SOURCES SOUGHT
A -- TEST EVALUATION AND SUPPORT TEAM 2
- Notice Date
- 7/28/2014
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- NASA - White Sands Test Facility, P.O. Box 20, Las Cruces, NM 88004-0020
- ZIP Code
- 88004-0020
- Solicitation Number
- NNJ14522358L
- Response Due
- 8/14/2014
- Archive Date
- 7/28/2015
- Point of Contact
- David L. Tellez, Contracting Officer, Phone 575-524-5133, Fax 575-524-5130, Email david.l.tellez@nasa.gov
- E-Mail Address
-
David L. Tellez
(david.l.tellez@nasa.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The NASA/JSC/White Sands Test Facility (WSTF) plans to procure test, evaluation, and facility operations support services at WSTF as a follow-on to the current Test Evaluation and Support Team (TEST) Contract, ending April 30, 2016. This Request for Information (RFI) is being issued to request industry information for consideration to assist in formulating a contract strategy for the TEST2 procurement. WSTF is a unique environment in that it is a remote, hazardous testing facility. It provides unique propulsion test expertise and has capabilities for altitude and ambient testing. WSTF laboratories perform testing designed to better understand materials and components used in space flight. Some of the testing includes: oxygen systems, propellant systems, hypervelocity impact testing, composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPV), and standard materials testing. WSTFs hardware processing office currently provides support for: Flight and Critical Hardware and Depot Processing Component Services (clean room and valve refurbishment), Fabrication Services Measurement Standards and Calibration Laboratory, Photo/Video Services, and Technical Publication Services. Additional requirements include: Facility Maintenance and Operations, Institutional Systems and Services, Management and Documentation Systems. WSTF also maintains an environmental program under a separate Environmental Compliance and Operations (ECO) Contract, which provides environmental compliance, restoration, remediation, and operations tasks, maintains site-wide multi-media environmental compliance, manages a large-scale groundwater monitoring program, as well as successfully initiates and completes environmental clean-up projects (restoration). WSTF customers include: International Space Station (ISS) Program, Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Program, Goddard Space Flight Center, and other NASA Centers. Additionally, WSTF works with the following other Government agencies: Army, Navy, Air Force, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency. Support will continue to be provided to any future Agency Programs, as well as external customers both private and Government. WSTF is certified to the ISO 9001 and 14001 standards as a joint Government and contractor certification; additionally, NASA and several of the site contractors are OSHA Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) Star certified. Interested parties are encouraged to address their experience in working within organizations that adhere to these standards. The current TEST contract is an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) cost-plus-award-fee and fixed-price type contract. Typical work under the TEST contract includes but is not limited to the following: propulsion subsystem and system testing at both ambient and simulated altitude conditions; propellants, aerospace fluids materials, and components testing; remote hazardous testing; hypervelocity impact testing; flight hardware processing; technical services training; quality test and institutional safety and health facility maintenance; and construction management. The current TEST Statement of Work and other pertinent documents are located at the procurement website: http://procurement.jsc.nasa.gov/TEST2. It is anticipated that the scope of work for TEST2 will be similar to TEST. The current North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code for the WSTF/TEST contract is 541712 with a Size Standard of 1,000 employees. It is anticipated that the NAICS code and size standard will be the same for TEST2. This synopsis is a Request for Information (RFI) to solicit comments from industry and to solicit capability statements from qualified companies. Industry is invited to review the questions listed below and provide feedback on the specific areas requested. (1) What changes from the current TEST contracting approach, if any, would you suggest for the follow-on TEST2 contract and why? At a minimum please address each of the following items below: Contract Content, Contract Type, and Contract Structure. For your proposed contract structure address how will safety performance and testing and evaluation support be enhanced? Additionally address any performance standards, methods of work authorization, and Small Business Goals which should be considered by NASA. (2) Identify barriers to competition that could be mitigated to foster a more competitive environment for this procurement. (3) The current TEST contract includes cost and fixed-price work (hybrid), discuss whether a hybrid contract is appropriate and identify your approach for administering and managing a hybrid contract. (4) Contract Incentives: Provide feedback regarding incentive arrangements. For instance, how should risks versus rewards be shared by the Government and contractor? What types of incentives would you consider to be most effective to encourage the contractor to perform high quality work at a reasonable price? Discuss your views specific