BNUMBER:  B-265852
DATE:  December 29, 1995
TITLE:  Management Plus, Inc.

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Matter of:Management Plus, Inc.

File:     B-265852

Date:     December 29, 1995

Charles W. Surasky, Esq., and Karl Dix, Jr., Esq., Smith, Currie & 
Hancock, for the protester.
Christopher Solop, Esq., Ott & Purdy, for KCA Corporation, an 
interested party.
Col. Nicholas P. Retson, Maj. Michael J. O'Farrell, Jr., and Joseph M. 
Zima, Esq., Department of the Army, Office of the Judge Advocate 
General, for the agency.
Sylvia Schatz, Esq., and David A. Ashen, Esq., Office of the General 
Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Agency reasonably downgraded protester's proposal for failing to 
demonstrate corporate experience, where the protester, a newly formed 
corporate entity, relied upon the qualifications of its proposed 
personnel to establish its corporate experience, but the solicitation 
provided for a separate evaluation of corporate and personnel 
experience.

DECISION

Management Plus, Inc. (MPI) protests the Department of the Army's 
award of a contract to KCA Corporation, under request for proposals 
(RFP) No. DAKF40-94-R-0002, for food and dining attendant services at 
Fort Bragg, North Carolina.  MPI  challenges the evaluation of its 
proposal.

We deny the protest.

The RFP contemplated the award of a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for a 
base year, with four 1-year options.  The solicitation stated that 
technical proposals would be evaluated based on the following four 
factors:  (1) technical excellence;             (2) management; (3) 
quality control; and (4) cost.  Each technical factor contained 
various subfactors.  The solicitation stated that the cumulative 
weight of the first three factors was somewhat more important than 
cost; technical excellence was somewhat more important than 
management; and quality control was substantially less important than 
either technical excellence or management.   The RFP provided for 
award to be made to the responsible offeror whose offer conformed to 
the RFP and was considered most advantageous to the government.

Nineteen proposals were received by the closing time; seven of the 
proposals, including MPI's and KCA's, were included in the competitive 
range.  Following written and oral discussions with the offerors, best 
and final offers (BAFO) were requested.  The BAFOs were evaluated as 
follows:

                                   MPI              KCA

Technical Excellence              72.65              83.30

Management                        68.24              85.46

Quality Control                   83.15              87.00

TOTAL CONSENSUS[1]                71.95              84.53

EVALUATED COST              $49,869,350        $51,143,422                                              
The Army determined that although MPI's proposal had the lowest 
evaluated cost, the technical strengths of KCA's proposal were worth 
the evaluated cost premium ($1,274,072).  The Army thus found KCA's 
proposal to be the most advantageous to the government and made award 
to the firm.

MPI challenges the Army's determination to award MPI's proposal only 
7.5 of      15 available weighted points for technical experience 
related to functional areas, a subfactor of the technical excellence 
factor, and none of the 15 available weighted points for related 
management and contract experience, a subfactor of the management 
factor.  MPI argues the Army improperly failed to consider under these 
subfactors the experience of three proposed key personnel--the 
contract manager (who is also president of MPI), the quality control 
manager, and the contract administrative manager--who, MPI contends, 
were highly qualified and had substantial experience during the past 5 
years performing services similar to those required here with firms 
other than MPI.[2]

In reviewing protests against an agency's technical evaluation, we do 
not independently evaluate proposals or substitute our judgment for 
that of the agency; instead we review the record to determine whether 
the agency's judgments were reasonable and in accordance with the 
listed criteria and whether there were any violations of procurement 
statutes or regulations.  Facilities Management Co., Inc., B-259731.2, 
May 23, 1995, 95-1 CPD  274.  Here, we conclude that the evaluation 
was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation language.

The record shows MPI's initial technical and management proposals 
contained information on only the experience of its proposed key 
personnel under both subfactors; MPI did not demonstrate experience as 
a corporate entity because it was a newly formed company which had not 
previously performed any commercial or government contracts for food 
services.  As a result, the Army gave MPI initial scores of 3 of 15 
available weighted points under the technical experience subfactor and 
0 of the 15 available weighted points under the related management and 
contract experience subfactor.  When informed during discussions that 
its failure to describe the firm's corporate experience was viewed as 
a deficiency under these subfactors, MPI in its BAFO simply described 
in more detail the experience and qualifications of its proposed key 
personnel.  Based on this information, the Army determined that MPI's 
key personnel had "excellent experience and qualities," and thus 
raised its BAFO score under the technical experience subfactor from 3 
to 7.5 points; the Army did not award MPI any more points under this 
subfactor because its BAFO failed to indicate any corporate 
experience.  Likewise, the Army did not raise MPI's score of 0 points 
under the related management and contract experience subfactor because 
MPI failed to describe any corporate experience performing contracts 
similar to the RFP here.

