BNUMBER:  B-266353
DATE:  February 9, 1996
TITLE:  Contratos y Mantenimientos, S.A.

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Matter of:Contratos y Mantenimientos, S.A.

File:     B-266353

Date:     February 9, 1996

Enrique Arturo de Obarrio, Esq., and Claudio Lacayo Alvarez, Esq., 
Troncoso, Lacayo & Porras, for the protester.
Glenn A. Heisler, Esq., Panama Canal Commission, for the agency.
Sylvia Schatz, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General 
Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

1.  Downgrading of proposal for lack of similar experience was 
reasonable where, although proposal showed experience painting in 
confined spaces, experience was not with marine floating equipment, 
and record shows that safety procedures previously used by protester 
actually would create dangerous working conditions in a marine 
environment.

2.  Allegation that the letter rating of the awardee's proposal was 
too high and that of the protester's was too low is not a basis for 
sustaining protest where contracting officer did not rely on letter 
ratings but, rather, based award decision on his own assessment of the 
relative merits of the proposals.

DECISION

Contratos y Mantenimientos, S.A. (COMASA) protests the award of a 
contract to Formal Management Systems (FMS) under request for 
proposals (RFP)              No. CNP-906-95-AG-28, issued by the 
Panama Canal Commission for the removal of all debris, scale, blast, 
and paint in selected areas of a barge.  The protester primarily 
argues that the evaluation of the proposals was improper.

We deny the protest.[1]

The evaluation contemplated the award of a fixed-price contract on a 
best value basis, with consideration of two factors, technical and 
price.  The technical factor consisted of four subfactors:  quality of 
work and quality of control; experience; equipment and safety 
procedures; and past performance.  With regard to past performance, 
offerors were to list at least four references and an explanation of 
the type of work performed.

Five proposals were received.  COMASA's proposal received an initial 
evaluation score of 275 (of the 1,000 available) points, while FMS's 
received a perfect score of 1,000 points.  COMASA's best and final 
offer (BAFO), priced at $139,927, received 475 points, and FMS's, 
priced at $236,000, received 1,000 points.  The contracting officer 
then assigned the proposals combined technical/price letter ratings, 
C+ for COMASA and B+ for FMS.  In reviewing the BAFOs, the contracting 
officer found that, although COMASA's price was low, its proposal was 
weak under each of the technical subfactors, and that it was unlikely 
that COMASA could perform the contract at its offered price.  After 
finding FMS's BAFO technically superior to COMASA's and that its price 
was realistic, the contracting officer determined that FMS's BAFO was 
most advantageous to the government and awarded the contract to FMS.

EXPERIENCE

COMASA argues that its technical proposal improperly was downgraded 
for a lack of sufficient experience in confined space industrial 
coating application works; COMASA claims its proposal demonstrated 
that the firm had a great deal of such experience.  Technical 
evaluations must be reasonable and consistent with the evaluation 
criteria.  Comarco, Inc., B-249697.2, Jan. 26, 1993, 93-1 CPD  para.  65.  
Here, we find that the evaluation of COMASA's technical proposal was 
proper.

While COMASA's proposal showed experience performing confined space 
work, with the exception of one prior contract with the Commission 
(contract No. CC-3-088) the experience of the firm and its proposed 
personnel consisted of painting in confined spaces on tanks rather 
than on marine floating equipment, as required under the RFP here.  
The agency reports that there are substantial differences between the 
two types of work, including the fact that COMASA's proposed safety 
plans and procedures, which are used for confined space work on tanks, 
actually create dangerous working conditions for workers on marine 
floating equipment, as they do not allow for proper oversight 
procedures of the ventilation system inside the confined space and do 
not provide for any persons to be stationed inside the confined space 
to monitor personnel working there, as required by the solicitation.  
Further, while COMASA's contract No. CC-3-088 did involve similar 
work, the Commission reports that it found COMASA's work to be 
unsatisfactory due to poor surface preparation, contamination, and 
insufficient use of extraction blowers, which caused the internal 
coating to fall off in large sheets.  COMASA thus was required to 
return to the work site to perform major repairs. 

