Industry Day for RS3 Proposal

The Army presented a comprehensive briefing to prospective offerors at the RS3 Industry Day on December 16, 2014 about the procurement.  The briefing included the most recent draft schedule, general information about the procurement strategy, as well as answers to 173 questions that were received from industry concerning the draft procurement documents.  Highlights from the Industry Day briefing included the following pieces of important information for prospective offerors:

·         Procurement Schedule: The final solicitation is anticipated to be released in February 2015, with Proposals due in March 2015. Awards are expected to be made by July 2015.  Subsequent task orders under the new contract are anticipated to begin to follow immediately after awards are made on the master IDIQ contract.

·         Number of Awards:  Approximately 30 large businesses and 20 small business awards are currently contemplated under NAICS code 541712 Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology). Interestingly, the Government has indicated its intention to award to small businesses without regard to socio-economic status. Small businesses may compete on unrestricted (large business) task orders after award.

·         Basis for Award:  Past performance and price will be evaluated using a tradeoff methodology.

Past performance is significantly more important than price, and offerors shall receive a minimum rating of “Satisfactory Confidence” to be considered for award.

·         Phased Award Process:  Only offerors that meet ALL of the following requirements will be considered for award in Phase 1: Corporate Experience – Acceptable;  Small Business Participation – Acceptable (or Unknown); Past Performance – Satisfactory or Substantial Confidence; Maximum fee of 7% OR LESS (12% OR LESS for experimental, developmental, or research);  proposed costs are fair, reasonable, and realistic.  If the Government determines Phase 2 is necessary, proposals that do not meet the criteria for Phase 1 may be considered for award in Phase 2. The Government reserves the right not to conduct Phase 2 if sufficient awards are made in Phase 1. Insufficient awards are currently defined as less than 15 small businesses awards and/or less than 25 large business awards. The Government will only accept proposal revisions in Phase 2 as a result of discussions. No new or amended solicitation will be issued for Phase 2.

Suggestions for Preparing a Winning RS3 Proposal

In light of the pending release of the final RFP, offerors that intend to submit a winning proposal should take the following actions:

1.     Review in detail the draft RFP documents and Industry Day briefing slide deck to understand the Section C SOW Requirements, Section L Instructions, and Section M evaluation criteria. In particular, note the insight provided by the Government as to the likely changes to be made in the final RFP from the 173 questions and answers that are provided within the Industry Day briefing slide, and fine tune your company’s capture strategy accordingly, including teaming arrangements and key personnel resources to help work on the proposal effort after final RFP release.

2.     Set up an alert on fbo.gov to get a system-generated email related to any updates made on fbo.gov related to the RS3 procurement.  Since these emails are generated only once daily, interested offerors may also wish to check fbo.gov and/or the Army Single Face to Industry website multiple times each day as the February 2015 final RFP release date draws closer.

3.     Carefully consider your company’s experience and past performance references based on relevance to the draft PWS. In addition to promptly addressing any performance issues as they arise on existing contracts, offerors should take action to ensure that their documented performance evaluations in the Government’s Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) are up to date as well. 

4.     Recognize the long term actions necessary to position your company for success after award.  Some questions for senior corporate leaders to consider include: Does your company’s team have a plan to hire sufficiently cleared and qualified staff members with the expertise necessary to compete on RS3 task orders?  Do you have the technical expertise to properly execute cost type task orders that may include operations in OCONUS areas?  And for small business offerors in particular, will your team be ready to support quick turn task order proposals to seriously compete among intense competition? 

If you have questions about your RS3 proposal, please contact John Cook at jcook@ociwins.com or 703-689-9600.