Industrial Hygiene Consulting

Trade Agreement: CETA / WTO-AGP / CPTPP / NAFTA / CFTA / FTAs with Peru / Colombia / Panama / Korea
Tendering Procedures: All interested suppliers may submit a bid
Competitive Procurement Strategy: Best Overall  Proposal
Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement: No
Nature of Requirements: 

Requirement 

PWGSC requires professional services for hazardous materials, indoor air quality and other occupational hygiene assessments within the National Capital Region (NCR) on an “as and when requested” basis. Work will consist primarily of duties within the NCA, however, projects may occur outside of the NCA in proximity to the NCR. Such work will be on exceptional basis and will likely represent less than 2% of the total work volume. See definition of NCA and NCR at section 2.16 and 2.17 respectively of the Statement of Work (SOW - Annex A). 

The required services include the following:

- Completion of Hazardous Building Material Assessments as may be   relevant to the project.
- Preparation of specification documents using National Master   Specification (NMS) format as per the document Doing Business in NCA,   and project plans for hazardous material abatement projects which may   include engineer stamped Computer-Aided Design (CAD) drawings. 
-  “Oversight” during hazardous material abatement projects including   inspection of work areas, air monitoring and revision of labour   requirements. See definition of oversight at section 2.9. 
- Completion of surveys of asbestos-containing material condition,   inventories of asbestos-containing materials and Asbestos Management   Plans (AMPs). 
-  Completion of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Investigations and Audits. 
-  Completion of monitoring surveys for radon gas in buildings. 
-  Workplace Occupational Hygiene consulting services.

Period 
The intent of this RFSO is to issue up to four Regional Individual Standing Offer (RISO) valid for 5 years.

Trade Agreements 
"The requirement is subject to the provisions of the World Trade Organization Agreement on Government 
Procurement (WTO-AGP), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Canada-European 
Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the Canadian Free Trade   
Agreement (CFTA)."

Security Requirements
There are security requirements associated with the requirement of the Standing Offer. For additional information, see Part 6 - Security, Financial and Insurance Requirements, and Part 7 - Standing Offer and Resulting Contract Clauses. For more information on personnel and organization security screening or security clauses, offerors should refer to the Contract Security Program of Public Works and Government Services Canada (http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/esc-src/introduction-eng.html) website.

Basis of selection
To be declared responsive, an offer must: 
(a) comply with all the requirements of the Request for Standing Offer;
(b) meet all mandatory requirements including mandatory technical requirements MT1; 
(c) obtain the minimum points for MRT1 and MRT2 as indicated in Section 4.1.2.2 for the technical evaluation criteria that are subject to point rating. 
Neither the responsive offer that receives the highest number of points nor the one that proposed the lowest price will necessarily be accepted.

Call-up Procedures

The Offeror must not undertake any of the specified work unless and until a call-up is issued by the Identified User.

1. Ideal Distribution
Work will be called-up as follows:
a. The Project Authority will establish the scope of work to be performed. For each individual call-up, firms will be considered using a computerized distribution system. This system will track all call-ups assigned to each firm and will maintain a running total of the Value of Business Distributed. The system will contain for each firm an Ideal Business Distribution percentage which has been established as per the table below:
Number of consultants:4        3            2             1
1st Ranked           40%       50%         60%           100%
2nd Ranked           30%       35%         40%            -
3rd Ranked           20%       15%          -             -
4th Ranked           10%        -           -             -
Total                100%     100%         100%          100%

The computerized distribution system will track the current Business Distribution (which is the current percentage of the value of business distributed that a firm has received in relation to the other firms) The Ideal Business Distribution is shown in the table above for each of the scenarios depending on  the number of consulting firms retained. The Variation from the Ideal is the difference between the Current Business Distribution and the Ideal Business Distribution will be calculated, and it will represent how far the firm is over or under its Ideal Business Distribution. The firm that has the negative difference will be the one considered for the next call-up. Where very large volumes of work are being managed, multiple call-ups may be divided up between consultants to group similar types of projects (by client, task or project manager) to improve efficiency, however the overall goal is to achieve the ideal business distribution, except as noted below.
The dollar amount assigned in the distribution system will be made up of the most accurate dollar amount available. An estimate of the value of the required services will be used when selecting the firm. The estimate will be adjusted to the actual call-up dollar amount and further adjusted to include any amendments, if applicable.

Exceptions to the above distribution system:
In the following circumstances consultants may not achieve their Ideal Business Distribution if in Canada’s opinion:
i. The firm is currently providing unsatisfactory service; or
ii. The firm does not provide, a fair and reasonable price estimate for the work requested; or
iii. The firm is not adequately able to meet all requirements as stated in the SOW; or
iv. The firm has recently provided unsatisfactory service and has not yet sufficiently demonstrated that it has addressed outstanding issues.

Each firm will be monitored and evaluated on an ongoing basis during the standing offer period. Formal written feedback may be provided to the firms. Verbal feedback will occur frequently and written comments are normally provided with each submitted report, however, firms must take responsibility for monitoring their own commitments with respect to deliverables.

The purpose of the monitoring is to ensure that firms are meeting their commitments with respect to delivery of service and are adequately able to meet the requirements as stated in the SOW. Three factors will be evaluated and rated: cost effectiveness, timeliness and quality. Should a firm be incapable of taking on additional work, as evidenced by a lack of ability to deliver services on previous or current call-ups or as described above, it will not be considered for additional call-ups at that time. Canada reserves the right to apply other remedial action if unsatisfactory performance is continued.
Examples of an unsatisfactory level of service are: schedules not being met; or quality control problems causing significantly reduced cost effectiveness.

Examples of not adequately meeting the requirements of the SOW are: lack of sufficient resources with requisite security clearance; or lack of requisite equipment available for timelines of project.  
In order to be moved back into the call-up process a firm will need to demonstrate to the Departmental Representatives that it has corrected outstanding problems and resolved issues that caused the problems. Periods during which firms are not meeting their commitments may result in the Ideal Business Distribution being permanently altered as a result of inactivity. However, firms that occasionally turn down work due to other commitments will not be penalized.

b. The firm will submit an offer to the Project Authority in accordance with the fixed hourly rates established under the Standing Offer. The offer shall include the category of personnel and the number of hours estimated/required to perform the work, as well as an estimate of proposed disbursements, if applicable.

c. For the preparation of bilingual documents, the firm would estimate the required number of hours and multiply by the hourly rates established in the Standing Offer. If the services of a translation firm are required to produce bilingual documents, these costs shall be treated as a disbursement.

d. A fixed fee or, where it is not possible or appropriate to agree upon a fixed fee, a time based fee to an upset limit will be established in accordance with the hourly rate(s) established in the Standing Offer.

2. The firm will be authorized by the Identified User to proceed with the work by issuance of a Call-up against the Standing Offer.

3. Any proposed changes to the scope of work are to be discussed with the Project Authority, but any resulting changes can only be authorized by an amendment issued by the Identified User.

Limitation of Call-ups

Individual call-ups against the Standing Offer must not exceed $300,000.00 (Applicable Taxes included).

Enquiries

All enquiries regarding this requirement must be submitted in writing to the Standing Offer Authority:
 Rosso, François
 Telephone - 613-297-1315
 E-mail - francois.rosso@tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca

Delivery Date: Above-mentioned

The Crown retains the right to negotiate with suppliers on any procurement.

Documents may be submitted in either official language of Canada.