SPECIAL NOTICE
R -- Professional and Eexpert Support Services - DCAA Pamphlet No.7641.90
- Notice Date
- 10/3/2012
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 541611
— Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services
- Contracting Office
- U.S. Department of State, Office of Logistics Management, Acquisition Management, P.O. Box 9115, Rosslyn Station, Arlington, Virginia, 22219, United States
- ZIP Code
- 22219
- Solicitation Number
- RFI1066205120
- Archive Date
- 10/30/2012
- Point of Contact
- Tracy R. Ford, Phone: 7038756056
- E-Mail Address
-
fordtr@state.gov
(fordtr@state.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Total Small Business
- Description
- DCAA Pamphlet No.7641.90 This is a Sources Sought/Request for Information (RFI) announcement only. This is not a solicitation and in no way commits the Government to award a contract. Furthermore, the receipt of this RFI and or submission of a response confer no rights upon the vendor nor obligate the Government in any manner. The Department of State's (DoS) Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) is performing market research to determine small business interest and capabilities for providing support for its Professional Support and Experts (PS&E) Acquisition Plan. This RFI is organized into the following sections: 1. Background 2. Objective 3. Contract Requirements 4. Instructions 5. Questions 6. Closing Date 7. Disclaimers *************************************************************** BACKGROUND The U.S. Department of State (DoS), Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) is planning a new acquisition initiative in support of its mission to strengthen U.S. national security by breaking cycles of violent conflict and mitigating crises in priority countries and supporting U.S. diplomacy by providing individual responders as needed to address overseas crises. The CSO Bureau maintains a professional staff composed of over 120 Foreign Service and Civil Service employees, augmented by over 50 contractor personnel performing a variety of administrative and professional support services. Personnel provided under this contract will support the operations of all CSO Offices. Personnel will provide basic support in the areas of bureau diplomacy, conflict analysis, planning, overseas response operations and other functional areas requiring contractor support. Work may also include collaboration with civilian and defense organization, including Department of Defense-Joint Forces Command (DOD-JFCOM), Combatant Commands (COCOMs), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and all other U.S. Government (USG) Agencies and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs). Contractor personnel working under this task may also work closely with all bureaus of the Department of State (regional and functional) and other inter-Agency offices as deemed necessary, and assist CSO in by providing expertise within CSO and provide surge capacity in support of CSO's mission. OBJECTIVE The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) has a projected continuing requirement for long term professional staff and short term subject matter experts with experience in varying fields of operations on conflict prevention and stabilization and is seeking vendor(s) capable of providing contracting services. CSO has established specific objectives to be achieved through this consolidation of CSO professional and expert services including the following: • Reduce indirect costs by 35 to 75%% (fee, profit, and G&A) • Reduce the overall CSO composite cost per labor hour by 15% to 25% • Reduce the number of CSO contract vehicles significantly by end of FY 2013 • Reduce PALT (Procurement Administrative Lead Time) to two weeks • Develop meaningful incentives to reward superior performance in the field, and retain high quality professionals that provide services to CSO (awards, performance bonuses, etc.) CSO requires that vendor(s) meet the criteria for small businesses described in Federal Acquisition Regulations Part 19. A critical assumption in this plan is that personnel contracted by CSO are generally well known professionals in their field that CSO has found or dealt with previously. As CSO has completed many of the steps associated with finding, training, and supporting their contractors, the responsibilities of any potential prime contractor are greatly reduced. The Department of State and CSO expect offerors to be flexible in discounting previously negotiated rates, or building new forward pricing rates to reflect the current situation in which CSO performs the tasks associated with Personnel, Human Resources (HR), IT support, travel, security, office space, and virtually every aspect of engaging its manpower. CSO is seeking deep discounts in composite rates due to the burden it carries for identifying and fielding contractor personnel. Bidders should be prepared to waive or discount virtually all fees, general and administrative costs, and contribution to overhead normally associated with federal contracting. In the cases where CSO requires new personnel that consume prime contractor recruiting and HR, those costs shall be passed to CSO directly as a separate Contract Line Item (CLIN). The costs associated with finding new personnel for CSO shall only be billed once, in the first year of service. CONTRACT REQUIREMENTS CSO seeks vendor(s) with the capability to provide the following professional expert support services: 1. Program Analyst (Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, Level 4 and Level 5): Under the general direction of the appropriate office director within CSO, the Program Analyst would provide professional services in one or more of the following disciplines: conflict analysis, conflict response planning, program monitoring and evaluation, training program development, financial planning and analysis, information technology program support and public diplomacy. The five levels within this general labor category recognize the different levels of demonstrated knowledge and experience that may be required within this broad labor category. These five levels would enable the contractor to offer professionals ranging from entry level professionals with fewer than two years of work experience in their discipline to senior level professionals with many years of experience and direct practical knowledge of CSO and State operations, working at senior levels within private and public sector organization. 