BNUMBER:  B-278450 
DATE:  January 30, 1998
TITLE: American Artisan Productions, Inc., B-278450, January 30,
1998
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Matter of:American Artisan Productions, Inc.

File:     B-278450

Date:January 30, 1998

Arthur L. Friedman for the protester.
James L. Weiner, Esq., and Justin P. Patterson, Esq., Department of 
the Interior, 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

Protester is not competitively prejudiced by the confusing evaluation 
scheme in a procurement conducted under simplified acquisition 
procedures that did not list technical approach as an evaluation 
criterion, where the solicitation otherwise reasonably disclosed that 
technical approach would be evaluated, the protester does not deny 
that the solicitation required it to describe its technical approach, 
the awardee's technical approach was reasonably found to be clearly 
superior to the protester's technical approach so as to reasonably 
offset the protester's modest price advantage, and the agency had a 
reasonable basis for finding the awardee's proposal superior to the 
protester's under the explicitly identified evaluation criteria.

DECISION

American Artisan Productions, Inc. protests the award of a contract to 
Turner Exhibits, Inc., under request for quotations (RFQ) No. 
1443-RQ-8530-97-027, issued by the Department of the Interior, 
National Park Service, for fabricating museum exhibits for the Loomis 
Museum, Lassen Volcanic National Park, California.  American Artisan 
contends that the Park Service's evaluation was not in accordance with 
the stated evaluation factors.

We deny the protest.

The RFQ, issued under simplified acquisition procedures, required the 
contractor to fabricate and install a set of seven exhibits related to 
volcanic activity to be exhibited at the Loomis Museum, including 
necessary labor, materials, professional services, facilities, and 
travel.  The exhibits were required to be constructed and installed in 
accordance with detailed specifications and construction drawings 
keyed to each exhibit.   

Under section IX.3(1) of the RFQ, the award is to be made on a best 
value basis in which the "offeror's quotation will be evaluated under 
two areas of consideration; namely, technical and cost."  Under 
section VIII.7, "INSTRUCTIONS FOR TECHNICAL SUBMITTAL," the RFQ 
states:

     the offeror shall submit . . . Supplemental Technical Evaluation 
     Information as indicated in Part IX [EVALUATION FACTORS FOR 
     AWARD].  Offerors should ensure that their technical responses 
     are clear, concise, and fully address all of the evaluation 
     factors listed.  The submittal must also fully conform to the 
     statement of work and clearly define an approach and methodology.  
     Mere indication of an intent to conform will not be considered as 
     acceptable.

     The technical submittal should be specific, detailed, and 
     complete enough to clearly and fully demonstrate that you have a 
     thorough understanding of the effort required and have a valid 
     and practical plan for performing the work and should be 
     sufficiently detailed to show how it will comply with the 
     specification requirements.

Section IX.3(2) states:

     BASIS FOR AWARD.  Award will be made to the offeror who the 
     Government determines can best accomplish the necessary work to 
     satisfy the objectives and requirements set forth in the Request 
     for Quote Specifications in a manner most advantageous to the 
     Government.  The documentation that is submitted by the offeror 
     in response to the Request for Quote will receive a thorough 
     evaluation.  Offerors must convey to the Government that the 
     offeror is able to accomplish the work in a coordinated and 
     timely fashion such that technical requirements will be achieved.

Finally, section IX.3(4) states:

     TECHNICAL EVALUATION CRITERIA.  The following paragraphs identify 
     the criteria.  A rating of "unacceptable" for any criteria may 
     eliminate the offer from further consideration, regardless of 
     [the] rating for any other criteria.  Criteria items and factors 
     to be considered for evaluation are listed in descending order of 
     importance, as follows:

        A.  Past performance:  Demonstrated past and recent experience 
        in fabricating visitor center exhibits.

        B.  Qualifications:  Professional qualifications of the 
        principals and staff proposed for the award.

The Park Service received seven quotations in response to the RFQ, 
ranging in price from $50,022 to $164,992.  American Artisan's 
quotation price was $81,993 and Turner's price was $85,844.  An 
evaluation team, after reviewing the quotes, determined that Turner's 
quote represented the best value in terms of technical and cost, and 
that the quotes priced lower than Turner's quote, including American 
Artisan's, were technically inferior to Turner's.

According to the contemporaneous evaluation documentation, labeled 
"Technical Evaluation Summary," the agency found that Turner's quote 
represented the best value because it:

     addresses all of the criteria and exceeds our qualifications in 
     terms of experience and expertise.  The proposal clearly shows 
     that the contractor took the time to examine each exhibit element 
     and then specify in the proposal 1) their understanding of how 
     the exhibit was to look and work and 2) to identify any special 
     or unusual fabrication requirements . . . .

On the other hand, the agency recorded that American's quote was 
technically inferior because it:

     fails to discuss any of the technical requirements of any of the 
     exhibits elements.  Therefore, it is not possible to ascertain 
     exactly what is included in their cost proposal of $81,993, i.e., 
     will [American Artisan] provide the proper amount of illumination 
     and fiberoptics for the Ring of Fire diorama, have they reflected 
     the fact that one exhibit is a highly mechanical, interactive 
     exhibit which must also include installation of light emitting 
     diodes (LEDs), fittings, and hardware, etc.

On September 29, the Park Service issued a purchase order to Turner.  
American Artisan initially protested the award to the agency on 
October 6.  It subsequently requested a debriefing, which was provided 
by the agency on October 17.  This protest challenging the evaluation 
followed.  Performance has been withheld pending our decision.

