BNUMBER:  B-271293
DATE:  May 24, 1996
TITLE:  Orbit Advanced Technologies, Inc.

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Matter of:Orbit Advanced Technologies, Inc.

File:     B-271293

Date:May 24, 1996

John W. Fowler, Jr., Esq., Blank, Rome, Comisky & McCauley, for the 
protester.
Maj. Jeffrey W. Watson and Marian E. Sullivan, Esq., Department of the 
Air Force, for the agency.
Guy R. Pietrovito, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the 
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

The contracting agency reasonably excluded the protester's proposal 
from the competitive range where the number and magnitude of 
deficiencies and weaknesses evaluated in the protester's unacceptable 
proposal would necessitate a major proposal revision for the proposal 
to be made acceptable.

DECISION

Orbit Advanced Technologies, Inc. protests the exclusion of its 
proposal from the competitive range under request for proposals (RFP) 
No. F33657-95-R-0049, issued by the Department of the Air Force for a 
radome verification system.  

The protest is denied.

The RFP, issued as a total small business set-aside, provided for the 
award of a fixed-price contract for the construction of a radome 
verification system at Warner-Robins Air Force Base, Georgia.  The 
radome in question is a bulbous-shaped housing that covers the radar 
on the MC-130H Combat Talon II aircraft.  Verification testing is 
performed to ensure that the housing surface has no blemishes that 
would degrade the effectiveness of the radar signal.  The contractor 
is to provide on a turnkey basis the complete facility necessary to 
perform the radome verification testing.  This includes construction 
of an anechoic chamber,[1] a "parent enclosure," and provision of all 
necessary equipment and software to perform the testing.  Detailed 
specifications for the facility and equipment were provided in the 
RFP.

Offerors were informed that award would be made on a best value basis, 
based upon an integrated assessment of the offerors' proposals under 
stated specific evaluation factors and general considerations, and 
considering the offerors' evaluated proposal and performance risks.  
The following evaluation factors and subfactors were identified, as 
being in descending order of importance:

        Technical
          a.  Anechoic chamber and equipment
          b.  Parent enclosure
          c.  Software
          c.  Testing, time, and methodology
        Management
          a.  Program management
          b.  Logistics management
        Price

Offerors were also informed that the agency would assess the soundness 
of approach presented by a proposal, as well as the offerors' 
understanding and compliance with the RFP requirements.  The RFP 
provided that proposals were limited to 100 pages for the technical 
evaluation factor and 50 pages for the program management factor, and 
that technical proposals must identify the equipment and software 
offered and how the offered equipment and software satisfied the 
technical requirements.  Offerors were also instructed to provide 
sufficient cost/price information to establish the reasonableness, 
realism, and completeness of proposed pricing.

The Air Force received four proposals, including Orbit's, by the 
closing date for receipt of proposals.  Initial proposals were 
evaluated under an adjectival rating scheme, as follows:[2]

Offerors              A             B            C          Orbit

Technical                                           

Anechoic Chamber        Y/L         Y/M         Y/M          R/H

Parent Enclosure        Y/M         R/H         Y/L          R/H

Software             Y/L           Y/M          Y/L          Y/M

Testing, time, and methodology        Y/L         Y/M         Y/L         
                                                    R/H

Management                                          

Program Management        Y/H        Y/M         Y/H         Y/H

Logistics Management        Y/M        Y/M         Y/M         Y/M

Price               $6.2M[3]       $8.5M       $7.2M        $6.9M
Orbit's unacceptable ratings under three of the four technical 
evaluation subfactors reflected the evaluators' view that Orbit's 
proposal required major revisions to become acceptable.  In this 
regard, the agency's evaluators identified 39 deficiencies and 39 
other areas requiring clarification in Orbit's proposal.  For example, 
under the anechoic chamber subfactor, the evaluators found, among 
other things, that Orbit did not provide emergency lighting for the 
chamber; that Orbit did not provide limit switches on the positioner 
axes of the "unit under test" (UUT); that Orbit's proposed signal 
source subsystem did not meet spectral purity or internal leveling 
requirements; and that Orbit's proposed power supplies for the UUT 
stimulus generator did not meet resolution and ripple requirements.  
Orbit's proposal was also assessed as unacceptable under the parent 
enclosure subfactor because Orbit did not address the acoustical 
control and facility power requirements.  Under the testing, time, and 
methodology subfactor, Orbit's proposal was evaluated as not being 
compliant with the specification requirements for back-to-back beam 
deflection; also it did not address required validation and acceptance 
testing.  With regard to price, the agency determined that Orbit had 
failed to provide sufficient data in its price proposal to allow the 
agency to assess the reasonableness, realism, or completeness of the 
proposed pricing. 

