Outsourcing

Requests for Proposal

Guidelines for Requests for Proposal are contained in "North Carolina Department of Transportation Policies and Procedures for Major Professional or Specialized Services Contracts. This document may be found at:

http://www.doh.dot.state.nc.us/preconstruct/highway/roadway/eng_coord/consultant/rules&re.pdf

• The following is an example of a Solicitation of Letters of Interest:

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS BRANCH

REQUEST FOR LETTERS OF INTEREST

The North Carolina Department of Transportation desires to engage qualified private consulting firms for the purpose of providing natural resource investigations, regulatory permit applications, and other environmental studies, analyses and reports for certain highway projects.

Scope of Work: This work includes but is not limited to the following: preparing regulatory permit applications, natural resource investigations, protected species surveys, indirect and cumulative impact water quality analysis, protected species conservation, benthic surveys, on-site mitigation, remediation and monitoring, quality assurance/quality control of environmental documents, and other special environmental studies. Contract amounts may vary between firms. Selected firms are not guaranteed work in all areas within this scope of work and are not guaranteed any particular amount of work.

The method of payment for these projects will be lump sum or cost plus fixed fee. The work will be performed on various projects throughout the State and will be identified on an as needed basis; the same degree of assistance will not be required on all projects. The duration of the contract will be for 24 months (2 years).

The biologists, environmental scientists and/or engineers performing the work and in responsible charge of the work must have a good ethical and professional standing in the State of North Carolina. Any firm wishing to be considered must be properly registered with the Office of the Secretary of State. The firm must have the financial ability to undertake the work and assume the liability. The firm must have an adequate accounting system to identify costs chargeable to the project.

The Department of Transportation is committed to an annual goal of 10% for Disadvantaged Business Enterprises participation in federally funded projects, and for state funded projects, annual goals of 10% for minority participation and 5% for Women's Business Enterprises participation.

Any firm wishing to be considered must be properly registered with the Office of the Secretary of State. It will be the responsibility of the prime firm to verify the registration of any corporate subsidiary or subcontractor prior to submitting a Letter of Interest. The firm must have the financial ability to undertake the work and assume the liability. The selected firms will be required to furnish proof of Professional Liability insurance coverage in the minimum amount of $1,000,000. The firm must have an adequate accounting system to identify costs chargeable to the project.

North Carolina firms qualified to do the required work will be given priority consideration. A North Carolina firm is a firm that maintains an office in North Carolina staffed with an adequate number of employees judged by the Department to be capable of performing a majority of the work required.

The evaluation of firms submitting letters of interest for these projects will be based on the following considerations and their respective weights:

1. The evaluation of performance on any previous contracts with the North Carolina Department of Transportation,	35%
2. The firm's experience and staff to perform the type of work required, to include any designated subconsultants,	30%
3. The firm's outstanding workload with the Branch,	20%
4. Percentage of the work to be performed in North Carolina; and	10%
5. Percentage of DBE/WBE participation	5%

The Project Development and Environmental Analysis Branch (PD&EA) maintains a file on each qualified firm that has expressed an interest in providing natural environment services for the Branch. Included in this file is a company brochure or Form PREQUAL-1 listing personnel and their qualifications for performing desired work, company's present activities and financial qualifications. At the time this initial information is submitted a sample of recent work will be needed for evaluation. The firm must have a current Private Consulting Firm Questionnaire (conflict of interest assessment) on file. If you have not submitted this data or if it needs to be updated, please send the new data to the Manager of the PD&EA Branch prior to, or along with your letter of interest. Having this data on file in the PD&EA Branch eliminates the need to resubmit it with each letter of interest.

FORMAT FOR SUBMISSION OF A PD&EA BRANCH

LETTER OF INTEREST

All letters of interest are limited to fifteen (15) pages or less, and shall be typed on 8 ½" x 11" sheets, single spaced, one sided. In order to reduce costs and to facilitate recycling, binders, dividers, tabs, etc. are prohibited. One staple in the upper left-hand corner is preferred. Letters of interest containing more than fifteen (15) pages will not be considered.

Section I - Cover/Introductory Letter

The introductory letter should be addressed to Phil Harris, Unit Head , Natural Environment Unit, Project Development and Environmental Analysis Branch. Said letter is limited to two (2) pages and should contain the following information:

• Expression of firm's interest in the project;
• Statement of whether firm is on register or submitting information with letter of interest;
• Date of most recent private engineering firm questionnaire;
• Statement regarding firm's possible conflict of interest for the project, and
• Summation of information contained in the letter of interest.

Section II - Evaluation Factors

This section is limited to five (5) pages and should contain information regarding evaluation and other factors listed in the advertisement such as:

• Identification of project personnel/subconsultants qualifications and experience as related to natural resource investigations, preparing regulatory permit applications, and other environmental studies;
• Unique qualifications of key team members (biologists, ecologists, licensed professional engineers, etc.) particularly in the fields of terrestrial and aquatic ecology, biology, botany, environmental and natural sciences, and wetlands;
• Identification of type and location of similar work performed within last three (3) years;
• Presentation of projects with NCDOT and percentage complete;
• Understanding of project approach;
• Identification of any innovative approaches to be used, and
• DBE status of Firm/Subconsultants. Note: Any firm/subconsultant claiming WBE/MBE status must be certified by the NCDOT. The Department of Transportation has no reciprocity with other state, federal or local agencies with respect to WBE/MBE status and percentage of work to be performed in North Carolina.

Note: If a project team or subconsultant encounters personnel changes, or any other changes of significance dealing with the company, NCDOT should be notified immediately.

