Request for Information / Industry Survey: Agency-Wide Equipment Maintenance Contracting Vehicle Background and Purpose: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is seeking industry input on a potential national Agency-wide strategically sourced requirement for office and laboratory equipment maintenance (e.g., copiers/scanners, and mass spectrometers/chromatographs, respectively). The agency is exploring opportunities to reduce costs and administrative burden while improving or maintaining the quality of service received. EPA is open to considering a variety of business models that help to address these goals. The purpose of this request is to gather feedback from the vendor community that will help form the creation of EPA?s acquisition strategy for equipment maintenance. General Description of Requirement: Historically EPA has spent several million dollars annually through more than 400 different contract vehicles for these services. EPA?s equipment maintenance needs span more than 20 different labs and offices located throughout the agency?s 10 regions as well as its HQ facilities in the Washington DC area. Historical use typically has included roughly $1M via >100 contract vehicles for office equipment maintenance, and several million dollars via >300 vehicles for laboratory equipment maintenance. EPA anticipates its future needs to be similar to these historical needs. EPA?s equipment requires periodic repairs, preventative maintenance, and calibration typical to that required within these relevant industries. In some instances EPA needs the repair/maintenance within a specific timeframe, (e.g., phone response within 4 hours, technician on site within 2-3 days). Instructions: Taking into account the goals and scope of this effort, please answer the questions from the list below that are applicable to your business. Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Capabilities and Past Experience: 1. Please provide a brief description of your company?s capabilities/business model in the equipment maintenance market. a. Please briefly describe your subject matter expertise in equipment maintenance and any past experience that you have working with government agencies, or other similar entities b. Which, if any, federal agencies have you served? c. Please describe the range of geographic area that your company is able to serve. d. Do you have a guaranteed minimum response time? If so, does your guaranteed minimum response time differ depending upon the type of equipment? 2. Please describe your company?s approach to providing timely and high-quality maintenance services at a reasonable cost. Include any ways in which your company helps to diminish the customer?s administrative burden in managing many maintenance contracts. Structuring Requirements: 3. Based on your knowledge in this market, how would you suggest EPA contractually structure their equipment maintenance needs to enable cost reduction and reduced administrative burden, while still maintaining the required level of service? Please explain your rationale. a. What are the benefits or drawbacks to consolidating multiple lab, office, and other requirements into one solicitation vs. breaking them down into smaller groups? b. Which types of requirements do you feel are best suited for ISOs (independent service organization), OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), or an alternative business model? c. In your opinion, what are the tradeoffs between different contract pricing structures? (e.g., firm fixed price, time and materials, other)? d. Are volume discounts appropriate in this market? If so, what types of volume discounts are most effective in achieving savings for EPA? 4. How can EPA ensure that it receives service within needed response times (e.g., 1-2 days in many cases) 5. What information should EPA include in a solicitation for this requirement to allow for the most accurate and competitive proposals? 6. If your company is not the one completing the actual maintenance service, how do you hold the sub-contractor(s) accountable for responding to the customer in a timely fashion? Company Details: 7. Please advise if your company would be able to participate in one, or both of the equipment categories within this RFI, office equipment maintenance and laboratory equipment maintenance. 8. Please provide the legal name of your company, as well as your DUNS number. 9. Are you currently on any Government-wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) or other federal government contracting schedules? Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Responses to this survey must be received on or before September 26th, 2014. Please email your responses to Christopher Davis at
[email protected]. NOTES: This RFI is solely for informational, planning and market research purposes and does not constitute a Request for Proposals (RFP), Invitation for Bids (IFB), Request for Quotations (RFQ) or an obligation on the part of the Government to acquire services. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this RFI are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract nor do they affect a potential offeror?s ability to respond to any future synopsis/solicitation. The U.S. Government reserves the right to determine how it should proceed as a result of this notice. Furthermore, those who respond to this RFI should not anticipate feedback with regards to this process. All data gathered shall remain the property of EPA. All cost associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the responding party?s expense. The information collected in response to this notice, may or may not be used to assist with developing the acquisition strategy.