The purpose of Amendment 0003 is extend the due date/time FROM: 05/03/2023 at 10 AM CT, TO: 05/08/2023 at 10:00 AM Central. Acknowledge receipt by submitting ONE signed copy of the SF30 with your quote. Attached is a copy of the SF30.
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Offerors/bidders please review Amendment 002 and Attachment E in response to Questions submitted. Acknowledge receipt by submitting ONE signed copy of the SF30.
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Offerors please review the attached Amendment 001 to solicitation no. 60RRBH23Q0008 and ackowledge receipt by submitting ONLY one signed copy of the SF30.
This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accoonrdance with the format in Subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation. Quotes are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued. The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2022-06. This Request for Quotation (RFQ) number 60RRBH23Q0008 is issued to request quotes for a Contract or a Delivery Order for Shipping & Receiving Clerk Services. Please see the attached RFQ document for the Statement of Objectives (SOO), Clauses and Provisions, Quotation Submission instructions, and Quotation Evaluation and Award information. This RFQ is issued as unrestricted.
A. Agency Background
The U. S. Railroad Retirement Board (“RRB”) is an independent Federal agency that administers a retirement and survivor benefits
program for railroad employees and their families. The RRB was established by the Railroad Retirement Act of 1935. Its benefits
program was the forerunner of the more familiar Social Security System. The Railroad Retirement System is unique inasmuch as
it is the only federally administered benefits program covering a single private industry. The RRB also administers the Railroad
Unemployment Insurance Act, which provides unemployment and sickness benefits to railroad employees. The RRB is headquartered in Chicago, IL.
B. Purpose
The purpose of this solicitation is to obtain quotations for a contractor’s employee to provide Shipping and Receiving Clerk Services
for the RRB, Supply Management, for a Basic year beginning on June 1, 2023, with four (4) option year(s) as specified in the
Statement of Objectives (SOO) in Section III below. The RRB intends to award a contract with options for the services. The RRB
requires the services to be performed Monday through Friday (except Federal Holidays), from 7:00 am to 3:30 pm (Central Time).
All work shall be performed on-site at the RRB headquarters in Chicago unless otherwise authorized by the RRB Supply
Management official. The RRB anticipates no off-site work. The contractor shall abide by all laws, regulations, and contract
provisions for the safeguarding of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and shall observe all confidentiality policies.
Site visit: A Site visit is mandatory for all contractors interested in providing a proposal in response to this solicitation. Site visits
may be scheduled between April 13, 2023 and April 19, 2023 but must be completed by April 19, 2023 at 2:00pm Central Standard
Tme (CST). Site visits will be held at the RRB Headquarters located at 844 N. Rush St, Chicago, IL 60611. Offerors may schedule
a site visit by sending an email to Mr. Pedro Borjas, Supply Management, at pedro.borjas@rrb.gov. The email request for a site visit
must state the requested date and time between April 11-17, 2023 for the site visit as well as the names and contact information for the attendees. Offerors may submit questions regarding the RFQ to proposals@rrb.gov by April 20th at 10:00am. Questions asked during site visits must also be submitted in writing to the RRB to receive the official RRB responses. See Section V.B.1.d.
Section III
Statement of Objectives
A. Shipping and Receiving Services Performance Objectives:
The following are the RRB’s objectives for the shipping and receiving and clerk services to be provided at the RRB’s headquarters
facility. The Contractor shall:
1. Sort and deliver incoming tubs of RRB claim folders from the Federal Records Center (FRC) to a variety of locations
within the RRB headquarters facility.
2. Perform the internal pick-up and staging of outgoing tubs of RRB claim folders for external pick-up and shipment to
FRC.
3. Provide receipt and proper delivery of incoming packages from various delivery service carriers (e.g; FED-EX, UPS,
DHL, etc).
4. Unload and load delivery trucks using either electric or hand jacks or appliance movers.
5. Pull stock requisitions (supplies and forms) and deliver to the appropriate RRB organizations in the headquarters facility.
