SOLICITATION NOTICE
R -- VA Patient Food Safety and Defense Program
- Notice Date
- 3/5/2008
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 541690
— Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Veterans Affairs;VA Central Office;Acquisition Operations Service (049A3);810 Vermont Avenue, NW;Washington DC 20420
- ZIP Code
- 20420
- Solicitation Number
- VA-101-08-RQ-0126
- Response Due
- 3/21/2008
- Archive Date
- 4/20/2008
- Point of Contact
- Shaundra Duggans Contract Specialist (202) 461-6808
- E-Mail Address
-
Email your questions to Contract Specialist
(SHAUNDRA.DUGGANS@VA.GOV)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned
- Description
- 1. Title: VA Patient Food Safety and Defense Program 2. Solicitation Reference Number: VA-101-08-RQ-0126 3. Description: This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in Subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; quotations are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued. Responses reflecting availability of the service as described are requested in the form of a written technical and price quotation. This solicitation is being issued as a request for quotation (RFQ) and is a total Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business set-aside. The NAICS code is 541690 (Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services) with a small business size standard $6.5M. All responsible sources may submit a quotation that, if timely received, shall be considered by the agency. Questions in response to this solicitation are due Wednesday, March 12, 2008 NLT 4:00 PM EST. The due date for quotations is Friday, March 21, 2008 at 4:00 PM EST. Quotations shall be submitted electronically via email to Shaundra J. Duggans at shaundra.duggans@va.gov. The solicitation title and reference number shall be included in the subject line of ALL correspondence. 4. Statement of Work: (As a result of character limitations, only an excerpt of the Statement of Work (SOW) has been provided. Interested Offerors shall contact Shaundra J. Duggans via email for copies of the SOW. Telephone requests will NOT be accepted.) Food services within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are provided by several entities, including Nutrition and Food Services (NFS), Veterans Canteen Service (VCS), and in some cases other government or private contract entities. Nutrition and Food Services provides food service to patients and their policies apply to foods served to patients. Veterans Canteen Service provides food service to patients, staff, and visitors. Increased globalization of food suppliers, global economic pressures and the threat of food-related bioterrorism present challenges to which the VA must respond to ensure the agency is adequately prepared to mitigate or respond to potential threats or to potential large-scale, regional or national patient food-borne illness. To address such concerns, NFS is enlisting Contractor support to conduct a Vulnerability Assessment and Comprehensive GAP Analysis. The primary purpose of the assessment and analysis is to insure that only high-quality safe food is served to patients and that these national level policies appropriately address VA's capability to anticipate any internal or external threat of tampering and/or the possibility of a terrorist attack on its foodservices; and the likelihood of threats from globalization of food suppliers. The assessment and analysis shall evaluate the VA's preparedness and ability to provide mitigation strategies to either thwart an attack, or at the very least, mitigate the damage; to appropriately care for and monitor effected patients to recover from the economic and psychological impact of an attack; and to respond to potential large-scale, regional or national food-borne illnesses. The Vulnerability Assessment and Gap Analysis shall result in a report that contains summary findings for management review; highlights of systems already in place; recommendations from other best practices or industry standards; a list of items that may need to be implemented and notes on practices; documentation and other observations to assist the department in closing any gaps identified. The Contractor shall provide the necessary resources to conduct a Vulnerability Assessment and Comprehensive Gap Analysis as follows: (2) Vulnerability Assessment of the Department's susceptibility of patient food service resources to negative impacts from hazard events; either internal, external or both; (2) Comprehensive Gap Analysis of existing VA national Nutrition and Food Services policies including food recall process, national subsistence prime vendor contract and selected VISN 5 facility food safety policy and emergency preparedness policy that address food safety and security of food supply to patients??? 