2. Conflict Prevention and Stabilization Operations Experts (Junior, Mid-Level and Senior Experts): Under the general direction of the appropriate office director within CSO, the Senior-Level Conflict Prevention and Stabilization Operations Expert will support a broad range of assessment, planning and best practice requirements, and could be deployed overseas as part of a civilian response team or in their individual capacity. The position may require specific country and/or regional expertise and/or a high-level of technical knowledge related to Conflict Prevention and Stabilization Operations, including assessment, planning and program development, the media and communications environment, coordination among civilian agencies as well as with the military, and conflict and stabilization operations related to security, governance, humanitarian assistance and social well-being, economic stabilization and infrastructure, and justice and reconciliation. The position also requires maintenance of a broad range of contacts with U.S. and international local experts. 3. Transitional Stabilization Security Experts (Mid-Level and Senior Experts): Under the general direction of the appropriate office director within CSO, the Senior-Level Transitional Security Expert will support transitional security elements related to a broad range of assessment, planning and best practice requirements, and could be deployed overseas as part of a civilian response team or in their individual capacity. The position requires a high level of transitional security experience related to conflict prevention and stabilization operations, including assessment, planning and program development, the media and communications environment, and coordination among civilian agencies as well as with the military. The position requires specialized understanding of transitional security and related rule of law and governance issues in conflict and stabilization operations, and maintenance of a broad range of contacts with U.S. and international local experts. 4. Governance and Rule of Law Experts (Mid-Level and Senior Experts): Under the general direction of the appropriate office director within CSO, the Senior-Level Governance and Rule of Law Expert will support governance and rule of law elements related to a broad range of assessment, planning and best practice requirements, and could be deployed overseas as part of a civilian response team or in their individual capacity. The position requires a high level of governance experience related to conflict prevention and stabilization operations, including assessment, planning and program development, the media and communications environment, and coordination among civilian agencies as well as with the military. The position requires specialized understanding of governance issues in conflict prevention and stabilization operations, particularly related to transitional governance, and maintenance of a broad range of contacts with U.S. and international local experts. 5. Stabilization Force Development Experts (Mid-Level and Senior Experts): Under the general direction of the appropriate office director within CSO, the Senior-Level Stabilization Force Development Expert will support a broad range of assessment, planning and best practices requirement, and could be deployed overseas as part of the civilian response team or in their individual capacity. The position requires a high level of conflict prevention and stabilization experience related to civilian operations, particularly coordination between civilian agencies and the military. The position requires specialized understanding of operational requirements in conflict prevention and stabilization operations (e.g., security, communications, coordination), and the need to maintain a broad range of contacts with U.S. and international local experts. 6. Training Expert on Conflict Prevention and Stabilization Operations (Mid-Level Expert): Under the general direction of the appropriate office director within CSO, the Training Expert will advise on best practices related to training experts within CSO and the U.S. Government, and will assure that these best practices are integrated into all aspects of CSO work and deployments. The expert will support a broad range of assessment, planning and best practices requirements, and could be deployed overseas as part of a civilian team or in their individual capacity. The position requires experience related to conflict prevention and stabilization operations as well as state of the art training methods, and maintenance of a broad range of contacts with U.S. and international training institutions. When responding to these requirements, vendors should consider the following: 1. Cost: This contract will be a firm fixed-price, Indefinite Delivery Requirements (ID/R) contract. Funding will be provided under each issued delivery order (task order). A government cost estimate has been prepared. 