BNUMBER:  B-273027
DATE:  November 15, 1996
TITLE:  Engineered Systems, Inc.

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Matter of:Engineered Systems, Inc.

File:     B-273027

Date:November 15, 1996

David B. Gilfillan for the protester.
Kenneth A. Lechter, Esq., and Jerry A. Walz, Esq., Department of 
Commerce, for the agency.
Ralph O. White, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the 
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Contention that agency unreasonably evaluated protester's technical 
proposal, and improperly concluded that the awardee's significantly 
higher-rated, slightly higher-priced proposal offered the best value 
to the government, is denied where the record shows that the agency 
evaluation was reasonable and in accordance with the stated evaluation 
criteria.

DECISION

Engineered Systems, Inc. protests the award of a contract to 
Independent Technology, Inc. (INTEC) pursuant to request for proposals 
(RFP) No. 52-DGNW-6-00010, issued by the Department of Commerce, 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for 
maintenance and logistics support of the NOAA Weather Radio 
Transmitter Network.  Engineered Systems argues that the agency 
improperly evaluated its proposal under every evaluation criterion and 
unreasonably selected INTEC's higher-rated, higher-priced proposal.

We deny the protest.

BACKGROUND

NOAA issued the RFP on October 10, 1995, seeking offers to maintain 
and support the Weather Radio Transmitter Network, which provides 
critical weather warnings to the nation.  The RFP generally 
anticipated award of a fixed-price requirements contract, although 
some elements of the contract were to be priced on a 
time-and-materials basis.  The RFP advised that proposals would be 
evaluated using four evaluation factors--personnel, technical 
approach, past performance, and corporate experience--and that the 
personnel and technical approach evaluation factors would be 
significantly more important than the past performance and corporate 
experience factors.  One of these factors, technical approach, 
included four subfactors:  field maintenance support, integrated 
logistics support, test procedures plan, and property control plan.  
The RFP further advised that the agency would select the proposal 
offering the greatest value to the government, considering both 
technical expertise and price.  

Four offerors responded to the RFP.  After each of the proposals was 
evaluated by a five-member technical evaluation committee, two were 
found technically unacceptable, leaving only the proposals submitted 
by Engineered Systems and INTEC in the competitive range.  After 
holding discussions with both offerors, and requesting best and final 
offers (BAFO), the evaluation committee again reviewed the proposals.  
The record shows that each evaluator assigned a color rating--blue 
(excellent), green (acceptable), yellow (marginal), and red 
(unacceptable)--for each factor and subfactor in the evaluation 
scheme.  At the conclusion of the evaluation, Engineered Systems's 
proposal was rated green (acceptable) under every factor and subfactor 
with the exception of the corporate experience factor and the 
integrated logistics support subfactor, which were rated yellow 
(marginal).  Thus, Engineered Systems's proposal received an overall 
rating of green.  INTEC's proposal was rated blue (excellent) under 
every evaluation factor and subfactor, and received an overall rating 
of blue.[1] 

Given the evaluation committee's conclusion that the INTEC proposal 
significantly surpassed the Engineered Systems's proposal under every 
evaluation factor and subfactor, and given their relative prices of 
$7.4 million (Engineered Systems) and $7.8 million (INTEC), the source 
selection official concluded that the proposal of INTEC was worth its 
slightly higher price.  On July 30, the agency awarded the contract to 
INTEC and this protest followed. 

DISCUSSION

Engineered Systems argues, in essence, that under every evaluation 
criterion both offers should have been rated acceptable.  Thus, the 
protester argues that the agency should have concluded that the 
proposals were technically equal and should have declined to pay a 
premium for INTEC's services.  

In considering protests against an agency's evaluation of proposals, 
we will examine the record to determine whether the evaluation was 
reasonable and consistent with the evaluation criteria.  Atmospheric 
Research Sys., Inc., B-240187, Oct. 26, 1990, 90-2 CPD  para.  338.  Here, 
we have considered both Engineered Systems's and INTEC's proposals, 
the evaluation materials, the agency's responses to each of the 
protester's arguments, and information discussed in a conference call 
among the protester, our Office, and representatives of the agency, 
including the contracting officer and the chairman of the technical 
evaluation committee.  As a result of our review, we find no basis for 
concluding that the evaluation was unreasonable or not in accordance 
with the stated evaluation criteria.  To illustrate our conclusion, we 
will discuss in detail the evaluation results under the two most 
important evaluation factors--personnel and technical approach.

