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