Section III - Supportive Information

This section is limited to eight (8) pages and should contain the following information:

• Capacity Chart/Graph (available work force),
• Organization chart indicating personnel to be assigned by discipline,
• Resumes of key personnel,
• Names, classification, and location of the firm's North Carolina employees to be assigned to the advertised projects, and
• Other information

Private consulting firms are invited to submit letters of interest for providing natural environment services for transportation projects to the Natural Environment Unit, Project Development and Environmental Analysis Branch, 1598 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1598 or deliver to the Parker-Lincoln Building, 2728 Capital Boulevard, Suite 168, Raleigh, NC 27604 by 5:00 P.M. on April 2, 2004. Letters of interest received after this deadline will not be considered. Eight (8) total letters of interest are required. Firms submitting fewer copies will not be considered.

Firms submitting letters of interest are encouraged to carefully check them for conformance to the requirements stated above. If letters of interest do not meet these requirements or if they are delivered to any office other than the Natural Environment Unit, they will be disqualified. No exception will be granted. The mailing address is:

NCDOT - Natural Environment Unit
Project Development and Environmental Analysis Branch
1598 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, North Carolina 27699-1598

or

Parker-Lincoln Building
2728 Capital Boulevard, Suite 168
Raleigh, NC 27604

The firm(s) selected will be notified by April 27, 2004. Notification will not be sent to firms not selected. The firms selected will be listed on the Internet at http://www.ncdot.org/doh/preconstruct/pe.html (under hte PDEA Private Engineering Firm Resource Information Link) by April 28, 2004. Any questions concerning the scope of this work should be directed to (RFP Manager)

Example Selection Committee Rating Sheet

Scopes of Work and Cost Estimates

The preparation and approval of Scopes of Work (SOW) and cost estimates by the Natural Environment Unit (NEU) for specific task orders will follow the procedures outlined below.

Project Development Unit Requests

The following procedures apply to requests originating in the Project Development Unit (PDU) involving firms selected by PDU to prepare NEPA documents and conduct associated environmental studies.

1. PDU submits a request for workday estimate to Natural Environment Unit (NEU), including the proposed SOW and a map of the study area.
2. Request is received by the NEU Processing Assistant and logged into the NEU database
3. Processing Assistant forwards the request to the Natural Environment Project Management Group (NEPMG)
4. NEPMG forwards the request to the Outsourcing Officer (OO)
5. OO prepares the workday estimate, requesting assistance if needed from other NEU staff
6. OO submits the completed workday estimate electronically back to the Project Development Unit and "cc's" the Processing Assistant
7. Processing Assistant OPA logs the request out of the NEU database as complete
8. OO may be requested by Project Development Unit to participate in further contract negotiations as necessary and to submit a revised cost estimate to PDU

Project Management Group Requests

The following procedures apply to requests originating in the Natural Environment Unit (NEU) Project Management Group (NEPMG) involving firms selected for on-call services as described in Section 10.1.

1. Regional Manager and Project Manager (PM) submit a request to the OO to outsource a task order to one of the on-call firms
2. OO coordinates with the NEU Assistant Unit Head to select a firm from the on-call list
3. OO contacts the firm selected and schedules a scoping meeting
4. OO and PM attend scoping meeting with on-call firm to present the proposed task order and discuss the project schedule
5. On-call firm then submits a draft SOW and task list to the OO
6. Draft SOW and task list are revised, if necessary
7. Once SOW and task list are finalized, OO prepares a workday estimate and submits it to the Information Processing Technician (IPT)
8. On-call firm prepares a separate workday estimate and submits it to IPT
9. IPT determines if estimates are within 10%
10. If estimates are not within 10%, both estimates are returned to the OO
    1. OO negotiates the cost estimates with the on-call firm
    2. OO and on-call firm then resubmit their estimates to the IPT
11. If estimates are within 10%, IPT logs the contract into the NEU database and enters the on-call firm's estimate into SAP
12. IPT prepares Notice to Proceed (NTP) letter
13. NTP letter and on-call firm's estimate are scanned into SAP
14. IPT audits SAP approval from the NCDOT Fiscal Section
15. Upon approval, IPT makes 3 copies of the NTP letter and on-call firm's estimate for distribution

    One copy goes to OO

    One copy goes to PM

    One copy goes to IPT on-call firm's file

16. NTP letter and on-call firm's estimate are mailed/faxed to the on-call firm
17. On-call firm begins work on contract
18. When final deliverables are received in an acceptable form, project is logged out on NEU database

Contract Supplements

Contracts for environmental services approved by the Natural Environment Unit can be supplemented as necessary if additional work is required which was not included in the original SOW prepared. In order to qualify for a supplement, both the Project Manager and the Outsourcing Officer must agree that new tasks or conditions were encountered which were not considered in preparing the original SOW and cost estimate. The procedures for preparing a contract supplement are identical to those described in Section 10.2 for all contracts.

Deliverables

Specific task orders outsourced by PDEA typically fall into one of three categories: natural systems investigations and Natural Resources Technical Report (NRTR) preparation, environmental permitting, and document review. Procedures for acceptable completion of these primary tasks are described below.

Natural Systems Investigations and NRTR Preparation

Procedures for conducting natural systems investigations and preparing a NRTR are provided in Section 4.

Environmental Permitting

Procedures for preparing a permit application are provided in Section 5.

Document Review

Review of technical documents by on-call consultants will follow the procedure outlined below:

1. Natural Environment Unit on-call firm picks up draft documents for review from the Outsourcing Officer (OO)
2. On-call firm reviews documents and prepares written comments itemizing each required revision
3. Written comments are sent electronically to OO as an attached Word file, with no reference to the name of the reviewing firm or individual
4. Draft documents are returned to OO

QA/QC

All PDEA environmental consultants will conduct internal QA/QC of all deliverables prior to submission to NEU, as per the procedures detailed in Section ???.

Periodic Review