about what we ended up with discussing now.  I can’t disagree with what you said though.

Ill go back to ji20874’s initial post

That satisfies all the FAR part 16 ordering requirements and is straightforward.

Yes it does but -  it refers to the term tradeoff, which is only described in Part 15.  

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2 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

The bottom line is that you have to tell the contractor something about how they can strategize to provide the best value for the government to win the competition.

Hmmm...  For a fair opportunity consideration over $5.5 Million, it seems to me that we have to tell the contractors what is required by FAR 16.505(b)(1)(iv).

2 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

Using the term trade off, by reference to that term, which is  only described in part 15, could result in a Protest forum linking certain processes to Part 15.

One can use a tradeoff approach in a fair opportunity consideration without invoking any of the procedures of FAR subpart 15.3; indeed, subpart 15.3 procedures do not apply to fair opportunity considerations  (even when using a tradeoff approach).  There should be no fear of using a tradeoff approach in a fair opportunity consideration.

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I don’t necessarily disagree with ji, but either the contract or the task order notice is supposed to describe the “selection criteria”. Technically, the term “tradeoff approach” is a “process” and it is only described in Part 15.  

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5 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

...either the contract or the task order notice is supposed to describe the “selection criteria”. 

Really?  Does FAR 16.505(b)(1)(iv) require "selection criteria"?  You put it in quotes, but I cannot tell from where you are quoting.  FAR 16.505(b)(1)(iv) calls for listing the factors in relative order of importance and basis for award in a fair opportunity notice over $5.5 Million.  I cannot tell where you are quoting from, and I question your statement to any degree that it goes beyond FAR 16.505(b)(1)(iv).

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