6. Pick, pack and label outgoing stock requisitions to be shipped to RRB District (Field) Offices using the RRB’s overnight/
ground delivery service contract.
7. Perform other related duties including but not limited to, moving of chairs, cabinets or other furniture items as necessary
etc.
8. If during the handling of any of the above, should the Contractor personnel observe any privacy information as defined
by RRB Chief Privacy Officer, he or she shall immediately contact the COR and report this occurrence (See Section IV for
statutory requirements to safeguard privacy information during performance of contract duties as described above).
B. Hours of Performance and Provision of Experienced Substitute:
1. The basic "regular working" hours of Shipping and Receiving Operations or services shall be Monday through Friday
between the hours of 7:00 am and 3:30 pm CST, except for Federal holidays. Federal holidays are included within the
fixed price for any work month and are considered a non-work performance day. If the RRB desires the Contractor to
perform services on a Saturday or a Federal Holiday, the RRB shall submit in advance a request to the Contractor for the
performance of work on the Saturday or Federal holiday. The RRB shall modify the delivery order to fund the services at the
hourly rate in the appropriate subCLIN’s designated AB for the applicable delivery order performance period.
2. If assigned Contractor staffing personnel for any given reason will not be available for tour of work during the required
normal hours of operation, the Contractor shall notify the RRB’s Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) no later than
6:00 a.m. on the day the staff will not be available to provide the services. The Contractor shall have trained and qualified
substitute staff, who are experienced in and knowledgeable of the RRB site service requirements and points of service
throughout the building, report to the RRB facility to provide the services by 7:00 a.m. that same day.
3. The RRB expects the majority of the work to be performed during normal working hours, however occasional work
beyond normal duty hours may be needed. In the past that work outside normal duty hours has averaged 48 cumulative
hours in a year. If work beyond 40 hours per week is needed, the RRB will do it’s best to notify the Contractor and the
Contractor’s employee before 3:00 pm Central Time the business day prior. If the RRB has notified the Contractor before
3:00 pm Central Time the business day prior, the Contractor must provide an employee for the RRB. If the RRB gives less
notice, the Contractor, (or the Contractor’s employee) may accept or decline without any performance standard penalty. The
RRB shall notify the Contractor of the amount of extra hours worked the next business day after the work is performed. The
RRB shall modify the delivery order to fund the extra hours of service in the appropriate AB subCLINS for the appropriate
delivery order period of performance.
The only RRB personnel that can approve work beyond 40 hours per week are the COR (Mr. Pedro Borjas), or the
Contracting Officer (Mr. Stephen Schenk).
C. Site and Duties Orientation:
The Contractor’s staffing personnel shall meet with the COR to tour the work site and to explain the job duties within 5
business days from contract award, unless a different period is otherwise agreed to by the RRB. The Contractor’s personnel
will also receive a briefing on the handling of privacy information from the RRB’s Chief Privacy Officer.
D. Description of Shipping and Receiving Services:
The Contractor’s primary, and alternates as assigned, on-site staff shall provide the support services to perform basic
shipping and receiving services for the RRB. All work will be originated onsite at the RRB Headquarters address,
unless notified by the COR. The individual performing this function shall be capable of lifting objects weighing up to
80 pounds. [Other duties to be performed require a limited degree of training and/or experience.] Experience in how to
load and unload a truck, how to use a manual and/or electric jack, a dolly, appliance mover, or hand cart is gained through
previous job experience or shall be provided through on-the-job training. The Contractor’s employee shall be responsible
for the accurate, timely and secure pick-up and delivery of all RRB claim folder tubs, the receipt, logging and delivery of
all incoming Courier packages (or packages from similar carriers) to the appropriate person or agency organization, and the
loading and unloading of delivery trucks either at the dock or curbside, when necessary.
E. Quality:
The RRB shall receive the quality of services specified in the support services delivery order only with the close
coordination and active cooperation on a daily basis between the Contractor and the COR. The COR shall assess the
Contractor’s quality of performance using the Supply Management Quality Assurance Plan (Section III.G.1.) on a monthly
basis to ensure accurate and timely support services.
