SchruteBeets

"One of the big challenges now will be to develop appropriate adaptations of the "highest technically rated offerors with a fair and reasonable price" for single award non-IDIQ contracts." Agree this is a big challenge and am excited by it. It will be interesting to see how the GAO handles a protest to a task or delivery order that attempts to utilize the HTROFRP methodology; perhaps noteworthy that such orders typically are not considered "negotiated acquisitions" like the Alliant 2 acquisition subject of the Sevatec decision. Looking forward to thinking more critically about the strategy laid out in Vern's post from Friday 12:43pm in this thread and ways that we can make that or something like it work; thank you for that post Vern. Part of the challenge is not only to develop an adaptation that is consistent with GAO's positions in Sevatec, but further convincing the budget-conscious program manager with the requirement and the funding that traditionally favors LPTA that in a single-award environment it is in the Government's best interests to use HTROFRP and award to the HTRO whose fair and reasonable price may be much higher than the other two offerors that were also highly rated (but not highest rated) and who also quoted fair and reasonable prices...of course such decisions regarding what value to assign non-price and price have always been and always will be a part of acquisition strategy.

Nash & Cibinic in February talked about combining source selection procedures. In the recent case linked here, K-MAR B-411262, the Air Force's approach to best value is interesting. One the one hand the AF told offerors that past performance, evaluated qualitatively not pass/fail, is significantly more important than price. On the other other hand the AF essentially stated it would rank-order proposals by price and then evaluate past performance of only the lowest priced proposal and if that offeror was rated substantial confidence for past performance then the evaluation process would stop. The Air Force did just that and K-MAR protested because its proposal and its past performance wasn't considered. Protest denied. In a footnote the GAO notes that K-MAR failed to protest the RFP's evaluation scheme prior to the deadline for proposals. What if K-MAR had timely protested the RFP's best value evaluation process, do you think the GAO would have sustained that protest? Is it wise to use this AF approach that past performance is more important than price but then not consider other offerors' past performance? http://www.gao.gov/products/B-411262,B-411262.2#_ftnref5

Yes it appears that the question was whether a 90-day phase-in is included in the 5 years mentioned in FAR 17.104(a) or is separate? And it appears that it was answered above (i.e., the up to 90 days in the continuity of services clause applies to the incumbent's period of performance, and don't exclude phase-in from successor's period of performance and if that contract/order is one with options then it should not exceed the 5-year limitation in 17.204(e) unless the agency has in place specific procedures to authorize more than 5 years). A related question is -- shouldn't a contractor be on guard for correctly pricing a government RFP/RFQ that includes both the Extension of Services clause and the Continuity of Services clause? In those circumstances the government could require the incumbent contractor to perform for up to 6 months and 90 days, respectively, (i.e., 9 months total) beyond the 5 year period of performance, right? P.S. Seeker - I am new to this board to and I guess can look forward to Copper Members taking cheap shots at my employer/agency if they find my posts painful to read. FWIW, while JJ's post was a bit rambling, it did exhibit his research, rationale, and gratitude for assistance.