to TEST2 regarding incentive fees, award fee, or other appropriate incentives for contractor performance in terms of: 1. Fixed-price requirements; 2. Cost type requirements. (5) Identify any portion(s) of this procurement for which fixed-price contracting could be utilized and provide rationale and feasibility. Identify any portion(s) of this procurement for which fixed price contracting could not be utilized and provide rationale. (6) Metrics and Measures of Success: Provide feedback on metrics or measures of success NASA might consider to monitor the contractors performance on the potential fixed-price or incentive fee portions, as well as the portions that are not fixed-price? (7) Discuss ways in which NASA could design/structure this procurement to maximize synergy between the labor skills needed for employees across the contract, and how to best cross-utilize the workforce. Discuss all alternatives you would like NASA to consider. (8) NASA is considering ways to increase the use of these unique or not otherwise commercially available WSTF facilities/capabilities by non-Government customers, on a mission non-interference basis, as a potential means of reducing long-term costs. Under the current TEST contract, NASA allows the contractor non-exclusive use of WSTF facilities operated by the contractor under the TEST contract to perform work for non-Government customers on a reimbursable basis. Please discuss thoughts on how to structure this contract or implement incentives to encourage the contractors efforts to find additional non-Government customers for unique WSTF facilities on a mission non-interference basis. (9) Small Business: a. How can NASA design/structure the contract to ensure that Agency small business goals are met or exceeded? b. Identify any areas of the TEST SOW that you believe could be performed by a small business and provide rationale. (10) Describe the effect a 1-year award fee period would have on your ability to perform on this contract. (11) What recommendations do you have for cost estimating tools on large government contracts? (12) How do you see WSTF being able to broaden its business-base specifically related to the 2014 NASA Strategic Plan? (13) What kind of efficiencies/innovations has your company successfully implemented on other similar facilities and/or contracts? Were there contract barriers that needed to be overcome for successful implementation? (14) Describe your experience and provide recommendations for contractor provided vehicles versus Government provided vehicles. Further describe your experience with contractor provided vehicles as follows: a. Are they direct costs or billed as overhead? b. Are they commercially owned/leased or leased through GSA? c. Are there any fees associated with the cost of providing the vehicles? (15) Describe the benefits of a contract period of performance greater than 5 years. What advantages and disadvantages does a greater than 5 year contract provide? The documents on the NASA procurement website are strictly for information and planning purposes to allow industry the opportunity to comment, and to promote competition. The information received will not be released in its submitted form, to the extent permitted by law, but may be used in developing the best approach for any follow-on contract strategy and therefore may be recognizable. The contractor is responsible for marking any proprietary information included with its submission. Responses shall include the company name, address, and point of contact. The Government intends to release the names, addresses, and points of contact of all respondents unless specifically requested not to do so by the respondent.This information will be provided on the TEST2 website as an interested parties list. All questions should be directed to the point of contact identified below. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract.The Government is under no obligation to issue a solicitation or to award any contract on the basis of this RFI. The Government will not pay for any information solicited under this RFI. No solicitation exists; therefore, do not request a copy of a solicitation. If a solicitation is released it will be synopsized in FedBizOpps and on the NASA Acquisition Internet Service. It is the potential offerors responsibility to monitor these sites for the release of any solicitation or synopsis. Any communications in reference to this RFI shall cite the RFI number NNJ14522358L in the subject line and be directed to the point of contact identified below. You are requested to provide electronic responses (limited to 25 pages using no less than 12 point Times New Roman font) via e-mail to the point of contact listed below. Your response is requested by 3:00 p.m. MDT on August 14, 2014. NASA Clause 1852.215-84, Ombudsman, is applicable. The Center Ombudsman for this acquisition can be found at http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/pub/p ub_library/Omb.html. Any future solicitation and documents related to this procurement will be available via the webiste at the following URL: http://procurement.jsc.nasa.gov/TEST2. The Internet site, or URL, for the NASA/JSC Business Opportunities home page is http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/bizops.cgi?gr=D&pin=73. It is the offeror's responsibility to monitor the website for the release of the solicitation and amendments, if any. Potential offerors will be responsible for downloading their own copy of the solicitation and amendments, if any.
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