F. Performance Standards:
The Contractor shall perform the work in compliance with the Performance Standards, as agreed to and contracted by the
RRB. The performance standards shall serve as an outline of the shipping and receiving support services the Contractor shall
provide the RRB. Guidelines for an acceptable level of work are detailed in Attachment B.
G. RRB Quality Assurance Plan - Evaluation Factors:
1. Quality of Service
The COR shall randomly inspect Receiving log/stock requisition sheets, and boxes to ensure that the tasks are
being done correctly and evaluate the performance of the services.
Poor – There are more than five deficiencies per month.
Fair – There are no more than four deficiencies per month.
Good – There are no more than two deficiencies per month.
Excellent – There are no deficiencies indicated for the month.
2. Customer Complaints
The work performed by the shipping and receiving clerk shall also be evaluated by customer complaints. Customer
complaints are a means by which deficiencies can be reported and serve as the basis for unsatisfactory or nonperformance
of work. The COR shall record and attempt to validate each customer complaint received. Some complaints will be difficult
to validate, but shall still be recorded and reviewed to determine if there is a trend or pattern of complaints in the delivery of
Supply Management support services and the shipping and receiving services. Only complaints validated by the COR will
be counted for performance purposes.
Poor – There are more than five deficiencies per month.
Fair – There are no more than four deficiencies per month.
Good – There are no more than two deficiencies per month.
Excellent – There are no deficiencies indicated for the month
3. Accurate, timely, and efficient shipping and receiving services are the primary goal of this delivery order. During the life
of the delivery order, the COR shall prepare and retain administrative procedures such as inspection, documentation, and
retention of records which reflect contractor performance.
Unsatisfactory work, absenteeism, and tardiness is undesirable; therefore, if the contractor’s performance remains
less than satisfactory and fails to adhere to the contract specifications, the contract may be canceled or terminated.
The Government may also reprove these services from an alternate source and charge the contractor for all costs
incurred by the Government.
Quarterly meetings shall be held between the Contractor and/or their on-site representative and the COR. The purpose
of these meetings will be to discuss the contractor’s performance areas of deficiencies, areas of satisfaction and tenant
concerns.
If the Contractor is non-responsive, meetings and inspections shall be conducted more frequently. Once a more reliable
service record is established, inspections and meetings with the contractor shall be reduced to previous levels.
H. Notification Time Period:
The Contractor shall provide two (2) weeks' notification to the government should assigned Contractor personnel become
unable to complete any portion of the contract term. The Contractor shall submit resumes to the RRB for the replacement
personnel within 5 business days after the notification is received by the RRB.
I. Deductions for non-coverage:
The RRB anticipates this to be a full time position, 40 hours per week. If, for any reason, the Contractor’s employee
works less than 8 hours in a workday, or the Contractor fails to provide a back-up employee on a scheduled work day, the
Contractor shall calculate a percentage of the amount of hours that should have been worked for the month, and subtract that
amount from the monthly bill. Federal Holidays shall not be considered non-coverage, and therefore, no deductions shall be
made by the Contractor or the RRB for those days.
J. Railroad Retirement Board Furnished Equipment, Facilities, and Services:
The RRB shall furnish to the Contractor all equipment and staff support necessary for performance of the required services.
Section V
Submission of Quotations/Proposals
A. The following clause, incorporated by reference, is applied to offeror proposal submission: Instructions to Offerors-Commercial
Items (MAR 2023) FAR 52.212-1.
B. RRB Supplemental Instructions to Offerors
1. General Instructions
a. The proposal shall be submitted in two parts – a “business proposal” and a “technical proposal”. Each of the
parts shall be separate and complete in itself so that evaluation of one may be conducted independently of, and
concurrently with, evaluation of the other.
b. Electronic proposals shall be submitted to proposals@rrb.gov by May 3rd, 2023 at 10:00AM CT. An
electronically delivered proposal not received by the time and date specified in this solicitation shall be handled in
accordance with FAR 52.212-1(f), “Late submissions, modifications, revisions, and withdrawals of offerors”.
c. Offerors shall visit the HQ facility and become familiar with existing conditions. Mandatory site visits shall be
completed by April 19, 2023 at 2:00pm CST. Please see Section I.B for more information on site visits.
d. Any further questions regarding this RFQ must be submitted to the RRB by April 20, 2023 at 10:00AM CST to
proposals@rrb.gov.
