A -- PROGRAMMING ENVIRONMENT AND TRAINING UNDER THE DOD HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING MODERNIZATION PROGRAM

Notice Date

December 21, 2000

Contracting Office

General Services Administration, Federal Technology Service (FTS), FTS-ITAC SDC (4TS), 401 West Peachtree Street, Suite 2700, Atlanta, GA, 30308

ZIP Code

30308

Solicitation Number

GSA-ITAC-BAA-00-01

Response Due

January 23, 2001

Point of Contact

Tommy Thomas, Contracting Officer, Phone (404) 331-6115, Fax (404) 331-4066, Email tommy.thomas@gsa.gov

E-Mail Address

Tommy Thomas (tommy.thomas@gsa.gov)

Description

Section A: Introduction and Statement of Objectives (SOO): The High Performance Computing Modernization Office (HPCMO) is interested in receiving proposals for the _Programming Environment and Training (PET)_ project. The purpose of PET is to gather and deploy the best ideas, algorithms, and software tools emerging from the national high performance computing infrastructure into the DoD user community. HPCMO encourages partnering among industry and academia with a view to speeding the incorporation of new technology into fielded systems. <p> A three step process is being used for this procurement consisting of: (1) Request for Information (RFI), (2) White Paper with Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost estimate, and (3) Technical/Management and Cost Proposals. <p> The purpose of the RFI (Ref: CBD #5048G6) was to solicit comments on our solicitation approach and to clarify our objectives. The RFI step has been completed. The RFI questions and answers are posted on the web site referenced below for your information. <p> The Statement of Objectives (SOO) for this acquisition can be found at http://www.hpcmo.hpc.mil/Htdocs/RFI/index.html. <p> White Papers and Full Technical/Cost Proposals submitted in response to this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) are considered to be the result of full and open competition in accordance with FAR 6.102(d)(2). Each proposal must stand on its own merit. Only information provided in the White Papers and Full proposals will be used in the evaluation process <p> Section B: Award Information 1. Expected Award Date: June 2001 is the expected date for contract award.<br> 2. Anticipated total funding for the PET Program (not per contract): $144M ($18M annually for eight years). Note: This funding profile is an estimate only and is not a promise for funding as all funding is subject to change due to Government discretion and availability.<br> 3. Type of Contract(s) Anticipated: Cost Reimbursement (no fee for non-profits) or Cost Plus Fixed Fee Contracts (for profit entities).<br> 4. PET has been divided into four components (see SOO). Multiple (up to four based on the component structure) awards are anticipated. Offerors may bid on a minimum of one component and a maximum of four components. Offerors are encouraged to bid on more than one component when its determined to be advantageous to the Government (i.e. additional efficiencies/cost savings can be realized). Funding for the four components is initially planned at $4.5M each annually. Funding for the core and project support line items is anticipated to be approximately equal. The Government reserves the right to adjust the funding levels as needed through the life of the contract(s). <p> Section C: Proposal Preparation Instructions 1. General Instructions: The White Papers and technical/management/cost proposals submitted by offerors in response to this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) are the only vehicles available to the offeror for receiving consideration for award. Each must stand on its own merit; only information provided in the White Papers and proposals and oral presentations can be used in the evaluation process leading to an award. They should each be prepared simply and economically, providing straightforward, concise delineation of the proposed effort and associated capabilities. Only those offerors submitting White Papers assessed as having the most promise of meeting HPCMP needs will be asked to submit technical and cost proposals. Only these offerors will be considered for award. The cost proposal should be a separate volume from the technical /management submission, and must be valid for at least 180 days. Proposals must reference the PET BAA. Offerors must submit one original, one electronic (Microsoft Word or PDF format), and five paper copies of their proposals. Offerors are advised that only contracting officers are legally authorized to contractually bind or otherwise commit the government. The cost of preparing proposals in response to this BAA is not considered an allowable direct charge to any resulting or any other contract. Communications: Offerors may communicate with HPCMP technical personnel to resolve questions and provide general program information until a purchase request is received in the contracting office. Direct communications will operate in both directions, but questions on status or the evaluation process often delay the acquisition. The offeror should initiate discussions only when absolutely necessary. The following is prohibited: -Discussion of other offeror_s proposals, -Discussion of rating information, and -Proposal revision during technical discussion. Questions outside the scope of the technical focal point, such as contract terms and conditions or projected award schedule, should be referred to the Contracting Officer. Restrictions on Disclosure: Offerors should apply the restrictive notice prescribed in the provision of FAR 52.215-1(e), _Instructions to Offerors_Competitive Acquisition_ to data that are not to be disclosed to the public for any purpose or used by the Government except for evaluation purposes. Notice to Foreign-Owned Firms: Foreign participation is not authorized for this acquisition. 