Wednesday, October 25, 2017
RFP for LANL
NNSA releases final RFP for LANL M&O contract NNSA refused to budge on the numerous requests to apportion the failures of the current contractor to various parent companies and stuck with their view that all of them will receive failing ratings on the past performance criterion. M-4 TECHNICAL AND MANAGEMENT CRITERIA The following criteria are listed with degrees of importance. Criterion 1 and 2 are of equal importance and, when combined, are significantly more important than Criterion 3. (a) Criterion 1: PAST PERFORMANCE The Government will not apportion past performance under a DOE, NNSA, or other contract differently among parent companies that have teamed for the purposes of said contract; all parent companies under a contract will be equally credited (positively and negatively) for past performance for that contract
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Equal as in Bechtel cannot blame UC for the problems. The rumors has been that Bechtel is trying to pin everything on UC looks like that did not work out so well.
I did a quick scan of the final RFP, and DOE/NNSA no longer requires that the M&O Contract be a "separate legal entity from its parent organization(s)" which is what drove UC to team with Bechtel back in 2006. It's still an option for the contractor but not required. There's also an explicit Federally Funded Research and Development (FFRDC) clause that is new.
Current contact clause
H- 23 SEPARATE CORPORATE ENTITY AND PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE
(a) The work performed under this Contract by the Contractor shall be conducted by a separate corporate entity from its Parent Organization(s). The separate corporate entity must be set up solely to perform this Contract and shall be totally responsible for all Contract activities.
New Final RFP
G-4 PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE(S)
If the Contractor has organized a separate legal entity to perform the work under this Contract, the Contractor’s parent organization(s) or all member organizations, if the Contractor is a joint venture, limited liability company, or other similar entity, where more than one company is involved in a business relationship created for the purpose of performing under this contract, shall guarantee performance... If the Contractor is a joint venture, limited liability company, or other similar entity, where more than one company is involved, the parent or all member organizations shall assume joint and severable liability for the performance of the Contract.
L-13 REQUIREMENT FOR GUARANTEE OF PERFORMANCE
As stated in FAR 35.017, FFRDC’s are operated, managed, and/or administered by either a university or consortium of universities, other not-for-profit or nonprofit organization, or an industrial firm, as an autonomous organization or as an identifiable separate operating unit of a parent organization. The successful Offeror will be required, as part of the determination of responsibility and as a condition of the award of the contract to that entity, to furnish a guarantee of that entity’s performance. That guarantee of performance must be satisfactory in all respects to the Department of Energy.
The only play senior LANL managers have is to be part of the UC bid or the Bechtel bid. Other bidders will look outside LANL and possibly even outside LLNL for key personnel.
The RFP indicates that NNSA will only allow 10 paid holidays. Currently LANL has 12. Buh-bye Energy Day and one other. The DOE giveth, and the DOE taketh away.
I have heard Bechtel is bidding and it going it alone but they do have a number of current LANS people on board. The other rumor is that Bechtel thinks they can get LANL since they have so much pull in DC. If Bechtel gets control it will be hell to pay, HELL for the current workforce. Bechtel wants blood for what has happened and they will get it. If they get full control expect crazy stuff, uniforms, strict time control, crazy rules, mass firings, brutality, and random fear. The pitch will be that they will make the workforce afraid...very afraid and there will never be screwup again, ever. If there is one, blood will be spilled publicly. The plan is they will blame UC for not allowing the true brutality to be handed out that NNSA had really wanted in 2006 but if they are put fully in charge they will do what congress, NNSA and everyone who hates the Big Bang Theory wants...scientists and engineers to suffer. If you work at LANL and have to deal with Bechtel folks you would know that this is really what they want as they have only pure disdain and total disgust for scientists and engineers in particular LANL scientists and engineers.
Hard to say if this will work but it is their best chance. Perhaps there are indeed a bunch of people in NNSA who really want to see LANL suffer, who knows.
I really believe UC's best (and possibly only) approach in a solely UC owned LLC that teams with Honeywell as a subcontractor to run LANL nuclear facilities. UC can then take credit for past performance on the science and research mission of LANS, blame Bechtel for failures on the facility operations side of LANS, and then say that UC's new partner Honeywell has demonstrated competency (NTS and SNL) to handle operation of nuclear facilities.
The approach to evaluating the bids really drives this....
"M-3 BASIS FOR CONTRACT AWARD The Government intends to award one contract to the responsible Offeror whose proposal is responsive to the solicitation and is determined to be the best value to the Government. Selection of the best value to the Government will be achieved through a process of evaluating each Offeror’s proposal against the evaluation criteria described below. The Technical and Management Criteria in M-4 will be adjectivally rated. The Cost Criterion M-5 will not be adjectivally rated, but will be used in determining the “best-value” to the Government. In determining the best value to the Government, the Technical and Management Criteria, when combined, are significantly more important than the Cost Criterion.
M-4 TECHNICAL AND MANAGEMENT CRITERIA
The following criteria are listed with degrees of importance. Criterion 1 and 2 are of equal importance and, when combined, are significantly more important than Criterion 3.
Criterion 1: PAST PERFORMANCE
Criterion 2: LABORATORY ORGANIZATION AND KEY PERSONNEL
Criterion 3: SMALL BUSINESS PARTICIPATION
M-5 COST CRITERION
The Transition Price, Fee for Management and Operation of LANL and Fee for Strategic Partnership Projects will be evaluated for price reasonableness....For the best value determination as described in M-3 above, the total evaluated cost will include the Transition Price for the Transition Period and the total proposed maximum fee for years 1 through 10."
October 26, 2017 at 10:51 PM
Both SNL and NTS have management teams in the new contract that were completely outside the former contractor. If this recent history is any indication of how the LANL competition will run, then look to see NNSA select a new team with total turnover in key positions.
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