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