BNUMBER:  B-279305             
DATE:  June 3, 1998
TITLE: WECO Cleaning Specialists, Inc, B-279305, June 3, 1998
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Matter of:WECO Cleaning Specialists, Inc

File:B-279305            
        
Date:June 3, 1998

Sam Z. Gdanski, Esq., and Jeffrey I. Gdanski, Esq., for the protester.
Pamela R. Waldron, Esq., Social Security Administration, for the 
agency.
Wm. David Hasfurther, Esq., and Michael R. Golden, Esq., Office of the 
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

1.  Agency reasonably evaluated awardee's prior experience based on 
awardee's submission of copies of prior contract statements of work 
where the solicitation did not prohibit the submission and evaluation 
of this type of information to establish an offeror's experience in 
performing contracts of similar size, scope, and complexity.

2.  Agency official's request for cost and pricing data from awardee 
and conversations with awardee's references to determine whether 
awardee could perform contract at the low price offered relate to 
responsibility--the firm's capability to perform the contract--and do 
not constitute discussions since the information solicited was not 
necessary to determine the acceptability of the awardee's proposal and 
did not provide the awardee an opportunity to modify its proposal.

DECISION

WECO Cleaning Specialists, Inc. protests the award of a fixed-price 
contract to Beautify Professional Cleaning Service, Inc. under request 
for proposals (RFP) No. SSA-RFP-98-3288, issued by the Social Security 
Administration (SSA) for janitorial services.  WECO principally 
contends that the agency should have conducted discussions, rather 
than making award on the basis of initial proposals. 

We deny the protest.

The RFP, issued on September 16, 1997, required offerors to submit 
their proposals in two volumes:  (1) business and pricing information 
and (2) experience and past performance information.  Proposals were 
to be evaluated using the best value methodology on the basis of three 
factors:  (1) promised value--an offeror's acceptability; (2) level of 
confidence--in the offeror's capability to perform-- assessment rating 
(LOCAR); and (3) price.  The factors were listed in descending order 
of importance.  As pertinent to this protest, scoring of the LOCAR 
factor was to be based upon the scoring of two subfactors:  (1) the 
extent to which an offeror's experience is "similar in size, scope, 
and complexity" to SSA's requirements and (2) past performance--how 
well the offeror had performed on prior contracts listed by the 
offeror in its proposal.  Both subfactors were to be scored on a 0 to 
1.00 scale.  The RFP reserved the right to award without discussions 
on the basis of the initial proposals received.

The 24 proposals received (prices ranged from $1,630,670 to 
$3,944,661) by the November 4 submission deadline were evaluated by an 
evaluation panel composed of three individuals.  Each evaluator 
individually evaluated each proposal, and then the three evaluators 
reached a consensus rating for each proposal based on their own 
separate evaluations.  After arriving at a consensus rating, the 
scoring was recorded and an award recommendation was made to the 
contracting officer.

Even though WECO's price was lower that Beautify's, award was made to 
Beautify based on initial offers.  Beautify's proposal was determined 
to represent the best value in view of the .55 score given WECO's 
proposal compared to the .90 score given to Beautify's proposal on the 
experience subfactor of the LOCAR factor.  (Each firm received a 
perfect score of 1.00 on the past performance subfactor.)  The 
evaluators found that WECO failed to elaborate on the scope and 
complexity of its prior experience and that the information provided 
"was very vague."  The evaluators were concerned that the company did 
not understand the scope and complexity of the work.  In contrast, 
while Beautify's narrative in some instances did not sufficiently 
explain the scope and complexity of prior contracts, Beautify had 
furnished copies of the statements of work from these contracts which 
supported the significantly higher experience score.  The evaluators 
recommended award to Beautify. However, the project officer, who also 
was the evaluation panel chairman, still believed that Beautify's 
price might be too low to perform the work required, and he, 
accordingly, asked Beautify to submit cost and pricing data.  After 
reviewing this data, the project officer still had some concerns 
regarding Beautify's low price due to staffing levels and some supply 
estimates.  However, after checking with the references provided by 
Beautify as to Beautify's performance on prior contracts, he decided 
that Beautify could successfully perform at its proposed price.  The 
contract was, therefore, awarded to Beautify.  Following a debriefing, 
WECO filed this protest.

WECO contends that SSA improperly evaluated Beautify's proposal by 
considering information that was not requested by the RFP.  According 
to WECO, the RFP required offerors to summarize prior contract 
experience.  WECO asserts that it complied with this requirement and 
was downgraded for not providing more information.  WECO complains 
that Beautify provided narrative summaries, but also impermissibly 
submitted the relevant portions of prior contracts or solicitations, 
primarily the statements of work, to show its relevant experience.  
WECO argues that the RFP did not ask for this type of information, yet 
it was precisely this information which SSA relied on in giving 
Beautify's proposal a higher experience score.  WECO argues it was 
unfairly penalized for strictly adhering to the RFP to provide 
summaries of prior contract experience. 

