Ares Corporation

Ares Corporation BNUMBER: B-275321; B-275321.2 DATE: February 7, 1997 TITLE: Ares Corporation ********************************************************************** DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE A protected decision was issued on the date below and was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This version has been redacted or approved by the parties involved for public release. Matter of:Ares Corporation File: B-275321; B-275321.2 Date:February 7, 1997 William H. Butterfield, Esq., Christopher H. Jensen, Esq., and Cyrus E. Phillips IV, Esq., Kilcullen, Wilson & Kilcullen, for the protester. Alan Dickson, Esq., and Shlomo D. Katz, Esq., Epstein, Becker & Green, for Sparta, Inc., the intervenor. James T. Tate, Jr., Esq., Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Department of Defense, for the agency. John L. Formica, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Agency reasonably determined that an upward adjustment in the awardee's proposed costs was not warranted where the agency found that the awardee's uncompensated overtime rates were reasonable and that its proposed labor escalation rates were adequately justified. 2. Adjectival rating for the awardee's proposal which was equal to the protester's rating under the personnel evaluation criterion was not unreasonable, even though the agency identified a number of weaknesses in the relevant section of the awardee's proposal and did not identify any weaknesses in the relevant section of the protester's proposal, because the weaknesses were identified with regard to only a small percentage of the awardee's proposed personnel and were reasonably accounted for in the agency's risk assessment of this criterion. 3. The selection of a lower-rated, lower-cost offer for award over a higher-rated, higher-cost offer in a best value procurement in which technical merit was stated to be more important than evaluated cost was not improper where the agency reasonably concluded that the higher-rated offer was only slightly better than the lower-rated offer with regard to overall technical merit and that the slight advantage in technical merit was not outweighed by the lower-rated offer's lower evaluated cost. DECISION Ares Corporation protests the award of a contract to Sparta, Incorporated under request for proposals (RFP) No. HQ0006-96-R-0007, issued by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), Department of Defense, for scientific, engineering, and technical assistance (SETA) services to assist BMDO's theater missile defense (TMD) staff. We deny the protest. The RFP, a total set-aside for small business concerns, provided for the award of a cost-plus-award-fee contract for a base period of 2 years with three 1-year options. The RFP stated that award would be made to the offeror submitting the proposal representing the best overall value to the government, cost and other factors considered. The RFP specified that technical merit was more important than cost, and that the determination as to which proposal represented the best overall value to the government would "focus on the significant differences or discriminating factors between proposals and the value impact of those differences." The technical evaluation criteria were listed in descending order of importance as follows: 1.Personnel 2.Understanding and Approach[1] a. TMD Systems Acquisition b. TMD Joint and Combined Operations c. TMD Battle Management/Command, Control, and Communications Integration d. TMD Modeling and Simulation e. TMD Studies and Analysis 3.Corporate Experience 4.Past Performance 5.Management Proposals were to be evaluated under a color rating scheme as blue, green, yellow, or red, and for risk to assess "the [o]fferor's ability to perform successfully in light of the [g]overnment's evaluation of the [o]fferor's proposal" for each of the evaluation criteria (except past performance, which was to be evaluated with a color rating and for performance risk).[2] The RFP stated that cost proposals would not be separately evaluated under the color rating scheme, but would be evaluated for reasonableness, realism, and completeness. The RFP provided detailed instructions for the preparation of proposals, and requested that offerors submit separate business, technical and cost proposals. The RFP specified an estimated level of effort of 300,000 hours (approximately 160 man-years) for the 2-year base period of the contact and 150,000 hours for each of the three 1-year option periods. The RFP required, among other things, that offerors identify any proposed uncompensated overtime in their technical and cost proposals.[3] The agency received proposals from Ares, the incumbent contractor, and Sparta.