Management Plus, Inc.

B-265852 Dec 29, 1995 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights A firm protested an Army contract award for food and dining attendant services, contending that the Army improperly: (1) evaluated its past performance; and (2) downgraded its bid based on the suspicion that it did not intend to hire the incumbent contractor's employees. GAO held that the Army reasonably: (1) evaluated the protester's past performance in accordance with the stated evaluation criteria; and (2) downgraded the protester's bid, since it believed the protester did not intend to hire the incumbent contractor's employees. Accordingly, the protest was denied. View Decision Matter of: Management Plus, Inc. File: B-265852 Date: December 29, 1995 Agency reasonably downgraded protester's proposal for failing to demonstrate corporate experience, where the protester, a newly formed corporate entity, relied upon the qualifications of its proposed personnel to establish its corporate experience, but the solicitation provided for a separate evaluation of corporate and personnel experience. Attorneys DECISION Management Plus, Inc. (MPI) protests the Department of the Army's award of a contract to KCA Corporation, under request for proposals (RFP) No. DAKF40-94-R-0002, for food and dining attendant services at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. MPI challenges the evaluation of its proposal. We deny the protest. The RFP contemplated the award of a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for a base year, with four 1-year options. The solicitation stated that technical proposals would be evaluated based on the following four factors: (1) technical excellence; (2) management; (3) quality control; and (4) cost. Each technical factor contained various subfactors. The solicitation stated that the cumulative weight of the first three factors was somewhat more important than cost; technical excellence was somewhat more important than management; and quality control was substantially less important than either technical excellence or management. The RFP provided for award to be made to the responsible offeror whose offer conformed to the RFP and was considered most advantageous to the government. Nineteen proposals were received by the closing time; seven of the proposals, including MPI's and KCA's, were included in the competitive range. Following written and oral discussions with the offerors, best and final offers (BAFO) were requested. The BAFOs were evaluated as follows: MPI KCA Technical Excellence 72.65 83.30 Management 68.24 85.46 Quality Control 83.15 87.00 TOTAL CONSENSUS [1] 71.95 84.53 EVALUATED COST $49,869,350 $51,143,422 The Army determined that although MPI's proposal had the lowest evaluated cost, the technical strengths of KCA's proposal were worth the evaluated cost premium ($1,274,072). The Army thus found KCA's proposal to be the most advantageous to the government and made award to the firm. MPI challenges the Army's determination to award MPI's proposal only 7.5 of 15 available weighted points for technical experience related to functional areas, a subfactor of the technical excellence factor, and none of the 15 available weighted points for related management and contract experience, a subfactor of the management factor. MPI argues the Army improperly failed to consider under these subfactors the experience of three proposed key personnel--the contract manager (who is also president of MPI), the quality control manager, and the contract administrative manager--who, MPI contends, were highly qualified and had substantial experience during the past 5 years performing services similar to those required here with firms other than MPI. [2] In reviewing protests against an agency's technical evaluation, we do not independently evaluate proposals or substitute our judgment for that of the agency; instead we review the record to determine whether the agency's judgments were reasonable and in accordance with the listed criteria and whether there were any violations of procurement statutes or regulations. Facilities Management Co., Inc., B-259731.2, May 23, 1995, 95-1 CPD Para. 274. Here, we conclude that the evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation language. The record shows MPI's initial technical and management proposals contained information on only the experience of its proposed key personnel under both subfactors; MPI did not demonstrate experience as a corporate entity because it was a newly formed company which had not previously performed any commercial or government contracts for food services. As a result, the Army gave MPI initial scores of 3 of 15 available weighted points under the technical experience subfactor and 0 of the 15 available weighted points under the related management and contract experience subfactor.