BNUMBER:  B-271509
DATE:  July 1, 1996
TITLE:  Techniarts Engineering

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Matter of:Techniarts Engineering

File:     B-271509

Date:July 1, 1996

William E. Moore for the protester. 
John W. Fowler, Jr., Esq., Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley, for 
Peirce-Phelps, Inc.,  an intervenor.
Kathryn E. Simmons, Defense Logistics Agency, for the agency.
Linda C. Glass, Esq., and Paul Lieberman, Esq., Office of the General 
Counsel, GAO, Participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

1.  Contracting agency reasonably eliminated protester's technically 
acceptable proposal from the competitive range where the protester's 
experience properly was evaluated as relatively weak and the agency 
had received several superior proposals at lower prices, as a result 
of which the protester's proposal had no reasonable chance of being 
selected for award.

2.  Agency was not required to conduct discussions with the protester 
concerning its corporate experience where the protester's experience 
was evaluated as acceptable, but not as strong as that of several 
other offerors, the information in question was explicitly required by 
the solicitation, and the agency had no reason to believe the 
protester had not provided all of the relevant specific past 
performance information which was requested.

DECISION

Techniarts Engineering protests the exclusion of its proposal from the 
competitive range under request for proposal (RFP) No. 
TASA12-95-R-0025, issued by the Defense Logistics Agency, 
Television-Audio Support Activity (T-ASA) for Shipboard Audio 
Entertainment Systems (SAES).

We deny the protest.

The RFP, issued on July 20, 1995, contemplated the award of a 
fixed-price requirements contract for a base period with four 1-year 
options.  The RFP stated that award would be made to a single offeror 
who submitted the "best overall proposal" considering the stated 
evaluation factors.  The RFP contained two evaluation factors:  (1) 
merit and (2) cost, which was of lesser importance.  The merit factor 
had two subfactors, listed in descending order of importance: 
 (1) Technical Approach (consisting of  five elements) and (2) 
Corporate/Program Management (consisting of four elements).  Under the 
Corporate/Program Management factor, the most important element was 
identified as follows:

     "(i) Past performance on similar, or related corporate experience 
     in   the production fielding and servicing of entertainment 
     systems in a maritime environment.  Experience may be in either 
     commercial or Department of Defense type environments, or both."

Several proposals were received by October 6, 1995, the amended date 
for receipt of initial proposals.  The proposals were evaluated by a 
technical evaluation team (TET), whose initial evaluation revealed 
that none of the proposals was completely technically compliant and 
that the majority of them contained substantial deficiencies.  
Techniarts's proposal was one of those identified by the TET as 
containing major design and/or management deficiencies and recommended 
for exclusion from further consideration.  Nonetheless, the 
contracting officer (who was the designated source selection 
authority) decided to provide all offers an opportunity to remedy 
deficiencies before  excluding any offerors from the competitive 
range.  

In a December 28 letter, Techniarts was informed of numerous 
deficiencies in its technical approach and of deficiencies under the 
corporate and program management subfactor.  Among other things, 
Techniarts was advised that its proposal failed to provide information 
needed to make a performance risk assessment because "[I]nsufficient 
information was provided to evaluate your corporate structure, 
subcontractor, maintenance or quality assurance procedures."  

Revised proposals were received and evaluated by the TET.  
Techniarts's revised proposal contained several technical enhancements 
which cured the technical deficiencies and, as a result, was 
considered technically acceptable.  However, Techniarts's proposal 
evaluation was rated lower than several other offers with regard to 
both technical approach and corporate/program management.  With 
respect to Techniarts's submission regarding past performance, the TET 
made the following observation:

     "While the contracts included several highly visible projects,
     all appeared to be a single event, one-of-a-kind systems in
     nature.  They did not indicate any experience in the production
     and fielding of multiple units, nor with the shipboard
     environments.  The technical aspects of this proposal are all
     acceptable, but this lack of experience in production, long-
     term contract administration, and shipboard environment is
     considered a weakness."

The contracting officer believed that Techniarts's lower rating in the 
corporate and program management evaluation factors represented a high 
performance risk and  determined that Techniarts's proposal did not 
have a reasonable chance of being selected for award; he therefore 
excluded it from the competitive range.  Techniarts was advised that 
while its proposal was found to minimally meet the government's 
requirements, it was insufficient in depth of experience and 
expertise.  