2. Business Proposal
a. The Offeror shall submit a signed copy of Standard Form (SF-) 1449 with Blocks 12, 17a. and b., and 30a., b.,
and c. completed.
b. The offeror shall complete Section II – The Price Schedule with prices for all CLINS.
c. The offeror shall complete the Contractor's Business information outlined in Section II.B.
d. The offeror shall submit an electronic copy of their completed System for Award Management (SAM)
registration.
e. The offeror shall complete the Offeror Representations and Certifications, FAR 52.212-3, in Section IV above.
f. Other information the contractor determines appropriate and relevant to the RRB evaluation team.
3. Technical Proposal
The offeror shall fully and clearly address each factor in sufficient detail so that the Government’s technical
evaluation panel can identify, understand and evaluate the capability and resources the offeror intends to bring to
this contract.
a. Project Management Approach
The Offeror shall provide a description of how the services required in Section III, Statement of
Objectives, will be provided. The description shall include the following:
1. Project Plan
a. Offerors shall provide a written project plan that includes a detailed narrative demonstrating its
methodology and scheduling for performing the services listed in Section III. The offeror shall outline
the required functionalities and activities for the shipping and receiving clerk services and explain any
organizational characteristics they provide that would be advantageous to the RRB in the performance or
administration of the required services.
2. Staffing Plan
a. The Offeror shall submit a complete staffing plan, including specific details as to how they will
handle scheduled absences and unscheduled absences. The Offeror shall completely describe in detail
as to how they would respond to 1 day notices, evening prior notices, and early morning (the day of)
notices for staff absences.
b. The Offeror shall provide the RRB with as many ways to contact the Offeror as possible. Primary
and alternate account managers must be included, along with after hour notifications. The contacts.
submitted to the RRB must be relevant and/or key personnel. In addition, the offeror shall provide an
organizational chart detailing the offeror's lines of communication.
3. Quality Control Plan
a. Offerors shall describe in detail their complete quality control plan to assure the requirements in
Section III are provided as specified. The quality control plan shall ensure effectiveness, efficiency and
soundness in the entire process to perform the required services. The offeror shall submit a copy of this
program as part of their proposal.
b. Past Performance
Offerors should provide information on previously performed contracts that are similar to this work.
1. The Offeror shall submit, as part of its proposal, information on a minimum of three
(3) previously performed contracts or ongoing contracts performed for Federal, State, or
local Government and for commercial firms that are very similar to the requested Elevator
maintenance and repair services. The Offeror shall describe the scale and extent of their
shipping and receiving clerk services to include a description of the solutions and explain
how these projects relate to the technical services required in this solicitation in order to
demonstrate specific previous experience doing the same type of work.
2. Offerors shall provide the names and addresses for each reference including the names,
phone numbers and email addresses of at least one contact individual at each referenced
organization.
3. Past Performance Questionnaires (PPQ), Attachment D:
PPQ's shall be submitted from a minimum of three (3) and maximum of five (5) references,
directly to the RRB. Questionnaires will be used to collect performance information about
the offeror from existing and/or prior clients. The references should submit a completed
questionnaire via email to proposals@rrb.gov by the due date for proposals. A follow up
conference call may be scheduled with the references, post PPQ completion, to discuss in
greater detail the services provided by the offeror and the reference's satisfaction with the
services.
