Phoenix VA Healthcare System | Uniforms IDIQ Base Plus Four Option Years

This amendment 002 for RFQ 36C26224Q1392 shall answer questions and provide an updated statement of work (SOW), an additional Clause and updated Attachment A Uniforms. The updates in the SOW are bolded and/or highlighted. Contract Clause 52.232-1 Payments. was added. The update to the Attachment A Uniforms provides updated tabs for base plus option year pricing and a Totals tab for ease of reference when submitting pricing. The quantities have been changed to (1). This amendment is not an extension offers are due 8/15/2024 by 0900 PT Local Time. All other terms and conditions remain unchanged except as noted herein.

Question 1: Statement of work states contractor shall deliver 15 days ADO. However, a couple lines down on page 8 it states three weeks after notification of award. Please clarify timelines for ADO.

Answer: I will use the terminology that is posted in the solicitation for clarity. The statement of work (SOW) states the following:

Contractor shall deliver supplies within (15) business days from date of order. Business days are defined as, Monday thru Friday excluding federally recognized holidays. If the contractor is not able to meet the (15) day delivery timeframe from date the order is placed, the contractor shall provide a notification to the ordering medical center and contracting point of contact within 48 hours, which specifically states that the order request is declined.

The SOW goes on to state: All delivery orders shall be delivered within 3 weeks of notification of award. Since there are typically 5 days in a business week, excluding weeks with holidays, 3 weeks would then equal out to 15 business days. This is redundant information and since it is confusing, I will remove, All delivery orders shall be delivered within 3 weeks of notification of award. from the SOW for clarity. See updated SOW for further changes.

Question 2: For products that require embroidery, 15 days ADO for embroidered items is unrealistic, even with product sitting on the shelves. Does delivery timeline apply to embroidery / custom products?

Answer: This is standard industry delivery timeframes; however the government has taken note of the issues with logistics and supply chain. An updated delivery timeframe for embroidered items has been added to the SOW which allows deliveries no later than (120) days from date of order.

Question 3: For uniform requirements on page 9, the maximum price per uniform item is $175 in accordance with VHA Phoenix Uniform Allowance. Please clarify that $175 is for a single item, such as pants, shirt, boots, etc. versus $175 for a complete uniform?

Answer: The guidance reference has been updated from VHA Uniform Allowance to VHA Uniform Issue. The total of cost of $175.00 is per complete uniform per employee. Question 4. Reference partial delivery. Every one of our clients desire complete shipments. This is one of the most common requests / desires by government and commercial clients. Complete shipment is possible but 1) drastically increases costs, 2) decreases flexibility in timely support to the VA, and 3) seriously impacts delivery timeline.

For example, Phoenix VA orders 50 pants and the manufacturer creates 49 before the manufacturing line experiences an outage or there s an issue with the manufacturer s supply chain, which happens occasionally and is outside our control or the government s control. Complete shipment would require we hold the 49 pants at our warehouse and possibly wait weeks or months for the manufacturer to resolve their issues and send us just one pair of pants.

Thus, instead of shipping 49 pants under the required 15 day ADO, we re holding-up the entire order until it s complete. Imagine if the one pair takes a month? That s outside our control. That s a manufacturer issue. That s not how the market operates and it s not industry standard.

From a cost perspective, as the government s responses to Q&A are shared with all bidders, we won t publicly provide the percentage increase in costs that are incurred by the manufacturers and VARs as a result of holding-up shipments until complete. This is not how the manufacturers operate. Yes, we can have all the manufacturers ship direct to our warehouse. We do this on occasion as we maintain stock or we serve as a stock dealer. But it s the exception, not the rule.

Shipping all product to our warehouse, versus industry standard drop ship (for some of the CLINs), increases freight, administrative burden, and overall cost. There are multiple layers of additional costs if the government requires complete shipment. We understand that partial shipments are difficult to track, but the costs for complete shipment will be drastically more expensive than what the VA pays on its current contract.

We recommend industry standard of partial shipments to control costs, to maintain 15 days ADO (minus manufacturer exceptions due to backlog, supply chain, or other issues), and require vendors to provide a narrative of how the vendor will coordinate and managed orders, with the customer, to alleviate common administrative challenges on shipments. Question please confirm that complete shipment is the requirement?

Answer: The SOW has been updated to allow for partial deliveries with the complete order being delivered within (90) days from date of order.