BNUMBER:  B-266050
DATE:  January 23, 1996
TITLE:  Criterion Corporation

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DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
A protected decision was issued on the date below and was subject to a 
GAO Protective Order.  This version has been redacted or approved by 
the parties involved for public release.
Matter of:Criterion Corporation

File:     B-266050

Date:January 23, 1996

Douglas L. Patin, Esq., Spriggs & Hollingsworth, for the protester.
Antonio R. Franco, Esq., Pamela J. Mazza, Esq., and Philip M. Dearborn 
III, Esq., Piliero, Mazza & Pargament, for Phoenix Systems & 
Technologies, an interested party.
Col. Nicholas P. Retson and Capt. Bryant S. Banes, Department of the 
Army, for the agency.
Behn Miller, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the 
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

1.  Protest challenging agency's determination that awardee's proposal 
was technically superior is denied where, even though protester's 
proposal received a higher technical score than the awardee's under 
the past performance technical evaluation factor, the awardee's 
proposal received significantly higher scores for three of the 
remaining four technical evaluation factors--which were ranked equally 
with the past performance technical evaluation factor--resulting in an 
overall higher technical score for the awardee.

2.  Award to higher priced offeror was proper where agency reasonably 
determined that superior technical merit of the awardee's proposal 
warranted paying the associated price premium and the solicitation 
emphasized that technical merit was more important than price.

DECISION

Criterion Corporation protests the award of a contract to Phoenix 
Systems & Technology (PS&T) under request for proposals (RFP) No. 
DAHA30-95-R-0005, issued by Department of the Army for operation and 
maintenance of the airfield located at Griffiss Air Force Base, Rome, 
New York.  Criterion contends that the agency's determination that 
PS&T's proposal was technically superior to the protester's is 
improper since the awardee's past performance is not as strong as the 
protester's.  Criterion also contends that the agency improperly based 
the contract award solely on technical merit, without regard to price.

We deny the protest.

The RFP was issued on June 9, 1995, and contemplated the award of a 
firm, fixed-price indefinite quantity contract for a base year period 
with 4 option years.
Offerors were required to submit both technical and price proposals.  
The RFP provided that technical proposals would be evaluated under the 
following five evaluation criteria, which were rated of equal 
importance:  past performance; quality assurance; organizational 
structure; orientation period; and demonstrated understanding of the 
statement of work requirements.  The RFP further provided that 
technical merit was more important than price, and that the "most 
advantageous" offer would be selected for award.

By the August 18 closing date, three proposals were received, 
including offers from PS&T and the protester.  Criterion's proposal 
was priced at $17,129,444 and PS&T's proposal was priced at 
$19,337,600.  By August 23, the technical evaluation panel (TEP) had 
completed its evaluation of offerors' technical proposals.  While 
Criterion's proposal received a higher technical rating than PS&T's 
under the past performance technical evaluation factor, it was ranked 
second behind PS&T's in overall technical merit.  Shortly thereafter, 
the TEP advised the contracting officer that because PS&T's "proposal 
outlined the best plan to accomplish" the contract, the team had 
determined PS&T's proposal was "the technically superior proposal"; by 
memorandum dated August 23, the TEP unanimously concluded that because 
of the superior technical merit of PS&T's proposal, it provided the 
"best value to the [g]overnment."

After comparing the TEP's evaluation results and recommendation with 
the results of the agency's price proposal evaluation, the contracting 
officer--who was the source selection official for this 
procurement--determined that PS&T's technical superiority warranted 
paying an approximately $2 million price premium.  Consequently, on 
August 29, the Army awarded this contract to PS&T.  On September 8, 
PS&T filed this protest.

Criterion first asserts that its proposal should have been considered 
technically superior to PS&T's proposal because of its superior past 
performance.  

We will examine an agency's technical evaluation to ensure that it was 
reasonable and consistent with the evaluation criteria and applicable 
statutes and regulations.  Information Sys. & Networks Corp., 69 Comp. 
Gen. 284 (1990), 90-1 CPD  para.  203.   

In this case, the agency credited Criterion's proposal for its 
superior past performance with 260 points as compared to PS&T's 238 
points.  However, our review of the record shows that even considering 
this technical superiority, PS&T's proposal was reasonably found to be 
technically superior because of its higher ratings under three of the 
four remaining technical evaluation factors--which were ranked of 
equal importance with the past performance factor.  Specifically, 
PS&T's and Criterion's scores for these 4 factors were as follows:

     Evaluation Factor            PS&T       Criterion

     Quality Assurance        354       339
     
     Organizational Structure 356       317

     Orientation Period       388       327

     Demonstrated Understanding358      378

In total, PS&T received 1,694 points for its technical proposal while 
Criterion received 1,621.

