FROM: James D. Herberg, General Manager
Originator: Kathy Millea, Director of Engineering
SUBJECT:
title
PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMMING SERVICES, CONTRACT NO. PSA2021-001
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GENERAL MANAGER'S RECOMMENDATION
recommendation
RECOMMENDATION: Recommend to the Board of Directors to:
Approve Professional Services Agreements to provide Professional Programming Services, Contract No. PSA2021-001, for a three-year period commencing May 1, 2022, through April 30, 2025, with two one-year renewal options, for an amount not to exceed $4,900,000 per individual agreement with the following two firms:
• Enterprise Automation
• Maverick Technologies
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BACKGROUND
Orange County Sanitation District’s (OC San) Engineering Department includes the Process Control Integration (PCI) Group which maintains, programs, tests, and commissions the process and electrical control systems for the plants and pump stations. The PCI Group includes 11 staff positions and one engineering supervisor. OC San anticipates a Capital Improvement Program (CIP) of approximately $1.5 billion from July 2022 through June 2027. As part of its project management, the Engineering Department forecasts monthly staffing levels for PCI needed over time to deliver the program.
The existing process control system uses obsolete software for the human-machine interface (HMI) and enterprise historian. In July 2021, the Board awarded a contract to ABB for Process Control Systems Upgrades, Project No. J-120. A dedicated team from the PCI Group will be required to support this replacement through October 2025.
RELEVANT STANDARDS
• Ensure the public’s money is wisely spent
• 1, 5, 20-year planning horizons
• California Government Code §4526: Select the “best qualified firm” and “negotiate fair and equitable fees”
PROBLEM
Based on the most current projections, the PCI Group’s workload will exceed the number of PCI staff available by approximately four full-time positions.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
Approve two Professional Services Agreements to provide Professional Programming Services for up to a five-year period ending in April 2027.
To ensure that projects are completed on time, OC San will utilize professional programming services agreements to program, test, commission, maintain, upgrade, and configure programmable logic controllers, HMI graphics, databases, servers, and networks for select projects.
The benefits of this approach, as opposed to hiring full-time staff or limited-term employees, include the ability to provide the needed short-term resources during the execution of Project No. J-120, rapid mobilization of highly skilled technical resources, flexibility to change the mix of needed resources to match project requirements, and the ability to increase or reduce project resources as workloads change.
When OC San identifies the need for programming professional resources, the two firms will be requested to propose on a task. OC San will then select the most appropriate team for the task and negotiate the budget and schedule.
TIMING CONCERNS
The professional programming services will enable OC San to properly execute the proposed CIP over the next five years.
RAMIFICATIONS OF NOT TAKING ACTION
Without the necessary programing resources, projects will have to be delayed, resulting in impacts to the capital improvement program.
PRIOR COMMITTEE/BOARD ACTIONS
N/A
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Firm Selection:
OC San requested and advertised for proposals for Professional Programming Services, Contract No. PSA2021-001, on September 27, 2021. The following evaluation criteria were described in the Request for Proposals (RFP) and used to determine the most qualified firms.
|
Criterion |
Weight |
|
Project Understanding and Approach |
25% |
|
Related Project Experience |
30% |
|
Project Team and Staff Qualifications |
45% |
Four proposals were received on November 9, 2021 and evaluated in accordance with the evaluation process set forth in OC San’s Purchasing Ordinance by a pre-selected Evaluation Team consisting of OC San staff that included one Engineering Manager, one Engineering Supervisor and one Senior Engineer. The Evaluation Team also included one non-voting representative from the Contracts Administration Division.
The Evaluation Team scored the proposals on the established criteria as summarized in the table below:
|
|
Firm |
Project Understanding and Approach (Max. 25 Points) |
Related Project Experience (Max. 30 Points) |
Project Team and Staff Qualifications (Max. 45 Points) |
Total Score (Max. 100 Points) |
|
1 |
Enterprise Automation |
20 |
25 |
39 |
84 |
|
2 |
Maverick Technologies |
18 |
19 |
33 |
70 |
|
3 |
South Coast Controls |
14 |
16 |
21 |
51 |
|
4 |
Techne Network Inc. |
4 |
8 |
9 |
21 |
Of the four proposals, only those from Enterprise Automation and Maverick Technologies offered sufficient local resources. Based on this scoring, interviews with these two firms were conducted on January 11 and 12, 2022. Following the interviews, each member of the Evaluation Team scored the firms based on both the written proposal and the interview using the evaluation criteria and weighting described above. Below is the summary of the final scores.
|
|
Firm |
Project Understanding and Approach (Max. 25 Points) |
Related Project Experience (Max. 30 Points) |
Project Team and Staff Qualifications (Max. 45 Points) |
Total Score (Max. 100 Points) |
|
1 |
Enterprise Automation |
23 |
25 |
41 |
89 |
|
2 |
Maverick Technologies |
19 |
19 |
35 |
73 |
Enterprise Automation and Maverick Technologies demonstrated strong experience, knowledge, and ability to provide these services; clear understanding of projects risks, project execution and understanding on how to deliver a quality product on time and within schedule; and ability to provide local resources to perform programming, testing, and commissioning.
Review of Fee Proposals and Negotiations:
Hourly rate schedules were provided from each firm with a letter from the firm’s officer stating that the rates provided to OC San were the same standard rates provided to other new clients. OC San also reviewed the rates and determined that they were fair and reasonable.
Contract Value:
Staff has estimated that, on average, the equivalent of approximately four full-time staff will be required over the maximum 5-year period of these contracts. Assignments will be made on a case-by-case basis, so fees earned by one firm could be more than the other firm. For this reason, staff is proposing the contract limit for each firm be approximately 60 percent of the total expected fees associated with the four full-time equivalents.
CEQA
N/A
FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS
This request complies with authority levels of OC San’s Purchasing Ordinance. The budgeted cost for the proposed Professional Service Agreements is contained within the approved CIP project budgets for project programming and commissioning and the Division 760 budget for control system maintenance, and therefore no additional funding is necessary.
ATTACHMENT
The following attachment(s) may be viewed on-line at the OC San website (www.ocsan.gov) with the complete agenda package:
• Draft Professional Services Agreement
• Presentation
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