BNUMBER:  B-278876.2           
DATE:  May 4, 1998
TITLE: NAHB Research Center, Inc., B-278876.2, May 4, 1998
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DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective 
Order.  This redacted version has been approved for public release.
Matter of:NAHB Research Center, Inc.

File:B-278876.2          
        
Date:May 4, 1998

Thomas L. Howard, Esq., Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, for the 
protester.
Charlene Barton for Ernst & Young, an intervenor.
William T. K. Dolan, Esq., General Services Administration, for the 
agency.
David A. Ashen, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General 
Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Protest is denied where protester does not demonstrate that agency's 
evaluation of experience/performance was unreasonable so as to result 
in competitive prejudice to the protester.

DECISION

NAHB Research Center, Inc. protests the General Services 
Administration's (GSA) award of contracts to Hawkins, Delafield and 
Wood (HDW), Ernst & Young (EY), Deloitte & Touche (DT), Price 
Waterhouse (PW), KPMG Peat Warwick, and Arthur Anderson (AA), under 
request for proposals (RFP) No. GS11P97MMD970011, for professional 
consulting services.  NAHB challenges GSA's evaluation of experience 
and past performance.

We deny the protest.

The solicitation contemplated award of multiple 
indefinite-delivery/indefinite- quantity contracts for a 1-year base 
period, with 4 option years, for the professional services of project 
managers, budget analysts, financial analysts, architect/planners, 
market analysts, management consultants, and attorneys in support of 
the Department of Defense's housing privatization program.  Awards 
were to be made to the responsible offerors whose conforming offers 
were most advantageous to the government, with price significantly 
less important than technical considerations.  The solicitation listed 
the following four technical factors:  (1) experience and past 
performance on similar projects, which was equal in importance to the 
remaining factors combined; and (2) key and operating personnel and 
(3) capabilities of the offeror, which were nearly equal in weight and 
were each of greater importance than (4) management plan.

GSA received timely proposals from 16 offerors and selected 6 for 
award.  The evaluation of the proposals submitted by the awardees and 
NAHB was as follows:

         TECHNICAL
         (experience + personnel + capabilities + management) = 
         overall technical               PRICE

  EY     (1.85 + .86 + .65 + .16) = 3.52 $9.679 million

  AA     (1.43 + .85 + .62 + .16) = 3.06 $6.703 million

  PW     (1.55 + .78 + .59 + .12) = 3.05  $11.098 million

  KPMG   (1.38 + .83 + .64 + .17) = 3.02 $3.943 million

  HDW    (1.90 + .66 + .34 + .11) = 3.01  $10.677 million

  DT     (1.47 + .76 + .56 + .14) = 2.93 $7.072 million

  NAHB   (1.37 + .61 + .48 + .12) = 2.58 $6.146 million
The RFP provided that the evaluation of experience and past 
performance "will be based on the extent, depth and quality of recent 
experience in performing the same or similar work," with "[p]articular 
emphasis [to] be placed on the degree to which the offeror's 
management can demonstrate a relationship between their past 
performance experience and the requirements of the proposed contract."  
Section M.3(a).  The RFP required that "[t]he offeror . . . submit 
seven (7) references for projects performed by the offeror within the 
last five (5) years that are most similar to the requirements of this 
contract.  The government will randomly select five (5) of these 
references for evaluation."  Section L.13c(1)(B).  The solicitation 
required the offerors to "ensure that each reference shall be willing 
to complete . . . a questionnaire" asking for "ratings of the 
Offeror's timeliness of performance, cost control, quality of the 
product, business relationships, design excellence, and 
qualification/continuity of personnel."  Section M.3(a).  NAHB and 
each of the awardees furnished the required seven references.  
However, while all of NAHB's references responded by furnishing a 
completed questionnaire, only some of the awardees' references 
responded; six references responded for one awardee (AA) (but only two 
of the responses were timely and were evaluated), five for another 
(KPMG), and only two (EY) or three (DT, HDW[1] and PW) for the 
remaining awardees.  GSA evaluated experience/past performance based 
on the responses received, up to a maximum of five responses for any 
offeror.

NAHB maintains that the evaluation of experience/performance was 
inconsistent with the evaluation approach set forth in the 
solicitation, which provided that the experience/past performance 
evaluation would be based on five references.  NAHB asserts that 
evaluating the awardees based on fewer than five references worked to 
its competitive disadvantage.  In this regard, NAHB notes that two of 
its favorable references were not selected when the agency chose five 
of the seven references at random; some of its references were scored 
low because the experience described in the response was not relevant 
to the RFP; and those references whose scores had been reduced for a 
lack of relevance were averaged with its high scores on the very 
relevant projects that were selected at random.  NAHB contends that 
its proposal would have been selected for award had its 
experience/performance been evaluated only on the basis of the two or 
three that were most relevant.  

In reviewing an agency's evaluation of proposals and source selection 
decision, our review is confined to a determination of whether the 
agency acted reasonably and in a way consistent with the stated 
evaluation factors.  Main Bldg. Maintenance, Inc., B-260945.4, Sept. 
29, 1995, 95-2 CPD  para.  214 at 4.  Further, we will not sustain a protest 
unless the protester demonstrates a reasonable possibility that it was 
prejudiced by the agency's actions, that is, unless the protester 
demonstrates that, but for the agency's actions, it would have had a 
substantial chance of receiving the award.  McDonald-Bradley, 
B-270126.2, Feb. 8, 1996, 96-1 CPD  para.  54 at 3; see Statistica, Inc. v. 
Christopher, 102 F. 3d 1577, 1581 (Fed. Cir. 1996).