The reasons for PS&T's higher point score were memorialized in a 
contemporaneous, summary evaluation statement executed by each member 
of the TEP.  Specifically, the TEP determined that PS&T submitted the 
"[b]est [quality control] plan of the three [proposals] with numerous 
total quality management (TQM) parts that would be verifiable and lead 
to good quality involvement," as well as "the best organizational plan 
in terms of manpower and duties for cross-utilizations."  The TEP 
report documented the reasons why PST's proposed plans were considered 
the best and why Criterion's were not.  Additionally, the TEP reported 
that because PS&T "has so many local personnel on line and has an 
extremely specific plan for the orientation period, the team felt that 
[PS&T's] orientation plan was the best."  Criterion has not shown the 
agency's determinations that PS&T's proposal was superior under these 
factors was unreasonable.

Thus, the evaluation documentation shows that even considering 
Criterion's higher past performance rating, the TEP reasonably 
concluded that given PS&T's documented strengths under the quality 
assurance, organizational structure, and orientation period factors, 
PS&T's technical proposal was significantly stronger than Criterion's 
as indicated by the point scores.  As noted above, past performance 
was only one of five equally ranked technical factors; moreover, the 
record shows that although PS&T did not have as strong a performance 
background as Criterion, PS&T nonetheless had a clearly applicable 
history of similar experience since the firm "was involved in a number 
of recent and on-going contracts related to . . . essential airfield 
type of operations."  Although Criterion disagrees with the agency's 
technical conclusions, such disagreement does not render the 
evaluation unreasonable.  Litton Sys., Inc., B-237596.3, Aug. 8, 1990, 
90-2 CPD  para.  115. 

Criterion also argues that the Army improperly failed to consider 
price in its selection decision.  Alternatively, Criterion argues that 
if price was considered, the record does not contain sufficient 
documentation of a contemporaneous price analysis, and consequently 
its protest should be sustained on this basis.

Where, as here, the RFP provides that technical considerations will be 
more important than price, agency selection officials have broad 
discretion in determining the manner and extent to which they will 
make use of the technical and price evaluation results in making 
price/technical tradeoffs.  Red River Serv. Corp.; Mark Dunning 
Indus., Inc., B-253671 et al., Apr. 22, 1994, 94-1 CPD  para.  385.
A source selection official's judgment must be documented in 
sufficient detail to show it is not arbitrary.  KMS Fusion, Inc., 
B-242529, May 8, 1991, 91-1 CPD  para.  447.  The official's failure to 
specifically discuss the price/technical tradeoff in the selection 
decision does not affect the validity of the decision, if the record 
shows that the agency reasonably made its determination.  McShade 
Gov't Contracting Servs., B-232977, Feb. 6, 1989, 89-1 CPD  para.  118.  The 
fact that the explanation was not contained in the contemporaneous 
evaluation record does not provide a basis to disregard it in our 
review.  Allied-Signal Aerospace Co.; Bendix Communications, Div., 
B-249214.4, Jan. 29, 1993, 93-1 CPD  para.  109.

In this case, the record shows that the contracting officer carefully 
weighed the superior technical merit of PS&T's proposal and its higher 
price against the price savings provided by Criterion's offer.  
Although the record does not contain a contemporaneous document 
memorializing this price/technical tradeoff analysis, the details of 
this analysis are nonetheless clearly spelled out in a memorandum 
prepared for our Office's review, responding to the protester's 
contentions.  

Specifically, the contracting officer found that Criterion's lower 
price resulted in part from its technical strategy, which relied on a 
cross-utilization of personnel--resulting in the rotation of full-time 
personnel to perform other functions during peak work loads and shared 
job responsibilities among part-time personnel.  The contracting 
officer determined that although this staffing strategy was feasible, 
it represented a performance risk not present in PS&T's proposal which 
offered [deleted] than Criterion and [deleted].  Based on the 
technical superiority of PS&T's offer, as well as the noted 
performance risks inherent in Criterion's staffing approach, the 
contracting officer determined that PS&T's technical strengths 
warranted paying the associated price premium of approximately $2 
million and that PS&T's proposal offered the "best value" to the Army.  
From our review of the record, which as indicated shows that PS&T's 
proposal was technically superior, and given that the solicitation 
emphasized technical merit was more important to price, we find that 
the agency's price/technical tradeoff analysis reasonably justified 
the agency's award selection decision.  Sociometrics, Inc., 
B-261367.2; B-261367.3, Nov. 1, 1995, 95-2 CPD  para.  201; General Research 
Corp., B-253866.2, Dec. 17, 1993, 93-2 CPD  para.  325.[1] 

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States

1. Criterion also contends that the agency failed to timely notify it 
of the PS&T award, resulting in the protester's failure to obtain a 
stay of contract performance when it filed a protest at our Office.  
It appears from the record that although the agency timely mailed the 
award notice to a local New York corporate location listed in the 
protester's proposal, the protester apparently expected to receive 
this notice at its Texas headquarters.  In any event, since we deny 
the protester's challenges to the selection decision and find the 
award to be proper, we will not consider this contention further since 
the protester was not prejudiced by any delay in notification.  See 
Main Elec. Ltd., B-224026, Nov. 3, 1986, 86-2 CPD  para.  511.