TITLE: B-299382, C. Martin Company, Inc., April 17, 2007
BNUMBER: B-299382
DATE: April 17, 2007
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B-299382, C. Martin Company, Inc., April 17, 2007

   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.

   Decision

   Matter of: C. Martin Company, Inc.

   File: B-299382

   Date: April 17, 2007

   Richard B. Oliver, Esq., McKenna Long & Aldridge, LLP, for the protester.

   Maj. Kevin J. Wilkinson, and Lt. Col. David L. Bell, Department of the Air
   Force, for the agency.

   Peter D. Verchinski, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General
   Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

   DIGEST

   Protester's contention that its proposal was improperly excluded from
   competition is denied where exclusion was based on agency's reasonable
   determination that proposal was technically unacceptable due to its
   inclusion of outdated regulations, procedures and requirements, indicating
   a lack of understanding or awareness of solicitation requirements.

   DECISION

   C. Martin Company, Inc. (CMC) protests the exclusion of its proposal from
   the competition under request for proposals (RFP) No. FA4890-06-R-0153,
   issued by the Department of the Air Force for maintenance and operation of
   the Air Force's Primary Training Ranges. CMC maintains that any
   deficiencies in its proposal were minor, and that it should have been
   provided an opportunity to correct them.

   We deny the protest.

   The RFP, issued on October 17, 2006 as a small business set-aside,
   contemplated the award of a fixed-price contract for a 6-month base
   period, with five 1-year options. The RFP provided for a three-step
   evaluation. First, technical proposals were to be evaluated as acceptable,
   reasonably susceptible of being made acceptable, or unacceptable based on
   five evaluation criteria: program management, transition plan,
   maintenance/logistics, quality, and operations approach. RFP at 108-111.
   An unacceptable rating under any criterion would render the technical
   proposal unacceptable, and the proposal would no longer be considered for
   award. RFP at 108. Second, the agency would evaluate the price
   reasonableness of the remaining proposals, and then rank them according to
   overall evaluated price. Third, the agency would evaluate past
   performance, starting with the lowest-priced offeror, and then make award
   to the firm offering the "best value" to the government. The RFP further
   informed offerors that the agency may make award based on initial
   proposals, and that an offeror's first proposal therefore should be its
   best proposal. RFP at 107.

   The technical evaluation team rated CMC's proposal as unacceptable under
   the operations approach and maintenance/logistics criteria and, while the
   agency proceeded to establish a competitive range for the purpose of
   holding discussions, it rejected CMC's proposal on this basis. In this
   regard, CMC's proposal was found to contain numerous references to
   outdated Air Force regulations, performance standards, and requirements
   under both criteria. For example, under the operations approach subfactor,
   the proposal offered to use procedures and to comply with regulations that
   had been obsolete for at least 3 years, offered to provide scoring on the
   training range in formats that no longer exist, and proposed staffing for
   a system (a "jammer") that was required under a prior solicitation, but
   not under the RFP here. The proposal also referenced other requirements
   (such as mission "aborts" for the training range) that were no longer part
   of the RFP. Similarly, under the maintenance/logistics criterion, CMC
   proposed to use outdated technical orders, offered to provide maintenance
   duties on a 50-day rotation--the requirement under the previous
   solicitation--rather than the 75-day rotation called for under this
   solicitation, and provided outdated employee qualifications, among other
   things. On December 21, 2006, CMC learned that its proposal had been
   rejected and, following a pre-award debriefing, it filed this protest.

   CMC challenges each of the evaluated deficiencies, asserting that the
   findings are either wrong or constitute minor deficiencies that would not
   require a substantial revision to its proposal. CMC cites as an example of
   a mistaken deficiency its offer to provide certain maintenance duties on a
   50-day rotation, rather than the 75-day rotation required under the
   solicitation. CMC claims that it was unreasonable to view this as a
   deficiency, since its 50-day proposal exceeded the stated requirement. In
   support of its assertion that other deficiencies were only minor and
   easily correctable, CMC submitted a revised proposal with its protest that
   purports to address these deficiencies; for example, CMC addressed the
   agency's finding that CMC proposed certain equipment that was required
   under prior solicitations, but not under this RFP, by simply deleting the
   reference to the equipment from its proposal. CMC concludes that its
   proposal was reasonably susceptible of being made acceptable, and that CMC
   therefore should have been permitted to do so.

   In reviewing protests challenging the evaluation of proposals and
   exclusion of proposals from the competitive range, we do not conduct a new
   evaluation or substitute our judgment for that of the agency; rather, we
   examine the record to determine whether the agency's judgment was
   reasonable and in accord with the solicitation evaluation criteria and
   applicable procurement statutes and regulations. Information Sys. Tech.
   Corp., B-291747, Mar. 17, 2003, 2003 CPD para. 72 at 2; Northwest
   Procurement Inst. Inc., B-286345, Nov. 17, 2000, 2000 CPD para. 192 at 5.

   The Air Force reasonably rejected CMC's proposal. While the protester's
   argument is focused on whether the items labeled deficiencies met (or
   exceeded) the RFP requirements or could be corrected through minor
   revisions, we note that the number of words affected and the ease of
   correction are not the defining considerations. Rather, even where
   proposal deficiencies could be corrected without lengthy revisions, the
   need for numerous corrections and revisions may provide a reasonable basis
   for an agency to conclude that the proposal evidenced an inherent lack of
   understanding or awareness of the current RFP's requirements. See Pace
   Data Sys., Inc.; Senior Care Storage Co., B-236083, B-236083.2, Nov. 6,
   1989, 89-2 CPD para. 429 at 5 (even where proposal deficiencies may be
   viewed as minor in nature taken individually, the cumulative effect of the
   deficiencies is sufficient to support the agency's conclusion that the
   proposal was unacceptable). Such was the case here. CMC's proposal was not
   responsive to numerous aspects of the RFP, did not correspond to other
   aspects, and contained extraneous information. CMC does not dispute that
   evaluated deficiencies existed, and given the number and nature of those
   deficiencies--which suggested that CMC may have submitted information from
   an old proposal without updating various aspects of the requirements--we
   think the agency reasonably could conclude that CMC lacked an
   understanding or awareness of the RFP requirements. Further, while CMC's
   proposed 50-day maintenance rotation (and other proposal features) may
   have exceeded the RFP requirements, the agency could view this in the
   context of the proposal as a whole; rather than an intended enhancement,
   the agency apparently considered this to be another example of the
   proposal's failure to correspond to the requirements of the current RFP,
   reinforcing its concern that CMC did not understand, or was unaware of,
   the actual requirements. Again, given the nature and number of the
   identified deficiencies, this conclusion was unobjectionable.

   Offerors are responsible for submitting an adequately written proposal,
   and run the risk that their proposals will be evaluated unfavorably where
   they fail to do so. Carlson Wagonlit Travel, B-287016, Mar. 6, 2001, 2001
   CPD para. 49 at 3. The agency was not required to give CMC a second chance
   to respond to the RFP's requirements.

   The protest is denied.

   Gary L. Kepplinger
   General Counsel