5. Instructions: In order to be considered responsive, the offeror's Technical Quotation must provide sufficient information to demonstrate the offeror's corporate capabilities and the approach that will be utilized to fulfill the requirements of the VA Food Defense project. Offers shall be submitted in two separate volumes as follows. Volume I, Technical Quotation shall be divided into four general areas as follows: (1) Understanding of the Requirement - Relative to the scope of this project, the offeror shall provide a written narrative that demonstrates their understanding of the processes that have been proposed and requirements that have been described in the statement of work; (2) Management and Operational Strategy - Relative to the scope of this project, the offeror shall provide a detailed description of the management, operational strategy, and project plan that sequences the events that the organization will employ to ensure prompt and efficient delivery of the products and services required. Included shall be a detailed description of the quality assurance / customer service plan and data management / reporting format that will be utilized to support the strategy. The quality assurance plan must demonstrate that the offeror's plan effectively measures the accuracy, quality and reliability of data throughout the process; (3) Corporate Capabilities and Personnel - Relative to the scope of this project, the offeror shall describe its overall organizational capabilities and identify the key personnel that will be assigned to this project. Resumes shall be submitted for key personnel assigned to perform this effort and shall contain documented experience directly applicable to the functions to be performed. Further, these prior work experiences shall be specific and of sufficient variety and duration that the employee is able to effectively and efficiently perform the functions assigned. The offeror shall also address its corporate experience and that of any subcontractor and consultants, emphasizing the extent of their experience relevant to the operation of a multi-institutional healthcare review program. The offeror shall also describe the proposed makeup of survey teams and describe how they will be enlisted and credentialed. These teams should include specialized expertise could include nurses, dieticians, and physicians; and (4) Past Performance - The Offeror shall identify three (3) contracts/task orders with the Federal Government and/or commercial customers that demonstrate recent and relevant past performance. Recent is defined as within the last three years. Relevant is defined as work similar in complexity and magnitude of the work described in the Statement of Work. Include the following information: Project title, Description of the project, Contract number, Contract amount, Government Agency/Organization and Point of Contact, and phone number/email address. Each reference shall include information that evidences customer satisfaction with products and services provided and demonstrate an offeror's compliance with a fulfillment of the requirements of previous contracts on both a technical and budgetary basis. The Government may also consider information obtained through other sources. Past performance information will be utilized to determine the quality of the contractor's past performance as it relates to the probability of success of the required effort. Volume II, Price Quotation - Offerors shall submit a Firm Fixed Price per each of the five (5) tasks following the CLIN structure identified in the Statement of Work. 6. VA Notice of Total Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Set-Aside: (a) Definition. In accordance with 38 U.S.C. ?? 8127, for the Department of Veterans Affairs, "Service-disabled veteran-owned small business concern"- (1) Means a small business concern- (i) Not less than 51 percent of which is owned by one or more service-disabled veterans or, in the case of any publicly owned business, not less than 51 percent of the stock of which is owned by one or more service-disabled veterans (or eligible surviving spouses) (38 U.S.C. ???? 8127(h) and (k)(2)(A)(i)); and (ii) The management and daily business operations of which are controlled by one or more service-disabled veteran (or eligible surviving spouse) or, in the case of a service-disabled veteran with permanent and severe disability, the spouse or permanent caregiver of such veteran (38 U.S.C. ???? 8127(h) and (k)(2)(A)(ii)); and (iii) The business meets federal small business size standards for the applicable North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code identified in the solicitation document (38 U.S.C. ?? 8127(k)(1)); and (iv) The business is listed in the VetBiz.gov Vendor Information Pages, (http://www.VetBiz.gov). (2) "Service-disabled veteran" means a veteran, as defined in 38 U.S.C. 101(2), with a disability that is service-connected, as defined in 38 U.S.C. 101(16). (3) "Surviving Spouse" is an individual as defined in 38 U.S.C. ?? 101(3). (b) General. (1) Offers are solicited only from service-disabled veteran-owned small business concerns. Offers received from concerns that are not service-disabled veteran-owned small business concerns shall not be considered. (2) Any award resulting from this solicitation will be made to a service-disabled veteran-owned small business concern. (c) Agreement. A service-disabled veteran-owned small business concern agrees that, in the performance of the contract, in the case of a contract for- (1) Services (except construction), at least 50 percent of the cost of personnel for contract performance will be spent for employees of the concern or employees of other service-disabled veteran-owned small business concerns; (2) Supplies (other than acquisition from a nonmanufacturer of the supplies), at least 50 percent of the cost of manufacturing, excluding the cost of materials, will be performed by the concern or other service-disabled veteran-owned small business concerns; (3) General construction, at least 15 percent of the cost of the contract performance incurred for personnel will be spent on the concern's employees or the employees of other