BNUMBER:  B-270966; B-270966.2
DATE:  May 28, 1996
TITLE:  Dimensions International/QSOFT, Inc.

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Matter of:Dimensions International/QSOFT, Inc.

File:     B-270966; B-270966.2

Date:May 28, 1996

J. Patrick McMahon, Esq., and Thomas K. David, Esq., McMahon & David, 
for the protester.
James Y. Miyazawa, Esq., Department of Navy, for the agency.
Charles W. Morrow, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the 
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Agency properly rejected protester's proposal where its responses to 
sample tasks designed to determine the offeror's understanding of and 
the technical approach to satisfying the government's requirements 
were unacceptable. 

DECISION

Dimensions International/QSOFT, Inc. protests the rejection of its 
proposal under request for proposals (RFP) No. N00600-95-R-1461, a 
total small business set-aside, issued by the Department of the Navy, 
for automatic data processing services at the Naval Aviation Depot 
Operations Center, Patuxent, Maryland, under a fixed-price contract 
for a base year with four 1-year options.  

We deny the protest.

The RFP provided for award to be made to the offeror whose proposal 
represented the best value, price and other factors considered.  The 
RFP requested prices for a variety of designated labor categories and 
informed offerors that cost/price would be evaluated for realism.  
Technical proposals were to be evaluated under the following criteria 
listed in descending order of importance:  (1) technical approach, (2) 
key personnel, (3) management plan, and (4) corporate experience.  
Under technical approach, the proposal preparation instructions 
required each offeror to provide detailed responses to eight sample 
tasks, which were said to be representative of the work to be 
performed under the contract.  For each sample task, the offeror's 
response was to include (1) a description of possible areas to be 
investigated, (2) a detailed technical approach and detailed 
step-by-step procedures, (3) identification of additional information 
that would be required to perform the task, (4) a detailed work plan 
for implementation, (5) a product outline describing what would be the 
expected deliverable(s) and/or results of the task, and (6) man-hours 
by labor category.  The RFP provided that the sample tasks would be 
evaluated to determine the extent of the offeror's understanding of 
and feasibility/ability to successfully perform the government's 
requirements.  

The RFP informed offerors that each technical proposal would be 
qualitatively evaluated under each technical criterion and 
subcriterion and categorized as "Outstanding," "Better," "Acceptable," 
"Marginal," or "Unacceptable."  In addition, the RFP stated that an 
unacceptable rating in one technical criterion could result in the 
entire technical proposal being found unacceptable, and that:

     "(a)  The government reserves the right to conduct a preliminary 
     evaluation of technical proposals, during which the government 
     will only evaluate offerors' responses to Sample Tasks 1-8.  
     Based on the results of that evaluation, and after consideration 
     of offerors' proposed prices, the government will determine which 
     proposals stand a reasonable chance for award, and will perform a 
     full technical evaluation of those proposals.

     "(b)  Any proposal deemed not to stand a reasonable chance for 
     award following the preliminary evaluation described in (a) above 
     will be removed from further consideration and the offeror so 
     notified.

     "(c)  The results of this preliminary evaluation will not be and 
     should not be construed as a competitive range determination."

Eleven proposals, including that of Dimensions (the incumbent 
contractor), were submitted by the July 19 closing date.  The Navy 
conducted a preliminary evaluation of the offerors' responses to the 
sample tasks.  Six proposals received an overall rating of marginal, 
and five proposals, including Dimensions's, received an overall rating 
of unacceptable for their responses to these tasks.  The Navy prepared 
a consensus team summary report on its evaluation of the sample tasks 
and destroyed the individual evaluators' worksheets.

Dimensions's unacceptable proposal received marginal ratings for four 
of the sample tasks and unacceptable ratings for the other four sample 
tasks.  The Navy found that Dimensions's proposal did not demonstrate 
an understanding of the sample tasks or provide evidence that it could 
provide a reasonable logical approach to satisfying the government's 
requirements; that the responses to the tasks, even those rated 
marginal, were not written in a clear or complete manner and failed in 
many parts to specifically address the required elements beyond a 
cursory level; that overall the sample tasks failed to meet the 
minimum requirements and had many gross omissions; and that the 
proposal would have to be completely rewritten in order to be made 
acceptable.  The Navy further concluded that, given Dimensions's 
apparent lack of understanding of the sample tasks, it was not 
reasonable to assume that its proposed price represented an accurate 
forecast of the work to be performed under the contract.

Of the six marginally rated proposals, the Navy found that four should 
not be rejected.  Two of these proposals' marginal ratings were found 
generally attributable to a lack of attention to minor details; these 
proposals were found to have the potential to exceed the government's 
requirements if corrected.  Another proposal had only one unacceptable 
sample task.  The fourth proposal included in the competition had four 
acceptable sample task responses and four marginal responses; three of 
the four marginal responses could be made acceptable with only minor 
corrections.  The Navy found a distinct break point between these four 
proposals and the other seven submitted, which were excluded from 
further consideration.  

Dimensions contends that the Navy's evaluation of its proposal as 
unacceptable is not reasonably supported by the record.  To this 
effect, Dimensions asserts that its performance under the incumbent 
contract demonstrates its understanding of the work and should have 
been considered.  Dimensions also argues that its protest should be 
sustained because the Navy has admitted destroying the individual 
evaluators' worksheets and the record allegedly does not reasonably 
support the evaluation.