The agency apparently did not contemplate the possibility that fewer 
than seven references would submit completed questionnaires for an 
offeror--precluding the random selection of five questionnaires for 
use in the evaluation--and this scenario therefore was not expressly 
addressed in the RFP.  However, even if the manner in which the agency 
proceeded when this eventuality arose--i.e., evaluating each offeror 
based on the responses actually received--were deemed a change in the 
evaluation approach, it did not result in competitive prejudice to 
NAHB because there is no indication that knowledge of the approach 
would have led NAHB to alter its proposal to its competitive 
advantage.  In this regard, it is important to recognize that the 
agency's actions in no way relaxed the manner in which the awardees 
were required to respond to the RFP--all offerors still were required 
to submit seven references--and did not eliminate the randomness 
inherent in the experience/past performance factor by allowing the 
awardees discretion over which references were included in the 
evaluation (the awardees did not select which reference questionnaires 
would be used but, rather, were evaluated based on whatever 
questionnaires happened to be submitted).  Thus, even under the 
agency's arguably altered evaluation approach, NAHB still would have 
been required to furnish seven references, and still would not have 
been permitted to select the questionnaires to be evaluated.[2]  We 
conclude that the manner in which the agency conducted this aspect of 
the evaluation does not provide a basis for sustaining the protest.

NAHB objects to GSA's evaluation of the responses from some references 
for the awardees on the basis that the references were for firms that 
were "a member of the offeror's proposed team" and not for the offeror 
itself.  Comments of February 25, 1998 at 2.  NAHB specifically notes 
that three of KPMG's references--representing three of the five 
references whose responses were evaluated--were for contracts 
performed by the architectural firm or law firm that was part of its 
proposed team, while four of PW's references--representing one of the 
three references whose responses were evaluated--were for contracts 
performed by the architectural, law, real estate/financial or 
engineering/construction firms that were part of its proposed team. 

As we noted in ST Aerospace Engines Pte. Ltd., B-275725, Mar. 19, 
1997, 97-1 CPD  para.  161 at 3, in determining whether one company's 
performance should be attributed to another, an agency must consider 
the nature and extent of the relationship between the two 
companies--in particular, whether the work force, management, 
facilities, or other resources of one may affect contract performance 
by the other.  In this regard, while it would be inappropriate to 
consider a company's performance record where that record does not 
bear on the likelihood of successful performance by the offeror, it 
would be appropriate to consider a company's performance record where 
it will be involved in the contract effort or where it shares 
management with the offeror.  Id. at 3-5; Fluor Daniel, Inc., 
B-262051, B-262051.2, Nov. 21, 1995, 95-2 CPD  para.  241; Macon Apparel 
Corp., B-253008, Aug. 11, 1993, 93-2 CPD  para.  93.  Here, the solicitation 
requested a wide range of services, including those of program 
managers, financial analysts, architect/planners, market analysts, 
management consultants, and attorneys.  The references challenged by 
NAHB were for members of KPMG's and PW's teams which were to 
contribute personnel and expertise in those areas towards performing 
any tasks which the agency might assign under the contemplated 
contract.  Since the team members will be involved in the likely 
contract effort, we conclude that the agency could reasonably 
determine that the records of the team members would bear on the 
likelihood of successful performance by the offeror such that it would 
be reasonable to consider them in the evaluation.

NAHB also objects to GSA's evaluation of the response that the agency 
received from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, 
one of HDW's references, on the basis that the response was in the 
form of a brief letter that furnished little of the specific 
information requested in the agency's questionnaire and for that 
reason did not provide a basis for the generally favorable scoring 
given the response--3.5, 3.5, and 3.9 of 4 possible points--by the 
evaluators.  In addition, NAHB questions the fact that in scoring 
responses on the questionnaires, one of the three evaluators divided 
the total point score (obtained by assigning each answer a score of 1 
to 4) by the total number of questions in a section of the 
questionnaire even when references did not answer one or more 
questions because they were not applicable to the contract in 
question.  

These arguments do not furnish a basis for sustaining NAHB's protest.  
Eliminating the Texas reference would improve HDW's overall average 
score because, however favorable the scoring of that response, the 
responses from HDW's remaining two responding references were scored 
more favorably.  Further, although we agree with the protester that 
the inclusion of "not applicable" answers in the scoring of one 
evaluator was unreasonable, since it effectively penalized an offeror 
for lack of experience in a particular area in violation of the 
requirement that firms lacking relevant past performance history shall 
receive a neutral evaluation for past performance, Federal Acquisition 
Regulation  sec.  15.608(a)(2)(iii) (June 1997); see C.W. Over and Sons, 
Inc., B-274365, Dec. 6, 1996, 96-2 CPD  para.  223 at 6-7; Excalibur Sys., 
Inc., B-272017, July 12, 1996, 96-2 CPD  para.  13 at 3-4, we note that not 
only the protester, but also four of the awardees--KPMG, AA, PW, and 
HDW--likewise were adversely affected in this manner.  When the 
response of HDW's Texas reference is eliminated from the evaluation, 
and the one evaluator's "not applicable" answers are corrected, NAHB's 
ranking does not change significantly and NAHB does not move into line 
for award. 

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States

1. As noted by the protester, and discussed below, one of HDW's 
references evaluated HDW's performance in a letter rather than by 
completing a questionnaire.

2. There is no basis in the record for concluding that the awardees, 
in selecting the references to be furnished, failed to comply with the 
requirement in section M.3(a) of the solicitation that offerors 
"ensure that each reference shall be willing to complete . . . a 
questionnaire" with respect to the offeror's performance.  Return of 
the questionnaires was in the control of the references, not the 
offerors, and even the agency itself, despite contacting both the 
offerors and their references, was unsuccessful in obtaining responses 
from all of the references that had not returned a questionnaire.  
Contracting Officer's Statement of February 13, 1998 at 2.