1. White Paper Instructions (First Step): a. Page Limitation: For one component 10 pages, for two components 17 pages, for three components 24 pages, for four components 31 pages, 10 pitch (12 point) or larger, double-spaced, single-sided, 8.5 by 11 inches. This limitation includes all information. The government will not consider pages in excess of this limitation. b. The White Paper shall include a discussion of the technical and management approach to accomplishing the SOO, identification of the PET component(s) that you are bidding on, potential teaming partners, and a ROM cost estimate. No resumes are required at this point. c. For the ROM cost estimate, no detailed cost support information should be provided; only bottom line annual numbers for the eight year period of performance. d. Offerors must submit one original, and one electronic (Microsoft Word or PDF format), copy of White Paper and ROM. The hard copy shall be delivered to the High Performance Computing Modernization Office, 1010 N. Glebe Rd., Suite 510, Arlington, VA 22201, Attn: Stephen Sobieski, by 2:00P.M. EST on 23 January 2001. The electronic copy shall be sent to sobieski@hpcmo.hpc.mil by 2:00P.M EST on 23 January 2001. 2. Proposal Instructions (Second Step): Those offerors submitting White Papers assessed as best meeting HPCMP needs will be asked to submit a technical/management and cost proposal. Only these offerors will be considered for award. a. Technical/Management Section: The technical/management proposal shall be comprised of an oral presentation, a written Statement of Work (50 page limit), a written past performance history (10 page limit), a written list of key personnel and their resumes (50 page limit), and a written deployment plan for on-site PET support (10 page limit). The oral presentation should focus on the technical/management evaluation criteria and the Statement of Work (SOW) submission. The Offeror_s SOW shall become Section C (the technical requirements) of any resulting contract. Offerors should be prepared to participate in a Question and Answer session conducted by the Government_s source selection evaluation team, following the oral presentation. The total time limit for oral presentation is three hours plus a one hour minimum question and answer period. The presentations will be given in the Washington DC Metro area between 26 March and 6 April (Monday-Friday) 2001. Do not include any proprietary information in the SOW. b. Cost/Business Section: Adequate price competition is anticipated. Cost should be submitted as a separate written volume. (1) Separate the proposal into a business section and a cost section. The business section should contain all business aspects of the proposed contract arrangement, unique terms and conditions, and any information not technically related. Rationale for any unique terms and conditions must be provided. Cost proposals have no page limitations; however, offerors are requested to keep cost proposals to less than 50 pages as a goal. The proposals shall be furnished with supporting schedules and shall contain a person-hour breakdown per SOW task, with a total cost amount given per task, per year, and per component. CLIN pricing by year must also be provided. Cost proposals shall also include the proposed direct/indirect cost and profit rates for all prime and subcontractor labor categories proposed. Section D: Basis for Award 1. White Paper (First Step): The government will evaluate White Papers to determine which of them have the potential to best meet the HPCMP needs based on the following criteria which are listed in descending order of importance: a. Soundness of technical/management approach b. Strength of potential partnering/teaming arrangements c. Technical expertise in functional areas d. Affordability (Proposed ROM cost estimate) 2. Proposals (Second Step): This is a best value source selection conducted in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 15. Award(s) will be made to the offeror(s) who is/are deemed responsible in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), whose proposal conforms to the solicitation_s requirements and is judged to represent the best value to the Government. Best Value means the expected outcome of an acquisition that, in the Government's estimation, provides the greatest overall benefit in response to the requirement. To arrive at a best value decision, the Source Selection Authority (SSA) will integrate the source selection team_s evaluations of the Evaluation Factors (described below). While the Government source selection evaluation team and the SSA will strive for maximum objectivity, the source selection process, by its nature, is subjective and, therefore, professional judgment is implicit throughout the entire process. The Government reserves the right to award without discussions. The Government intends to award up to four contracts. However, the Government reserves the right to award one or no contract at all, depending on the quality of the proposal(s) submitted and the availability of funds. Selection of up to