EVALUATION PROCESS—COMPETITIVE PROPOSALS
An award decision is based on evaluation factors and significant subfactors that are tailored to the acquisition. Evaluation factors and significant subfactors must represent the key areas of importance and emphasis to be considered in the source selection decision and support meaningful comparison and discrimination between and among competing proposals. The evaluation factors and significant subfactors that apply to an acquisition and their relative importance are subject to the following requirements:
1. Price or cost to the government will be evaluated in every source selection.
2. The quality of the product or service will be addressed in every source selection through consideration of one or more non-cost evaluation factors such as past performance, compliance with solicitation requirements, technical excellence, management capability, personnel qualifications, and prior experience.
3. Generally, past performance will be evaluated in all source selections for negotiated competitive acquisitions expected to exceed $1,000,000.
Generally, the extent of participation of small disadvantaged business concerns in performance of the contract will be evaluated in unrestricted acquisitions expected to exceed $500,000 ($1,000,000 for construction). All factors and significant subfactors that will affect contract award and their relative importance must be stated clearly in the solicitation. Although the rating method need not be disclosed in the solicitation, the general approach for evaluating past performance information must be described. The solicitation must state whether all evaluation factors other than cost or price, when combined, are significantly more important than cost or price, approximately equal to cost or price, or significantly less important than cost or price.
Proposal evaluation is an assessment of the proposal and the offeror’s ability to perform the prospective contract successfully. The government evaluates competitive proposals and then assesses their relative qualities based solely on the factors and subfactors specified in the solicitation. Evaluations may be conducted using any rating method or combination of methods, including color or adjectival ratings, numerical weights, and ordinal rankings. The relative strengths, deficiencies, significant weaknesses, and risks supporting proposal evaluation must be documented.
Normally, competition establishes price reasonableness. When contracting on a firm-fixed-price or fixed-price with economic price adjustment basis, comparison of the proposed prices will usually satisfy the requirement to perform a price analysis. In very limited situations, a cost analysis may be appropriate to establish the reasonableness of the successful offeror’s price. When contracting on a cost-reimbursement basis, evaluations include a cost realism analysis to determine what the government should realistically expect to pay for the proposed effort, the offeror’s understanding of the work, and the offeror’s ability to perform the contract. Cost realism analyses may also be used on fixed-price incentive contracts or, in very exceptional cases, on other competitive fixed-price-type contracts.
The currency and relevance of past performance information, the source of the information, the context of the data, and general trends in the contractor’s performance are considered. A solicitation describes the approach for evaluating past performance, including evaluating offerors with no relevant performance history, and provides offerors an opportunity to identify past or current contracts (including federal, state, and local government and private) for efforts similar to the government requirement. A solicitation authorizes offerors to provide information on problems encountered on the identified contracts and the offeror’s corrective actions. The government considers this information, as well as information obtained from any other sources, when evaluating the offeror’s past performance.
The evaluation should take into account past performance information regarding predecessor companies, key personnel who have relevant experience, or subcontractors that will perform major or critical aspects of the requirement when such information is relevant to the acquisition. In the case of an offeror without a record of relevant past performance or for whom information on past performance is not available, the offeror may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance. The evaluation includes the past performance of offerors in complying with subcontracting plan goals for small disadvantaged business (SDB) concerns and monetary targets for SDB participation.
Cost information may be provided to members of the technical evaluation team in accordance with agency procedures. The government may reject all proposals received in response to a solicitation, if doing so is in the best interest of the government.