Personnel

Under the personnel evaluation factor, Engineered Systems's proposal 
received a green (acceptable) rating, while INTEC's proposal was rated 
blue (excellent).  In general, Engineered Systems challenges any 
conclusion that INTEC's personnel should receive a higher rating than 
Engineered Systems's personnel.  Specifically, Engineered Systems 
argues that the agency:  wrongly concluded that its personnel might 
not be trained in time to perform the contract; overlooked the 
experience of its field technicians, especially those with Federal 
Communications Commission (FCC) licenses or other commercial 
certifications; and unreasonably gave INTEC's proposal an excellent 
rating in the personnel area when, according to Engineered Systems, 
INTEC's personnel had no experience with some of the newest 
transmitters covered by this contract.[2]

In its initial protest filing, Engineered Systems complains that NOAA 
representatives stated during the debriefing that its personnel could 
not be trained within the 6-week phase-in period.  The agency explains 
that while it expressed a concern about training risk, this concern 
was secondary to the broader concern that the protester's proposed 
field technicians did not show high levels of experience with the kind 
of equipment covered by this contract.  With respect to the training 
issue, the agency explains that the protester's personnel had the 
technical background to allow them to master the specifics of 
repairing the weather radio transmitters, but lacked direct experience 
with the transmitters.  Thus, the evaluators expressed a concern that 
there was a risk training might not be completed in time for 
performance to begin.

With respect to whether the agency overlooked the background of the 
protester's personnel, the agency explained that the proposed field 
technicians had radio transmitter background but there was no showing 
that they had experience with high power transmitters in the 
1,000-watt range.  According to the agency, there was a significant 
difference in experience between the protester's field technicians and 
those proposed by INTEC.  

Our review of the agency evaluation materials does not support a 
conclusion that the agency overlooked the background of Engineered 
Systems's personnel or unreasonably expressed concern about completion 
of training.  The materials show that NOAA's evaluators recognized the 
technical background of the protester's personnel as acceptable for 
performing these services, but also recognized that the unique 
equipment at issue here would require training in the specifics of 
maintaining and repairing this equipment.  Thus, the concern about 
training expressed during the debriefing, and repeated in the 
protester's initial filing, simply reflected the evaluators' principal 
concern that the protester's personnel for the most part would be new 
to this particular equipment.  Given that the majority of the 
transmitters here use older technology, and involve higher powered 
transmitters than those with which many of the protester's personnel 
have experience, there was nothing unreasonable about the evaluators' 
training concern, especially since the evaluators nonetheless 
concluded that the protester's personnel were acceptable.

In contrast, our review shows that the awardee's personnel 
demonstrated significant prior experience with the equipment at issue 
here.  Not only is the awardee the incumbent on this contract, but 
several of the awardee's proposed field technicians have experience 
with the SRS transmitters under earlier contracts.  In fact, our 
review of the awardee's proposal shows that its field technicians have 
approximately 85 years of combined experience working on the SRS 
transmitters.  We see nothing unreasonable in the agency's awarding of 
high scores under the personnel evaluation factor for such significant 
levels of experience.

Finally, the protester argues that the agency could not reasonably 
discriminate between the two offerors with respect to their ability to 
service the Energy-Onix transmitters since the transmitters are so new 
that neither offeror has significant experience with them.  While we 
agree with the protester that neither offeror has significant 
experience with the transmitters, the record supports the agency's 
conclusion that the awardee has more experience in this area than the 
protester.  In addition, we note that the Energy-Onix transmitters 
make up a very small percentage of the total number of transmitters 
required to be maintained here.  For this reason, even if the two 
offerors were equal in their ability to service the Energy-Onix 
equipment, it would not render unreasonable the agency's otherwise 
well-documented and reasonable assessment of the comparative strengths 
of these two offerors in the area of personnel.