service-disabled veteran-owned small business concerns; or (4) Construction by special trade contractors, at least 25 percent of the cost of the contract performance incurred for personnel will be spent on the concern's employees or the employees of other service-disabled veteran-owned small business concerns. (d) A joint venture may be considered a service-disabled veteran owned small business concern if- (1) At least one member of the joint venture is a service-disabled veteran-owned small business concern and makes the following representations: That it is a service-disabled veteran-owned small business concern, and that it is a small business concern under the North American Industry Classification Systems (NAICS) code assigned to the procurement; (2) Each other concern is small under the size standard corresponding to the NAICS code assigned to the procurement; (3) The joint venture meets the requirements of paragraph 7 of the explanation of Affiliates in 19.101 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation; and (4) The joint venture meets the requirements of 13 CFR 125.15(b). (e) Any service-disabled veteran-owned small business concern (nonmanufacturer) must meet the requirements in 19.102(f) of the Federal Acquisition Regulation to receive a benefit under this program. 7. Terms and Conditions: This solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2005-24. FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors--Commercial, applies to this acquisition. The following clauses are included as an addendum to FAR 52.212-1: VAAR 852.270-1 Representatives of Contracting Officers (JAN 2008) The contracting officer reserves the right to designate representatives to act for him/her in furnishing technical guidance and advice or generally monitor the work to be performed under this contract. Such designation will be in writing and will define the scope and limitation of the designee's authority. A copy of the designation shall be furnished to the contractor. FAR 52.212-2, Evaluation--Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition. Paragraph (a) is supplemented to include the following evaluation criteria listed in descending order of importance: Understanding of the Requirement, Management and Operational Strategy, Corporate Capabilities and Personnel, and Past Performance. Offerors shall include a completed copy of the provision at FAR 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications--Commercial Items. FAR 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions--Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition. The following clauses are included as an addendum to FAR 52.212-4: FAR 52.204-9 Personal Identity Verification of Contractor Personnel (SEPT 2007), FAR 52.217-8 Option to Extend Services (NOV 1999), FAR 52.227-17 Rights in Data--Special Works (DEC 2007), VAAR 852.203-70 Commercial Advertising (JAN 2008) The bidder or offeror agrees that if a contract is awarded to him/her, as a result of this solicitation, he/she will not advertise the award of the contract in his/her commercial advertising in such a manner as to state or imply that the Department of Veterans Affairs endorses a product, project or commercial line of endeavor; VAAR 852.237-70 Contractor Responsibilities (APR 1984) The contractor shall obtain all necessary licenses and/or permits required to perform this work. He/she shall take all reasonable precautions necessary to protect persons and property from injury or damage during the performance of this contract. He/she shall be responsible for any injury to himself/herself, his/her employees, as well as for any damage to personal or public property that occurs during the performance of this contract that is caused by his/her employees fault or negligence, and shall maintain personal liability and property damage insurance having coverage for a limit as required by the laws of the State of [ ]. Further, it is agreed that any negligence of the Government, its officers, agents, servants and employees, shall not be the responsibility of the contractor hereunder with the regard to any claims, loss, damage, injury, and liability resulting there from. FAR 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders--Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition. Of the additional FAR clauses cited in this clause, the following are applicable: 52.219.28 Post Award Small Business Program Representation (JUNE 2007), 52.222-3 Convict Labor (JUNE 2003), 52.222-19 Child Labor--Cooperation with Authorities and Remedies (AUG 2007), 52.222-21 Prohibition of Segregated Facilities (FEB 1999), 52.222-26 Equal Opportunity (MAR 2007), 52.222-36 Affirmative Action for Workers with Disabilities (JUNE 1998), 52.222-50 Combating Trafficking in Persons (AUG 2007), 52.225-3 Buy American Act--Free Trade Agreements--Israeli Trade Act (AUG 2007), 52.232-34 Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer--Other than Central Contractor Registration (MAY 1999), and 52.237-11 Accepting and Dispensing of $1 Coin (AUG 2007). 8. Point(s) of Contact: Shaundra J. Duggans, Contract Specialist, phone: 202-461-6808, fax: 202-273-7448, E-mail: shaundra.duggans@va.gov.
- Place of Performance
- Address: US DEPT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS;810 VERMONT AVE, NW;WASHINGTON, DC
- Zip Code: 20420
- Country: US
- Zip Code: 20420
- Record
- SN01524662-W 20080307/080305223827 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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