We conclude that the agency properly evaluated the offerors' 
experience.  WECO provides no support for its position that the RFP 
limited presentations to narrative summaries or prohibited offerors 
from providing statements of work from referenced contracts or 
solicitations to establish an offeror's experience in performing 
contracts similar in size, scope, and complexity to the requirements 
of the current solicitation.  To the contrary, Addendum H of the RFP, 
the instructions to offerors, stated in bold, capital letters that 
"[i]t is not sufficient to merely state that past or ongoing 
contract(s) . . . is/are similar in size, scope and complexity and are 
relevant to the requirements of this solicitation.  Rationale shall be 
provided to convince the Government that such contract(s) . . . is/are 
indeed similar . . . and are relevant.  Therefore, the offeror is 
responsible for . . . ensuring . . . that the information provided . . 
. is complete, comprehensive, accurate, and current . . . ." This 
addendum further provided that offerors "[i]ndicate and describe the 
extent to which the work required under the cited/referenced effort is 
similar in size, scope and complexity . . . to the requirements . . . 
in this solicitation.  Note:  This includes, but is not limited to, 
providing the square footage of the building that was serviced."  The 
clause further invited "any additional information which will further 
describe the activities/functions performed and demonstrate the 
relationship of such experience to the requirement of this 
solicitation."  This RFP language is broad and clearly does not 
preclude submission of the statements of work.  In fact, the record 
shows that, notwithstanding what it now asserts as its understanding 
of the RFP language, WECO furnished portions of prior contracts to 
show the size of the buildings under its prior contracts.  Thus, WECO 
itself understood that copies of prior contracts, in addition to 
narratives, could be furnished as part of its proposal.  Thus, the 
SSA's evaluation of the proposals, including the copies of the 
portions of the referenced contracts, was entirely consistent with the 
RFP. 

To the extent WECO objects to its experience score, we find reasonable 
the agency's evaluation of WECO's experience.  As stated above, in 
demonstrating its experience, an offeror was required to show the 
extent to which its experience was "similar in size, scope, and 
complexity" to SSA's requirements under the RFP.  In its proposal, 
under "description of services rendered," WECO described its prior 
contract work with "bullets," for example, "cleaning of offices, 
computer rooms, public areas and restrooms," "Exterminating,"  "Snow 
Removal,"  "Blinds cleaning,"  and  "Grounds maintenance."  The SSA 
evaluation documentation shows that these general descriptions made it 
difficult for the agency evaluators to determine whether WECO's prior 
experience was similar in size, scope, and complexity to the work 
under the current RFP.  WECO also did not list the number and types of 
employees working under two of the contracts it referenced.  Further, 
while WECO provided some building statistics for the prior contracts, 
WECO did not, for example, identify the cleaning requirements for the 
different areas of the buildings cleaned, the frequency of cleaning 
for each area, the quality standards to be met for cleaning, and the 
types of equipment and consumable supplies required for cleaning.  
Under these circumstances, we think the record reasonably supports the 
agency's relatively low scoring of WECO under experience because WECO 
had not shown, based on the nonspecific, limited information it 
supplied, that it had performed work similar in size, scope, and 
complexity to that required under this RFP.  

Finally, WECO contends that SSA improperly held discussions with 
Beautify because SSA requested and reviewed Beautify's cost and 
pricing data prior to award.  We believe that WECO incorrectly 
concludes that discussions were conducted with Beautify.  The record 
shows that after the evaluators recommended award to Beautify, the 
project manager, who was also chairman of the evaluation board, 
expressed concern that Beautify's pricing was too low to perform the 
work. This work had previously been awarded on a noncompetitive basis 
at a higher price.  The project manager requested and reviewed 
Beautify's cost and pricing data which supported the awardee's 
pricing.  He then talked with several of the references included in 
Beautify's proposal.  The references indicated that Beautify had 
performed its prior contracts successfully.  The SSA then proceeded to 
award the contract to Beautify.  Discussions are written or oral 
communications between the government and the offeror which concern 
information necessary to determine the acceptability of a proposal or 
which provide an offeror an opportunity to modify its proposal.  
Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)  sec.  15.601 (June 1997).  Here, the 
communication was not necessary to determine the acceptability of 
Beautify's proposal as the proposal was acceptable under the RFP 
evaluation factors and the agency did not allow Beautify to revise its 
proposal--both its technical and price proposal remained unchanged and 
was the basis for the award.  Rather, it appears the project manager 
questioned whether Beautify could perform the contract at the offered 
price, that is, whether Beautify was responsible.  In this context, 
the request for cost and pricing data and the subsequent telephone 
calls to Beautify's references were part of the agency's assessment of 
Beautify's capability to perform the contract, which relates to 
responsibility.  FAR  sec.  9.104-1; Edgewater Mach. & Fabricators, Inc., 
B-219828, Dec. 5, 1985, 85-2 CPD  para.  630 at 5. 

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General 
of the United States