We find that the evaluation of MPI's experience was reasonable.  While 
an agency may, in appropriate circumstances, evaluate the corporate 
experience of a new business by reference to the experience of its 
principal officers, or parent company, an agency is not obligated to 
do so in every case.  See York Sys. Corp., B-237364, Feb. 9, 1990, 
90-1 CPD  172; Allied Management of Texas, Inc., B-232736.2,      May 
22, 1989, 89-1 CPD  485; see generally Talon Corp., B-248086, July 
27, 1992, 92-2 CPD  55.  Here, the solicitation clearly indicated 
that the Army considered a firm's experience to be different from its 
employees' individual experience.  The RFP described the technical 
experience to be evaluated under the technical experience subfactor as 
"that specific experience related to the functional areas, and 
includes direct experience of personnel, the company, or business 
entity, and of any proposed subcontractors."  In contrast, the 
solicitation included under the management factor separate evaluation 
subfactors for related management and contract experience and for 
qualifications of key personnel, and instructed offerors in responding 
to the related management and contract experience subfactor to 
"[d]escribe the company's background pertinent to performance of large 
service contracts during the past five years, especially contracts 
similar to this solicitation, and relate that experience to the 
requirements of this contract."  Although the RFP stated that both 
corporate and personnel experience were to be evaluated under the 
technical experience subfactor, it only requested information 
concerning corporate experience under the related management and 
contract experience subfactor of the management factor and provided a 
separate personnel qualifications subfactor under the management 
factor.  Thus, we believe that the RFP contemplated a separate 
evaluation of corporate and personnel experience.  In these 
circumstances, we see no basis to question the agency's refusal to 
consider the experience of MPI's key personnel as a substitute for its 
lack of corporate experience, and the consequent downgrading of its 
proposal under the technical experience and the related management and 
contract experience subfactors.  See Precision Elevator, Inc., 
B-259375, Mar. 20, 1995, 95-1 CPD  152.

MPI also argues that one of the evaluators improperly downgraded MPI's 
BAFO under the technical experience subfactor on the basis that it 
failed to state that MPI intended to hire the incumbent contractor's 
work force; according to MPI, its BAFO clearly states it intended to 
hire all of the incumbent's personnel.

Although the record shows that one evaluator apparently believed that 
MPI's BAFO did not state the firm intended to hire the incumbent 
contractor's personnel, when MPI's BAFO, in fact, did contain this 
statement, it does not appear that MPI suffered any competitive 
prejudice as a result of this error.  See PHP Healthcare Corp.; 
Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, B-251799 et al., May 4, 
1993, 93-1 CPD  366 (competitive prejudice is an essential element 
that must be shown by a protester if it is to prevail in its protest).  
Even if this evaluator had known of MPI's stated intention to hire the 
incumbent contractor's personnel and had given MPI a higher score as a 
result, there is no basis for concluding that the evaluator would have 
awarded MPI the maximum score here.  On the contrary, the record 
indicates that MPI's failure to demonstrate corporate experience was 
the primary reason for the evaluator's finding MPI's BAFO deficient 
under this subfactor, and the evaluator specifically states that he 
would not consider MPI's intention to hire the incumbent's work force 
as correcting this weakness.  Further, nowhere in the consensus 
technical evaluation report was there any reference to MPI's proposal 
being considered deficient or weak because of a failure to commit to 
hiring the incumbent's work force; nor is there any other evidence in 
the record that the consensus evaluation panel took into account this 
individual evaluator's conclusion with respect to MPI's hiring plans 
in determining MPI's score under this subfactor.  In any event, again 
the record indicates that the consensus panel, like the evaluator, 
would not have given MPI's BAFO the maximum score or significantly 
increased its score under the technical experience subfactor, since 
the proposal had already earned 7.5 of 15 available weighted points 
under that subfactor and the panel considered MPI's BAFO deficient in 
this regard for failure to demonstrate corporate experience.  Given 
MPI's significantly lower overall score under the more important 
non-cost factors, nothing in the record indicates that the one 
evaluator's  misunderstanding of MPI's intention to hire the 
incumbent's work force deprived MPI of the award. 

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General 
of the United States

1. The final scores for each evaluation factor were not the average of 
the scores assigned by the individual evaluators, but instead were 
consensus scores.

2. MPI also argues that the evaluation of its proposal was 
inconsistent with the Army's own source selection plan.  However, 
alleged deficiencies in the application of an agency evaluation or 
source selection plan do not provide a basis for questioning the 
validity of the award selection; these plans are internal agency 
instructions and as such do not give outside parties any rights.  
Quality Sys., Inc.,  B-235344; B-235344.2, Aug. 31, 1989, 89-2 CPD  
197.  Rather, the agency is required to follow the evaluation scheme 
set forth in the RFP for the information of potential offerors, and to 
conduct its evaluation in a manner that will reach a rational result.  
Id.  Here, it is clear from the record that MPI's proposal was 
reasonably evaluated using the evaluation factors set forth in the 
RFP.