Given the number and magnitude of the deficiencies identified in 
Orbit's initial proposal, the Air Force concluded that Orbit's 
proposal could not be made acceptable without significant revision.  
The Air Force determined that "[t]here was no reasonable expectation 
that [Orbit] will so significantly correct their deficiencies . . . 
that [it] would improve [its] potential for award over another 
offeror."  The remaining offerors' proposals were found to include 
weaknesses and deficiencies of less magnitude than Orbit's and which 
would not require major revision for the proposals to become 
acceptable.  Orbit's proposal was thus excluded from the competitive 
range, which included the remaining three offerors' proposals.  This 
protest followed.

Orbit does not challenge the agency's evaluation of its proposal but 
asserts that the deficiencies and weaknesses identified in its 
proposal can be corrected without major effort.  In this regard, Orbit 
argues that most of the deficiencies or weaknesses identified in its 
proposal are informational deficiencies.[4] 

An offeror must submit an initial proposal that is adequately written 
and that affirmatively states its merits, or run the risk of having 
its proposal rejected as technically unacceptable.  Defense Group, 
Inc., B-253795, Oct. 25, 1993, 94-1 CPD  para.  196.  Generally, offers that 
are technically unacceptable as submitted and would require major 
revisions to become acceptable are not required to be included in the 
competitive range for discussion purposes.  Engineering & Computation, 
Inc., B-258728, Jan. 31, 1995, 95-1 CPD  para.  155.  In reviewing whether a 
proposal was properly rejected as technically unacceptable for 
informational deficiencies, we examine the record to determine, among 
other things, whether the RFP called for detailed information and the 
nature of the informational deficiencies--for example, whether the 
deficiencies tend to show that the offeror did not understand what it 
would be required to do under the contract.  Id.

Here, we find reasonable the agency's exclusion of Orbit's proposal 
from the competitive range.  The RFP required offerors to provide 
sufficient information to demonstrate that the proposed system 
satisfied the RFP's specifications.  The RFP also required offerors to 
provide sufficient price/cost information to establish the 
reasonableness, realism, and completeness of the offeror's proposed 
price.  Orbit failed to satisfy any of these requirements.  As noted 
above, Orbit's proposal was evaluated as containing 78 deficiencies 
and weaknesses, essentially because Orbit failed to provide 
information showing compliance with significant specification 
requirements and in some instances, offered noncompliant equipment.  
While Orbit argues that all of the evaluated deficiencies and 
weaknesses are correctable, the number and magnitude of Orbit's 
deficiencies and weaknesses support the Air Force's judgment that 
major revisions to Orbit's proposal would be required to demonstrate 
Orbit's compliance with the RFP's requirements.[5]  Also, as pointed 
out by the Air Force, the extensiveness of the deficiencies in Orbit's 
proposal calls into question Orbit's understanding of the contract 
requirements.  Given the extensiveness of the evaluated deficiencies 
and weaknesses in Orbit's proposal (which Orbit does not contest), we 
agree with the Air Force that correction of Orbit's proposal would 
necessitate a major proposal revision.  Under these circumstances, the 
agency was not required to include Orbit's unacceptable proposal in 
the competitive range. 

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States

1. An "anechoic chamber" is designed to be free of echo and 
reverberation.

2. Proposals were evaluated under each evaluation factor as either 
"B,"  blue/exceptional; "G," green/acceptable; "Y," yellow/marginal; 
or "R," red/unacceptable.  A yellow rating indicated that the proposal 
failed to meet evaluation standards but could be corrected, while a 
red rating indicated that the proposal failed to meet a minimum RFP 
requirement and could not be corrected without major revision.  
Proposals were also evaluated for proposal risk as either "H," high; 
"M," moderate; or "L," low risk. 

3."M" means million.

4. Orbit acknowledges that its proposed power supply for the UUT 
stimulus generator system is not compliant with the RFP's 
specifications, but asserts without proof that this deficiency is also 
easily correctable.

5. Orbit also argues that the number of informational deficiencies in 
its proposal is understandable given the RFP's page limitations.  
Orbit, however, did not protest the solicitation's page limitations.  
In any event, we find from our review of Orbit's technical proposal 
that Orbit did not even use all the pages to which it was entitled 
under the RFP.