By letter to the contracting officer dated March 5, 1996, Techniarts 
complained that it was improper to exclude its proposal from the 
competitive range based on "insufficient depth of experience and 
expertise" since the issue of experience was not raised during 
discussions.  The contracting officer responded by explaining to 
Techniarts that its proposal contained more than sufficient 
experience/past performance information for the evaluation team to 
evaluate, and therefore it was not necessary to include this area as a 
discussion issue.  The contracting officer also pointed out that the 
RFP specifically provided that offerors would be evaluated on 
experience in ".  .  . production, fielding and servicing of 
entertainment systems in a maritime environment," and advised 
Techniarts that while it demonstrated extensive experience in 
engineering, furnishing and installing entertainment systems, it did 
not demonstrate extensive experience in production in a maritime 
environment.  This protest followed.

Techniarts does not directly challenge or rebut the agency's 
substantive findings about its lack of experience in production, 
fielding and servicing of entertainment systems in a maritime 
environment.  Rather, Techniarts argues that it was improper to reject 
its otherwise acceptable proposal on the basis of an issue not raised 
during discussions.

Our examination of an agency's decision to exclude a proposal from the 
competitive range begins with the agency's evaluation of proposals.  
Labat-Anderson, Inc., 
B-246071.4, Oct. 9, 1992, 92-2 CPD  para.  244.  In reviewing an agency's 
technical evaluation, we will not reevaluate the proposal but will 
examine the record of the agency's evaluation to ensure that it was 
reasonable and in accord with stated evaluation criteria, and not in 
violation of procurement laws and regulations.  Id.  The competitive 
range consists of all proposals that have a reasonable chance of being 
selected for award, generally including proposals that are technically 
acceptable or reasonably susceptible of being made acceptable through 
discussions.  Intown Properties, Inc., B-250392, Jan. 28, 1993, 93-1 
CPD  para.  73.  However, a technically acceptable proposal may be 
eliminated where it is relatively weaker than other competitive range 
proposals such that it does not have a reasonable chance for award.  
See Coe-Truman Technologies, Inc., B-257480, Sept. 12, 1994, 94-2 CPD  para.  
136.  Moreover, if the agency's evaluation of proposals is reasonable, 
there is nothing improper in an agency's making more than one 
competitive range determination and dropping a firm from further 
consideration.  Labat-Anderson, Inc., supra.

Here, while the agency found Techniarts's proposal technically 
acceptable, there were other proposals which were rated higher than 
the protester's, and all but one of those offerors proposed a lower 
price than the protester.  The protester has not submitted any 
substantive evidence rebutting the agency finding that Techniarts's 
revised proposal, although technically acceptable, was inferior to 
other higher-rated proposals, especially with respect to experience.  
Nor does the protester argue that it actually possesses more relevant 
experience and that, if requested, it could have provided the agency 
with additional information on this factor.  In fact, the protester's 
proposal contained an extensive discussion of its experience.  More 
than 30 contracts were listed and summarized, none of which 
demonstrated experience in the production of SAES in a maritime 
environment as explicitly called for by the RFP.  Under these 
circumstances, we conclude that the agency's technical evaluation and 
findings and its determination to exclude Techniarts's proposal from 
the competitive range were reasonable.  

With respect to the protester's allegation that the agency failed to 
conduct meaningful discussions, agencies are not obligated to afford 
all-encompassing discussions or discuss every element of a competitive 
range proposal; agencies are only required to lead offerors into the 
areas of their proposals considered deficient.  See donald clark 
Assocs., B-253387, Sept. 15, 1993, 93-2 CPD  para.  168.  Here, we see no 
reason why the agency was obligated to raise the issue of the 
protester's experience during discussions.  Techniarts had provided an 
extensive description of its experience in its proposal, and while its 
proposal was relatively weak with respect to the maritime environment 
experience explicitly called for under the RFP, its proposal was 
considered acceptable in this regard.

Prior experience is an aspect of a proposal that is generally not 
subject to improvement (although sometimes experience may be 
appropriately supplemented through additional personnel, 
subcontracting, or additional detail about experience described in the 
proposal).  See AWD Technologies, Inc., B-250081.2; B-250081.3, Feb. 
1, 1993, 93-1 CPD  para.  83.  Consequently, agencies are not always 
obligated to discuss weaknesses identified in prior experience.  Here, 
in view of the RFP requirement for information about each offeror's 
relevant experience, including maritime environment experience, and 
Techniarts's extensive listing of its  experience, the agency could 
reasonably assume that the protester had presented its most relevant 
prior experience--and that the failure to provide evidence of 
production of an SAES in a maritime environment demonstrated that the 
firm lacked such experience.  Accordingly, we find unobjectionable the 
fact that the agency did not raise Techniarts's relative experience 
weaknesses during discussions.

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States