§3306 Planning and Solicitation Requirements

Summary

Federal agencies must plan purchases and ask for bids in ways that get full and open competition. They must do market research and plan ahead. When writing what they need, agencies should use the kind of description that fits the market: say what a product must do (function), what results it must meet (performance), or give design details. Solicitations must allow competition and only add restrictive terms when needed or allowed by law. For sealed bids or most competitive proposals (not small commercial buys or purchases at or below the simplified acquisition threshold), the agency must list the important evaluation factors and subfactors it will use and say how important each one is. For sealed bids the notice must say bids will be evaluated without discussions and give the time and place for opening. For competitive proposals the notice must say whether the agency expects to hold discussions before award or will award without discussions, and give the submission time and place. Agencies must clearly say how much weight different factors get, and normally must include cost or price as a factor and tell offerors whether nonprice factors combined are more important than, equal to, or less important than price. Rules cannot lock those phrases to fixed numeric weights for all solicitations. For certain hourly-rate service contracts under sections 4103, 4106, 152(3), and 501(b) where the agency plans to award to every qualifying offeror and use competed task orders, the contract award does not have to consider price, but price must be considered when issuing task or delivery orders. A qualifying offeror is one found responsible, whose proposal meets the solicitation, meets technical requirements, and is eligible for award. Agencies may still give extra information, use numeric weights case-by-case, or say they will award to the lowest offer that meets mandatory requirements. They may not evaluate option prices in a sealed-bid if there is no reasonable chance the options will be used. The Federal Acquisition Regulation must allow contractor employees to telecommute and may not bar or penalize offers that include telecommuting plans unless the contracting officer documents that telecommuting would prevent meeting agency needs, including security. Executive agency — meaning is given in section 133 of this title.