Please Note: The Government will not attempt to ‘track down’ supplied past performance
references in cases where inaccurate reference information is provided. Incomplete or
inaccurate reference information may lead to a lower evaluation score.
c. Experience and Qualifications of Proposed Staff
Resumes must be submitted by the offeror indicating the levels of education, exact years of relevant
experience, specific duties and knowledge, and any certifications of the individual(s) to be assigned to
this project. The RRB technical evaluation team is particularly interested in the following:
1. The resumes of the proposed primary and backups to the primary contractor employee.
2. The resumes of the account manager assigned to the RRB.
3. The resumes of any other of the contractor’s key personnel who will/could be working on
this project.
Section VI
Evaluation and Award
A. In compliance with FAR clause 52.212-2, Evaluation of Offers – Commercial Items, the Government will award a contract to the
responsible Offeror whose submission (resulting from this solicitation) provides the best value solution to the RRB based on price and
other factors including; project management approach, past performance, experience and qualifications of proposed staff that will be most advantageous to the RRB. The technical factors including past performance, when combined, are more important than price. If, after evaluating all compliant offers, the RRB finds no significant discriminators between the competing offers under the non-price evaluation factors, and the RRB determines that the offers are essentially technically equal under the non-price factors, the RRB shall award on the basis of lowest total evalauted price.
1. To be considered responsive, the offeror must comply with the format and content specified in Section V. Offerors
whose proposals are deemed deficient in this regard may be permitted, at the RRB’s discretion, to remedy the deficiency by
submitting additional clarifying or supplemental information.
2. Responsive proposals shall be evaluated to determine the relative technical merit of each response. Accordingly, the
objective of this evaluation is to measure the extent to which proposals meet the requirements as stated in the Statement
of Work and the required proposal format and content, Section V, SUBMISSION OF QUOTATIONS/PROPOSALS
(Instructions to Offerors).
3. The RRB shall employ an adjectival rating system to evaluate technical proposals received as defined and set forth below:
a). Definitions of Strengths, Weaknesses and Risks
(1) Strength – an aspect of an Offerors’ proposal that has a positive impact on the probability of successful
performance for the resulting delivery order or approach, and/or which exceeds the minimum requirements and
benefits the Government.
(2) Weakness – An aspect of an Offerors’ proposal that has a negative impact on the probability of successful
performance of the resulting delivery order.
(3) Risk – An aspect of an Offerors’ proposal that, when assessed as to its probability of occurrence and its effect,
presents an uncertainty as to the ability of the Offeror to successfully perform the required effort and/or the
proposed approach.
b) The following adjectival ratings, defined below, will be used when evaluating each Offerors’ Technical Proposal:
(1) Exceeds - The combined impact of the identified strengths outweighs the combined impact of any identified
weakness and risks.
(2) Meets - The combined impact of the identified strengths is essentially equivalent to the combined impact of
any identified weakness and risks.
(3) Does Not Meet - The combined impact of the identified weakness and risks outweighs the combined impact of
any identified strengths.
c) If a proposal is evaluated as meeting part of one rating description and part of another the RRB will determine which
rating is appropriate. For example, if the Offerors’ response comprehensively addresses the requirement and the combined
impact of the strengths outweighs the combined impact of any weakness and risks, the RRB will determine whether to
assign an Meets or Exceeds rating.
4. Technical proposals will be first reviewed for content conformance to proposal preparation instructions. Proposals that are
very deficient in this area as to not warrant further consideration will be rejected and the offeror will be so notified.
5. Any offeror not proposing a price in CLINS 0001- CLIN 0005 and their associated SubCLINs, along with not being
able to perform all the required elements in the SOO, will be considered not responsive to the solicitation and shall not be
evaluated.
B. Technical Proposal Evaluation
The RRB will evaluate proposals against the following technical factors in descending order of importance:
1. Project Management Approach : The RRB will evaluate the project plan, staffing plan and quality control plan
submitted by the offeror, which includes the offeror's description of its ability to perform the requested services as
required and the proposed quality control plan/program to assure the requirements in Section III are provided as
specified. The RRB will also evaluate the experience and expertise of providing primary and alternate employees
who can perform the required services along with a complete plan (including examples) as to how the contractor
shall handle planned and unplanned absences of their primary on-site staff person. The RRB will evaluate that the
offeror’s lines of communication are clearly desecribed within the organizational chart.