four awards will be based on an evaluation of each offeror_s proposal (technical/management and cost) to determine the overall merit of the proposal in response to the BAA. Evaluation Methodology/Criteria: Technical/management: The technical/management aspect which is ranked as the first order of priority, shall be evaluated based on the following criteria that are of descending importance: a. Soundness of offeror_s technical/management approach with attention to integrating multiple functions across the program, including the proposed SOW b. Technical expertise in the SOO functional areas c. Past performance in technology transfer and transition for the DoD d. Plan for key personnel retention e. Depth of and commitment to user focus f. Meaningful participation of Minority Serving Institutions A color rating system (described in Exhibit 1 below), as well as narrative findings will be used to evaluate the proposals. The narrative findings will identify strengths, proposal inadequacies, weaknesses, and deficiencies associated with the evaluation factors, and reasonableness of cost/price factor. Exhibit 1, Color Code Definitions COLOR RATING DEFINITION Blue Exceptional Exceeds specified performance or capability in a beneficial way to PET, has high probability of satisfying the requirement; has no significant weakness. Green Acceptable Meets performance requirements; has good probability of satisfying the requirement; any weaknesses can be readily corrected. Yellow Marginal Fails to meet requirements; has low probability of satisfying the requirement; significant deficiencies but correctable. Red Unacceptable Fails to meet a minimum requirement; deficiency requires a major revision to the proposal to make it correct. Cost/Price: Cost/price includes the reasonableness and realism of the proposed cost and consideration of proposed budgets and funding profiles. Cost is a significant factor, but is ranked as the second order of priority. For the purpose of this acquisition/evaluation, the term _cost/price_ equates to _Total Evaluated Price_ as defined below: Total Evaluated Price will be calculated as the sum of the following for all contract years (eight years): CLIN 0001 Core Support _ Labor CLIN 0002 Other Direct Cost Not included in Total Evaluated Price: CLIN 0003 Data _ Not Separately Priced CLIN 0004 Project Support _ Labor will not be part of the Total Evaluated Price. Realism is evaluated by assessing the compatibility of proposed costs with proposal scope and effort as described in SOW. Reasonableness is evaluated by assessing the acceptability of the offeror_s methodology used in developing the cost estimates. Proposal Risk Assessment: Proposal risk will be assessed/assigned a high, moderate, or low risk rating for the technical and cost areas. Proposal risk relates to the identification and assessment of the risks associated with an offeror_s proposed approach as it relates to accomplishing the proposed effort. The technical/management and cost proposals will be evaluated at the same time. The Government reserves the right to award a contract to other than the offeror submitting the lowest evaluated price and technically acceptable proposal if that offeror is judged in an integrated assessment to present the best value to the Government. Section E: Other Contracting Requirements/Information 1. CLIN Structure: CLIN 0001 (Core Support -- Labor), CLIN 0002 (Other Direct Cost -- i.e., travel, hardware, software, misc.), CLIN 0003 (Data _Not Separately Priced), CLIN 0004 (Project Support -- Labor). Approved Project Support proposals (contractor or Government initiated) will be negotiated and added to the contract as SubCLINs to CLIN 0004. CLIN 0001 will be Cost Reimbursable or Cost Plus Fixed Fee. CLIN 0002 will be Cost Reimbursable. CLIN 0004 will be Cost Reimbursable, Cost Plus Fixed Fee or Cost Plus Award Fee. 2. Offerors are required to enter into Associate Contractor _Like_ Agreements to transfer technology with appropriate MSRC/DC site personnel prior to award. 3. The following clauses will be included in any resulting contract: FAR 52.227-3 Patent Indemnity, FAR 52.227-11 Patent Rights _ Retention by Contractor (Short Form -- for nonprofits and small businesses) FAR 52.227-12 Patent Rights _ Retention by Contractor (Long Form -- for large businesses) DoD FAR 252.227-7013 Rights in Technical Data _ Noncommercial Items DoD FAR 252.227-7014 Rights in Noncommercial Computer Software and Computer Software Documentation 4. The Security Requirements, the DD Form 254, is posted to the web site. 5. Any request by offerors for Government Furnished Property must be clearly identified in the proposal. The Government, however, is under no obligation to comply with such requests. Therefore, offerors should make a provision for alternate technical approaches in the event that the Government is unwilling to provide the property requested. 6. Large Businesses will be required to submit a Small Business Subcontracting Plan in accordance with FAR 52.219-9 and GSAM 519.705 with their technical and cost proposal submissions. Section F: User Demographic Information See Microsoft Excel Workbook. See Suggested On-Site Document. See User Demographics-NRT Hours by CTA Document. See User Demographics-RT Hours by CTA Document. See User Demographics-User by CTA Document. See Demographic Info Document.

Web Link

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Record

Loren Data Corp. 20001226/ASOL003.HTM (D-356 SN5094A7)