Technical Approach

In the technical approach area, the initial protest filing complained 
that the agency unreasonably criticized Engineered Systems for failing 
to provide specifics in its technical proposal.  As with the other 
evaluation factors, the protester argues that but for the agency's 
unreasonable evaluation, both offerors' proposals would have been 
rated acceptable, and Engineered Systems's lower-priced proposal would 
have been selected for award.  During the course of the protest, 
Engineered Systems urged our Office to verify its concerns in this 
area by comparing its test procedures plan with that of the awardee.  
We did so, and our review supports the agency's assessment in this 
area.

The RFP here, at paragraph L.6.3(f)2.(b)3., required offerors to 
include a test procedures plan with the following instruction:

     "the plan shall include procedures for post-repair testing of the 
     spare assemblies listed in Attachment 1C and the transmitter 
     systems listed in Attachment 1D.  The plan submitted by the 
     Offeror will form a part of any resultant contract."

The contracting officer explained that the protester's plan did not 
provide specific procedures.  Instead, Engineered Systems's plan "was 
a generic outline of the process to develop a plan instead of 
specifically addressing the unique and specific needs of testing the 
[NOAA weather radio] transmitter parts and repaired assemblies. . . ."  
Contracting Officer's Statement, Sept. 9, 1996, at 8.  

As stated above, our review supports the agency's assessment in this 
area.  The awardee's test procedures plan listed each of the parts 
covered in attachments 1C and 1D in the solicitation, and specified 
how it would troubleshoot those parts.  In contrast, the protester's 
proposal is best described as a plan to develop procedures, and not 
the procedures themselves.  For example, the plan begins as follows:  
"Detailed test procedures will be developed that identify the 
step-by-step testing operations to be performed on transmitter systems 
and each separate subassembly."  Proposal, Appendix AP-3 at 2.  In 
addition, our review shows that after identifying this weakness in the 
protester's proposal, the agency clearly voiced its concerns in this 
area during discussions.  Specifically, in its written discussion 
questions the agency asked the protester to "[p]rovide specific [t]est 
and [p]roperty [c]ontrol plans as required by . . . the RFP."  Letter 
from the Contracting Officer to Engineered Systems, May 15, 1996, at 
4.  The protester's response, in essence, was to resubmit its earlier 
plan.  

In summary, the record here shows that the agency reasonably concluded 
that the protester's test procedures plan was significantly less 
detailed and responsive than the plan submitted by INTEC.  In 
addition, none of the other issues raised by the protester in this 
area supports its conclusion that its proposal was unreasonably 
evaluated under the technical approach evaluation factor.  Since the 
RFP stated that award would be made to the offeror whose proposal was 
determined most advantageous to the government, and since the 
protester has failed to show that its proposal was unreasonably 
evaluated, we have no basis to question the agency's conclusion that 
INTEC's proposal--with its substantially higher technical rating and 
slightly higher price--offered the best value to the government.  See 
Irwin & Leighton, Inc., B-241734, Feb. 25, 1991, 91-1 CPD  para.  208.

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States

1. The summary of the agency evaluation materials set forth above 
averages the rating assessments assigned by the five evaluators for 
each factor and subfactor.  The agency, on the other hand, made its 
decision using a matrix showing each evaluator's assessment under 
every category and prepared only one overall color rating for the 
entire proposal.  Under our summary, if three evaluators assigned a 
green rating, and two evaluators assigned a blue rating, we report the 
rating as green.

2. This contract covers two types of transmitters:  transmitters built 
by Scientific Radio Systems, Inc. (SRS), which use vacuum tube 
technology and were installed in the 1970s; and transmitters built by 
Energy-Onix, which use solid-state technology and were installed in 
early 1996.  The contract requires field maintenance of 121 SRS 
transmitters and 6 Energy-Onix transmitters, and logistics support for 
an additional 194 SRS transmitters and 9 Energy-Onix transmitters.