2. Past Performance : The RRB will evaluate the offeror’s past performance on similar projects based on an
evaluation of specific information requested. The following performance characteristics will be evaluated by the
RRB Technical Evaluation Team:
a. Direct applicability of the referenced experience with the RRB’s project,
b. Customer satisfaction, which includes satisfaction of end users with the offeror’s service,
c. Quality of service,
d. Reliability and timeliness of performance,
e. Contractor’s Problem escalation procedures,
f. How the offeror resolves problems.
The RRB will contact the offeror’s submitted past performance references to obtain the above
information. The RRB at its discretion, may use other past performance sources from any source, such
as (but not limited to) the Government’s Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS), to
obtain past performance information about the offeror to evaluate the offeror’s ability to provide the
required services.
The RRB will also evaluate the Past Performance Questionnaires (PPQs) submitted by the offerors
references (Attachment D).
3. Experience and Qualifications of Proposed Staff : The RRB shall evaluate the offeror's submitted staff resumes
indicating levels of education, exact years of experience, specific duties and knowledge, and any certifications
of the proposed backups, account manager, and any other key personnel for the RRB to evaluate. The RRB shall
evaluate the key personnel resumes based on the years of experience and the amount of relevant experience
as outlined in the Statement of Objectives in Section III, above. If no resume is included, it will be evaluated
as the contractor has no staff available in the area(s) required by the RRB. If the RRB considers the missing
key personnel resumes as non-responsive, the RRB shall so notify the offeror, and shall not give any further
consideration to the offer.
C. Business Proposal Evaluation
1. The Government will evaluate the price proposal as the sum of firm fixed price for CLIN 0001-CLIN 0005 and their
associated SubCLINs. The total evaluated price (TEP) will be calculated as follows:
The TEP will be computed by adding the base and 4 option year price per month and the price per hour for work over 40
hours per week x 48. The TEP calculation is below:
CLIN 0001AA + (0001AB*48) + 0002AA + (0002AB*48) + 0003AA + (0003AB*48) + 0004AA + (0004AB*48) +
0005AA + (0005AB*48) = TEP.
Note: For evaluation purposes only, the RRB shall apply 48 hours for CLINs 0001AB, 0002AB, 0003AB, 0004AB,
and 0005AB.
2. Scoring the TEP
An Offeror’s total evaluated price (TEP) shall be scored as follows:
Calculation of the price score will be computed by multiplying the maximum point score available by a fraction
representing the ratio of the lowest total evaluated price multiplied by 100 of all technically acceptable offers
received by the Board to the total evaluated price of the offer being evaluated.
Any offeror not proposing a price in CLINs 0001AA, 0001AB, 0002AA, 0002AB, 0003AA, 0003AB, 0004AA,
0004AB, 0005AA and 0005AB, and/or not being able to perform all the required elements in the SOO as
described in Section III will be considered non-responsive to the solicitation and shall not be further evaluated.
D. Options: The Government will evaluate offers for award purposes by adding the total price for all options to the total price for the
basic requirement. The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable if the option prices are significantly unbalanced.
Evaluation of options shall not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s).
E. The contracting officer shall deem any offer which fails to address all of the mandatory requirements of Section III, the Statement
of Objectives, as non-responsive.
F. The Contracting Officer may request clarifications to any proposals after the initial business and technical review and hold
discussions as determined necessary.
G. The Government reserves the right to evaluate offerors and award a contract without discussion. Therefore, the initial offer should contain the offeror’s best terms from both a price and technical standpoint.
H. A written notice of award or acceptance of an offer mailed or otherwise furnished to the successful offeror within the time for
acceptance specified in the offer, shall result in a binding contract without further action by either party. Before the offer's specified
expiration time, the Government may accept an offer (or part of an offer), whether or not there are negotiations after its receipt, unless a written notice of withdrawal is received before award.
*Offerors must have the contracted employee onsite at the RRB Headquarters. No Exceptions.