In determining the propriety of an agency's evaluation decision, we 
examine the record to determine whether the judgment was reasonable 
and in accord with the evaluation criteria listed in the solicitation.  
Southwest Marine, Inc.; American Sys. Eng'g Corp., B-265865.3; 
B-265865.4, Jan. 23, 1996, 96-1 CPD  para.  56.  Although such judgments are 
by their nature often subjective, their exercise in the evaluation of 
proposals must be reasonable and must bear a rational relationship to 
the announced criteria upon which competing offers are to be selected.  
Implicit in the foregoing is that these judgments must be documented 
in sufficient detail to show that they are not arbitrary.  Id.  In 
particular, the agency's technical evaluation documentation is 
required to include "[a]n analysis of the technically acceptable and 
unacceptable proposals, including an assessment of each offeror's 
ability to accomplish the technical requirements."  Federal 
Acquisition Regulation  sec.  15.608(a)(3)(ii).  While an agency is not 
required to retain every document or worksheet generated during its 
evaluation of proposals, the agency's evaluation must be sufficiently 
documented to allow review of the merits of a protest.  Southwest 
Marine, Inc.; American Sys. Eng'g Corp., supra; KMS Fusion, Inc., 
B-242529, May 8, 1991, 91-1 CPD  para.  447.  In this regard, evaluators' 
notes and workpapers may or may not be necessary to determine the 
reasonableness of the agency's evaluation.  KMS Fusion, Inc., supra; 
see Department of the Army-Recon., B-240647.2, Feb. 26, 1991, 91-1 CPD  para.  
211.  Where an agency fails to document or retain evaluation 
materials, it bears the risk that there is inadequate supporting 
rationale in the record for the source selection decision and that we 
will not conclude that the agency had a reasonable basis for the 
decision.  Southwest Marine, Inc.; American Sys. Eng'g Corp., supra; 
Engineering and Computation, Inc., B-261658, Oct. 16, 1995, 95-2 CPD  para.  
176; American President Lines, Ltd., B-236834.3, July 20, 1990, 90-2 
CPD  para.  53.

We find no basis to object to the Navy's evaluation and subsequent 
rejection of Dimensions's proposal.  While we think the Navy's 
destruction of the individual evaluators' worksheets may have been 
premature, this is insufficient reason to disturb a procurement where, 
as here, the protest record is otherwise adequate for our review.  See 
Southwest Marine, Inc.; American Sys. Eng'g Corp., supra.  The Navy 
prepared a composite evaluation report of the offerors' responses to 
the sample tasks, which was based upon the individual evaluators' 
evaluation.[1]  This document discusses in detail how Dimensions's 
responses to the sample tasks failed to satisfy minimum RFP 
requirements and contained gross omissions, such that they failed to 
evidence either an understanding of, or an acceptable technical 
approach to satisfying, the government's requirements.  This document 
also contains each proposal's consensus rating for each sample task 
response and for each of the six required elements of the sample task 
responses, together with detailed narratives documenting the reasons 
for these ratings.   

Under a protective order, Dimensions had the opportunity to review 
this consensus report.  Yet Dimensions has not presented any specific 
evidence disputing any of the factual findings pertaining to its or 
any other offeror's proposal.  Instead, Dimensions argues that the 
Navy's methodology for determining the individual overall adjectival 
ratings was unreasonable.  For example, Dimensions complains that 
under task 6, Dimensions received acceptable ratings for three of the 
elements and unacceptable ratings for the other three elements, yet 
its overall rating was considered unacceptable; Dimensions argues that 
the rating should have been averaged to result in an overall rating of 
marginal.  We find no requirement that the ratings of the sample task 
response elements be averaged and nothing unreasonable in the agency's 
conclusion that an unacceptable rating in three of the six evaluated 
elements of a sample task response rendered the sample task response 
unacceptable overall, given the agency's documented reasons for its 
unacceptable rating.  See Wesley Medical Resources, Inc.; Human 
Resource Sys., Inc., B-261938.5; B-261938.6, Nov. 20, 1995, 95-2 CPD  para.  
230.  Specifically, with regard to Dimensions's response to task 6, 
Dimensions's response simply failed to provide any discussion of what 
additional information would be required to respond to this task or a 
detailed work plan; in addition, the response generally did not 
reference labor categories provided for under the RFP.  The agency 
reasonably found that these failures on Dimensions's response to task 
6, as well as its other responses, were indicative of
Dimensions's lack of understanding of the government's requirements 
and an unacceptable technical approach.  

Dimensions argues that the agency should have also considered its past 
experience as the incumbent, instead of simply considering the sample 
task responses.  However, the RFP put offerors on notice that they 
were to provide a detailed response to the sample tasks and that an 
inadequate response could result in summary rejection.  It is 
incumbent on an offeror to submit an adequately written technical 
proposal for the agency to evaluate.  Baker Support Servs., Inc., 
B-257054.2, Jan. 20, 1995, 95-1 CPD  para.  29.  No matter how competent a 
contractor may be, the agency may elect to base an offeror's technical 
evaluation entirely on the information submitted with the proposal.  
Thus, an offeror runs the risk of being rejected if its fails to 
submit an adequately written proposal.  Id.  

In sum, we find that the Navy had a reasonable basis for rejecting 
Dimensions's proposal, without regard to its price, because the 
proposal had to be completely rewritten in order to become acceptable.  
See Counter Technology, Inc., B-260853, July 20, 1995, 95-2 CPD  para.  39.  
While the protester complains that the retained proposals were only 
rated marginal and that all the proposals should therefore have been 
retained, the record shows that the retained proposals were 
significantly superior to Dimensions's unacceptable proposal and did 
not need to be rewritten to be made acceptable.[2]

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States 

1. The Navy also prepared similar documentation for the other 
competing offerors.

2. Dimensions argues that the provision permitting the preliminary 
elimination of proposals was improper.  This aspect of the protest is 
untimely.  A protestable issue that is apparent prior to the time set 
for the receipt of initial proposals must be filed prior to that time.  
See 4 C.F.R.  sec.  21.2(a)(1) (1996).