COMASA maintains that the firm and its personnel in fact had 
significant experience in painting in confined spaces on marine 
floating equipment, and has submitted as part of its comments on the 
agency report a list of numerous prior contracts (different from those 
listed in its proposal) which allegedly involved this type of work.  
However, an offeror must establish the merits of its proposal in the 
proposal itself.  See Power Dynatec Corp., B-251501.3, Aug. 3, 1993, 
93-2 CPD  para.  73.  Thus, these additional contracts, even if they 
involved similar work as COMASA maintains, cannot be used to establish 
COMASA's experience, or to show that the evaluation, which was based 
on the contents of COMASA's proposal, was unreasonable.  

COMASA also disputes the agency's finding that its performance under 
contract  No. CC-3-088 was unsatisfactory, arguing that the 
Commission's own performance report, which was signed and dated after 
COMASA had performed the repair work, rated its performance 
"satisfactory."  However, the Commission explains that the problems 
arose only after initial acceptance of the work, and COMASA does not 
dispute the need for the repairs.  The problems that necessitated the 
repairs provided a reasonable basis for discounting the firm's 
experience under that contract; the agency was not precluded from 
ultimately determining that COMASA's work was not satisfactory just 
because it initially accepted the work.  The agency therefore 
reasonably downgraded COMASA's proposal in this area.

QUALITY OF WORK AND QUALITY OF CONTROL SUBFACTOR

COMASA maintains that its proposal improperly was downgraded for 
failing "to designate a quality control [QC] representative which is 
the key person on this project," since this was not a solicitation 
requirement.[2]  However, this allegation is not supported by the 
record.  While the record shows that COMASA's initial proposal was 
downgraded under this subfactor in part due to its failure to 
designate a QC representative, the evaluation documentation for 
COMASA's BAFO did not list this as a deficiency, and COMASA's score in 
this area increased.  The evaluation documentation also shows that the 
contracting officer did not take any QC representative deficiency into 
account in the ultimate award decision.  Since this was not a factor 
in the award decision, it is not a basis for disturbing that decision.

PRICE

COMASA takes issue with the letter scoring by the contracting officer.  
COMASA believes FMS's price (about $96,000 higher than COMASA's) 
warranted a C, rather than a B rating; this, combined with its 
proposal's A technical rating, would result in an overall B, rather 
than a B+ rating.  COMASA believes its own proposal's technical rating 
should have been C rather than D which, combined with its A price 
rating, also would give its proposal an overall B rating.  COMASA 
concludes it would have been entitled to award based on its lower 
price.

COMASA's argument is based on the incorrect assumption that a higher 
score would have entitled it to the award.  In fact, scores themselves 
are not controlling as to the significance of actual proposal 
differences; point scores are useful only as guides to intelligent 
decisionmaking.  See Earle Palmer Brown Cos., Inc., B-243544; 
B-243544.2, Aug. 7, 1991, 91-2 CPD  para.  134.  Here, the record shows that 
the point and letter scores were not the basis for the award decision.  
Rather, the contracting officer determined the specific merits of each 
proposal, and relied on this determination, rather than the point and 
letter scores, in deciding to make award to FMS.  More specifically, 
as discussed above, he determined that COMASA's proposal contained 
weaknesses under each technical subfactor--in contrast to the lack of 
any deficiencies in FMS's proposal--and that COMASA would not be able 
to perform at its low price.  This being the case, even if COMASA's 
and FMS's letter ratings were changed, it is clear that the reasons 
for selecting FMS for award would remain.  This argument therefore is 
without merit.

BIAS

COMASA argues that its proposal's low rating was the result of agency 
bias, and cites several prior solicitations under which the Commission 
failed to make award to COMASA as evidence of a pattern of bias.  The 
record must clearly establish that an agency intended to injure a 
party before we will find bias.  Miller Bldg. Corp.,   B-245488, Jan. 
3, 1992, 92-1 CPD  para.  21.  The mere fact that COMASA previously has 
failed to receive contracts from the Commission is not evidence of 
such an intent.  In any case, bias aside, there is no basis for 
questioning the award here, since we have found that the evaluation 
was reasonable.

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States
 
1. COMASA raises a number of arguments in challenging the evaluation.  
We find all to be without merit.  We discuss several of the arguments 
below.

2. COMASA also maintains the information in the RFP with respect to 
the quality control procedures was inadequate to allow offerors to 
prepare proposals.  Our Bid Protest Regulations require protests based 
on alleged RFP improprieties to be filed prior to the initial closing 
time.  4 C.F.R.  sec.  21.2(a)(1) (1995).  This allegation therefore is 
untimely and will not be considered.