American Artisan protests that the Park Service improperly based its 
award selection on an unstated evaluation factor--the relative detail 
and contents of the respective offeror's discussion of how the offeror 
would fabricate each technical exhibit, that is, technical 
approach--because past performance and qualifications were the only 
listed technical evaluation factors.  The Park Service maintains that 
downgrading American Artisan's proposal for not including an 
adequately detailed technical approach was reasonable and contemplated 
by the RFQ, given that the RFQ instructions request such information 
to be submitted by the offerors.

Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)  sec.  13.106-2 affords contracting 
officers using simplified acquisition procedures discretion in 
determining how to conduct a procurement and in fashioning suitable 
evaluation procedures.  This discretion does not permit a failure to 
identify significant evaluation factors in the RFQ or evaluating 
quotes on the basis of factors not announced in the RFQ.  Rather, FAR  sec.  
13.106-2(a)(1) and 13.106-2(b) specifically require that solicitations 
advise potential offerors of the basis upon which award is to be made, 
and agencies must conduct evaluations based on the factors set forth 
in the solicitations.  Forestry, Surveys & Data, B-276802.3, Aug. 13, 
1997, 97-2 CPD  para.  46 at 2.

The RFQ here was confusing as to whether and how technical approach 
would be evaluated.  Section IX.3(4), standing alone, would indicate 
that technical approach was not a factor to be evaluated, and that 
past performance and qualifications would be the only technical 
criteria evaluated in making the award selection.  That provision also 
disclosed the relative weight assigned to the two identified criteria, 
but did not indicate how much weight might be assigned to technical 
approach.  Since technical approach was also evaluated, the agency did 
not comply with the requirements in FAR  sec.  13.106-2(a)(1) and 
13.106-2(b) that the RFQ clearly disclose the basis for award and that 
undisclosed factors not be used in the award evaluation.  Id.

However, particularly because simplified acquisition procedures were 
being used here, we conclude that the defects in this procurement do 
not provide a basis for sustaining the protest.  In this regard, 
section VIII.7 clearly required the offerors to describe a technical 
approach addressing how the offeror would conform to the statement of 
work requirements that was "specific, detailed, and complete enough to 
clearly and fully demonstrate . . . understanding . . . and . . . 
sufficiently detailed to show how it will comply with the 
specification requirements."  Section IX.3(2) describing the "basis 
for award" indicates that this submission would "receive a thorough 
evaluation" to show that the "work [will be accomplished] in a 
coordinated and timely fashion"--which indicates that the technical 
approach will be part of the award consideration.  Thus, American 
Artisan was on notice that its technical approach would be evaluated 
and considered in the award selection. 

American Artisan does not claim that it was not required to describe 
its technical approach, but argues that it submitted all that was 
required.  From our review, we agree with the agency that Turner's 
quote more clearly and thoroughly described how it would accomplish 
each of the statement of work requirements than did American Artisan's 
quote, which only generally described how certain work tasks would be 
performed and contained a preliminary production plan that did not 
describe how each exhibit would be constructed.  Thus, the agency 
reasonably considered Turner's technical approach to be superior to 
American Artisan's approach, which did not describe in detail how the 
statement of work requirements would be performed, as required by the 
proposal instructions.  

Moreover, the contracting officer reports that in making the award 
selection she and the evaluators considered and discussed Turner's and 
American Artisan's relative past performance, as described in the 
quotes, and found that Turner's quote demonstrated superior past 
performance.  While this consideration was not recorded in 
contemporaneous documentation,[1] the agency states that it found that 
American Artisan's quote did not indicate when it performed its 
identified projects, most of which appeared to have been done many 
years ago, or clearly show their particular relevance to this work.  
In contrast, Turner's quote did date its projects and describe them in 
a way that showed their relevance to the present work.  From our 
review, we cannot find the agency's judgment in this regard to be 
unreasonable.

We conclude that the protester was not prejudiced by the consideration 
of technical approach, even though it was not explicitly identified in 
the RFQ as an evaluation criterion.  As explained above, American 
Artisan was on notice that technical approach would be considered in 
the award evaluation and, while the RFQ gave no indication of the 
relative weight that technical approach would be accorded, the 
relative weight of the evaluation factors need not be disclosed in 
procurements conducted under simplified acquisition procedures.  FAR  sec.  
13.106-2(a)(10).  Moreover, Turner's demonstrated past experience--a 
clearly stated technical evaluation factor--was reasonably found 
superior to American Artisan's.  Accordingly, we conclude that 
American Artisan was not competitively prejudiced by the agency's 
consideration of the vendors' technical approaches in deciding that 
Turner's quote represented a better value than American Artisan's 
slightly lower-priced quote.  Id.  Therefore, notwithstanding the 
flaws in the procurement, we find no basis to disturb the award.  See 
McDonald-Bradley, B-270126, Feb. 8, 1996, 96-1 CPD  para.  54 at 3; see 
Statistica, Inc. v. Christopher, 102 F.3d 1577, 1581 (Fed. Cir. 1996).

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States

1. Although FAR  sec.  13.106-2(d)(4) advises that "[d]ocumentation should 
be kept to a minimum" in simplified acquisition procedure 
acquisitions, we would expect that the documentation that is prepared 
to describe the basis for award would address the evaluation criteria 
stated in the solicitation (such as the past performance at issue 
here).  See FAR  sec.  13.106-2(b)(1).