2. Capability or performance: The selected offeror(s) must demonstrate the capability to provide professional expert support services on an "on-call" basis, for both short-term and long-term deployment assignments to CSO. 3. Delivery or Performance-period Requirements: CSO anticipates awarding a single contract from the solicitation to MOBIS firms to provide administrative and professional support services on a task-order basis. 4. Trade-offs: For this requirement, total composite price per labor category and minimization of fee and G&A are the determining factors for award. The following tables indicate illustrative labor rates: Current Hourly Rates Category Unloaded Rates 1 Composite overhead Final Composite Bill Rate 1 GS-12 40.66 62.3% 65.99 GS-13 48.35 62.3% 78.47 GS-14 57.13 62.3% 92.72 GS-15 67.21 62.3% 109.08 ES 79.47 62.3% 128.98 Average 58.56 95.05 Target Hourly Rates Category Unloaded Rates 2 Composite overhead 2 Final Composite Bill Rate 2 GS-12 43.71 15.6% 50.52 GS-13 51.98 15.6% 60.07 GS-14 61.41 15.6% 70.98 GS-15 72.25 15.6% 83.50 ES 85.43 15.6% 98.74 Average 62.96 72.76 Target direct labor increase 7.5% Target overhead savings factor 75.0% Resulting average savings per category 23.4% INSTRUCTIONS If your firm is capable of meeting the requirements described herein, please provide a ten (10) page Capability Statement and proforma pricing schedules. The Capability Statement should include general information and technical background describing your firm's experience providing similar acquisition services to demonstrate your potential ability to meet DoS objectives. The pricing schedules must detail projected indirect pools and follow the format specified in DCAAP 7641.90 - Information for Contractors - Chapter 3: Price Proposals. The RFI response should be formatted according to the following guidelines: • The Request for Information (Capability Statement) response should be a concise and focused Microsoft Word document and shall not exceed ten (10) single-sided, type-written pages including cover pages, table of contents, etc. • To facilitate the Government's comparative review of responses, all responses shall be ordered and numbered in the manner shown below. • Font should be Times New Roman, 12-point or larger. • All page margins (excluding headers and footers) should be 1". • Company name should be in the headers and page numbers should be in the footers. • Sale brochures, videos, and other marketing information materials are not solicited and will not be reviewed. • Use of the Department of State Seal is limited to official government use only. Use of the Seal by respondents (e.g. copying it into your response, in cover pages, or in headers or margins) is strictly prohibited. Proforma price proposals must be prepared in Excel format, with one Schedule in each tab. See DCAAP 7641.90 - Information for Contractors - Chapter 3: Price Proposals for an example. DoS requests a Vendor Capability Statement outlining your company's ability to perform the requested services. The respondent must indicate the extent to which it can meet each of the requirements in this RFI. Failure to address a requirement will be interpreted as an inability of the respondent to meet that requirement. QUESTIONS Any questions regarding this posting must be submitted no later than ten (10) working days prior to the due date of this notice, in order to allow answers to questions to be publicly posted before the required response date. No phone calls related to this Request for Information will be accepted. All correspondence shall be via email. DoS plans to eliminate duplicate questions by posting any and all questions on the www.fbo.gov website. If any questions contain proprietary information, then such information must be identified as such by the respondent. Additional information or updates will be posted at the www.fbo.gov website. It is the responsibility of interested parties to check this website regularly for any changes or updates. CLOSING DATE If your firm is capable of providing any of the service requirements described herein, then interested parties should submit an electronic copy of the completed capability statement in Microsoft Word format and proforma price proposals in Excel format via email. Responses are due no later than the date specified in this FedBizOpps notice, directed to Ms. Tracy Ford, Contracting Officer via E-mail Address at fordtr@state.gov with the subject line as stated as "PSE Acquisition Requirements" with your company's name. No telephone calls will be accepted in regards to this RFI. All questions and responses must be submitted in writting. DISCLAIMERS The Government does not intend to award a contract(s) based on the submissions of this RFI, nor does it intend to pay for any costs incurred in response to this announcement. This RFI is solely intended for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a solicitation. The Government intends to make socioeconomic-related and other acquisition strategy determinations based, in part, on responses to this notice. Responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Any proprietary information contained in the capability statement must be marked accordingly. The information obtained through this process is considered to be market research as described by FAR 2.101 and in accordance with FAR 10.002. Respondents will not be notified of the result of this market research.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/State/A-LM-AQM/A-LM-AQM/RFI1066205120/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Department of State, 2201 C Street, NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20520, United States
- Zip Code: 20520
- Zip Code: 20520
- Record
- SN02907515-W 20121005/121003234419-200c91f2267c176d7a80e0872b72dec0 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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