Lowest-Price, Technically-Compliant
Also referred to as "Lowest Compliant", LPTC is nearly always used for Simplified Procurements and BOA competitions as well as ICBs with known, firm requirements. For Simplified Procurements or some BOA competitions, bids can typically be quickly evaluated and awarded solely based on price.
For ICBs and larger BOA competitions, this type of evaluation includes the following steps:
1. Administrative Evaluation
This reviews the bid against the administrative requirements of the IFB, and is a "Pass-Fail" evaluation. For example, any Intellectual Property restrictions, or confirmation the bidder has accepted all of the terms and conditions of the IFB, would be included in the Administrative bid. All bids that are administratively compliant are then evaluated for price.
2. Price Evaluation
This review ensures that the price volume is complete and the prices bid are reasonable. The reasonableness of proposed prices are normally based on competition, and determining the lowest overall price is straightforward. The bid evaluated as the lowest price will then undergo the technical evaluation.
3. Technical Evaluation
In an LPTC evaluation, all of the technical factors are Pass/Fail. That is, the bid is either compliant or it isn't. There is no technical scoring or consideration given to "extra features" that a bidder may include. If the lowest price bid is compliant with all of the technical requirements, that company is selected for the project, and the other technical bids are not evaluated. If it is determined to be non-compliant, the 2nd lowest price bid is then evaluated.
Best Value
For more complex ICBs, where technical approaches among bidders may differ, the NCI Agency uses an evaluation method known as Best Value. This allows the Agency to potentially award the contract to a bidder who has offered a higher price, if their total evaluation score shows that they have been evaluated to offer the Agency the "best value."
It is important to note that the focus of a best value evaluation is risk mitigation. It is not so that bidders can offer additional features for a higher price, but to show that their approach would reduce the risk to the Agency.
The Best Value evaluation procedure is quite different from the Lowest Compliant procedure described above.
Best Value evaluations include the following steps:
1. Administrative Evaluation
- This reviews the bid against the administrative requirements of the IFB, and is a "Pass/Fail" evaluation. For example, any Intellectual Property restrictions, or confirmation the bidder has accepted all of the terms and conditions of the IFB, would be included in the Administrative bid. All bids that are administratively compliant will then undergo a technical evaluation.
- It is important to understand that the Administrative evaluation may extend to the Price or Technical evaluations, should it be determined that a bidder took exceptions in their price or technical bids to any of the requirements or terms and conditions of the IFB.
2. Technical Evaluation
- The IFB will include the different high-level criteria – for example, Management, Engineering, and Supportability – and the weights that are applied to each. The IFB will also list sub-criteria that are important in each of those areas; and internally, these criteria are further broken down to ensure that every area of the bid is evaluated consistently.
- All bids are evaluated against the IFB requirements, they are not compared to other bids.
- The bids that are technically compliant will then move to the price evaluation.
3. Price Evaluation
This review ensures that the price volume is complete and complies with all of the IFB requirements. All of the price bids are scored based on the formula in the IFB; any bids that are not technically compliant will not be included in the price evaluation and scoring.
4. Final Scoring
The IFB will include the formulas for calculating the technical, price and best value final score.