Snow & Ice Removal Services (GFAFB)

The 319th Contracting Squadron intends to issue a solicitation for snow and ice removal services at Grand Forks AFB, ND. The contractor shall provide all personnel, equipment, tools, materials, vehicles, supervision, and other items and services, except as specified in the Performance Work Statement (PWS) as Government-furnished property. Performance shall be to the standards in the contract as well as all local, state, and federal regulations. The solicitation will result in a firm fixed price requirements contract with a base year and four one-year option periods. The base period of performance will be from 1 Oct 08 through 30 Sep 09. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 488490, and the small business size standard is $6.5M. This acquisition will be solicited as a 100% Small Business set-aside. A formal Request for Proposal (RFP) will be issued on or about 30 June 08 via Federal Business Opportunities (FBO). Paper copies of the solicitation will not be mailed. Prospective offerors are responsible for checking FBO to obtain the solicitation and any amendments or other information pertaining to the solicitation; prospective offerors are encouraged to register for notification through FBO. All offerors must be registered in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) (http://www.ccr.gov) to be eligible for award. Registration requires a DUNS number and may take up to three weeks to process. Instructions are available at the CCR website. Additionally, the 319th Contracting Squadron requests informational responses in regards to specific industry standards and commercial practices within the snow/ice removal industry. The Government is exploring avenues to decrease costs without sacrificing service and/or capability. Included in this notice is a draft PWS for the service that the Grand Forks AFB intends to solicit offers for. The draft PWS is included for offerors to evaluate and potentially provide feedback on specific requirements which are viewed as excessive and unnecessary. Any suggestions on how to change or relax requirements/standards to better align with the commercial marketplace and industry standards are appreciated. Upon evaluation by the acquisition team, responses may be considered and used to refine PWS requirements/standards. In addition, the Government requests your response to the following: 1)What is the commercial threshold for responding to a snow event? GFAFB's draft PWS requires a response after " of accumulation. If this were increased to " or 1", in terms of percent of costs, what might the cost savings be? 2)Para 1.2 "Snow Hauling" of the draft PWS directs snow hauling within 24 hours after the snow event. What are typical timeframes or standards within the commercial market for this requirement? Does this requirement exist in the commercial marketplace? 3)What method of commercial contracting and/or pricing options is most prevalent? (Pricing options - per push, per event, per inch, or per season) Are there any other pricing options besides the ones listed? 4)Do snow removal providers simply base their per season prices on historical averages? If so, from what source is this data collected? 5)One requirement Grand Forks AFB is considering is pre-pricing out snow/ice removal per square foot of parking lot and per mile of road. This pre-priced item will then be used during contract management to price out modifications for adding or deleting roads/parking lots as necessary. Is this a viable option and/or compatible with current market practices? Responses and recommendations received by 4:30 PM CST on Tuesday, 17 June 2008 will be evaluated prior to issuing the solicitation.