Matter of:Environmental Chemical Corporation

B-275819 Apr 01, 1997 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights DIGEST Selection officials are not bound by recommendations made or price/cost evaluation methodologies used by an agency evaluation panel or other subordinate officials in evaluating price proposals. Source selection officials in negotiated procurements have broad discretion in determining the manner and extent to which they will make use of the technical and cost evaluation results. They are subject only to the tests of rationality and consistency with the established evaluation factors. Contemplated multiple awards and stated that the government would award the contracts to the responsible offerors whose offers conforming to the solicitation were most advantageous to the government. The RFP stated that each offeror was required to submit for evaluation a past performance proposal (Volume 1) and stated that a technical oral presentation/interview would also be required. View Decision Matter of: Environmental Chemical Corporation File: B-275819 Date: April 1, 1997 * Redacted Decision DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Environmental Chemical Corporation (ECC) protests the multiple awards of indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contracts to UXB International, Inc., Environmental Hazards Specialists International, Inc. (EHSI), and EOD Technology, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. DACA87-96-R-0008, issued as a small business set-aside by the Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers, Huntsville, Alabama, to safely locate, identify, and dispose of ordnance and explosives at various Department of Defense (DOD) sites. We deny the protest. The RFP, issued on January 10, 1996, contemplated multiple awards and stated that the government would award the contracts to the responsible offerors whose offers conforming to the solicitation were most advantageous to the government, cost or price and other factors, specified elsewhere in the solicitation, considered. The RFP contemplated a 3-year contract ordering period, with task orders to be issued under the contract in an anticipated combination of firm, fixed-price, time-and-materials (T&M), and cost-plus-fixed-fee (CPFF) bases. The RFP stated that each offeror was required to submit for evaluation a past performance proposal (Volume 1) and stated that a technical oral presentation/interview would also be required. The RFP contained the following subfactors for past performance: (1) questionnaire results; (2) team overview; and (3) terminated contracts. The RFP contained the following subfactors for the oral presentation/interview: (1) technical; (2) management; and (3) safety. Concerning price/cost, the RFP also required offerors to submit a price proposal (Volume 2). The RFP provided that Volume 1 and the oral presentation/interviews would be numerically scored; Volume 2, price, would not be scored but would be evaluated for reasonableness, realism and affordability based upon the labor rates proposed in Schedule B of the RFP and the offerors' estimates proposed in response to the RFP's sample task order. [1] The agency received proposals on March 27, 1996, and held individual oral presentation/interview sessions with offerors during the following months. Initial evaluation by the agency's five technical evaluators was completed pursuant to the source selection plan, with the evaluators recording, in narrative form, strengths and weaknesses for each offeror in support of every subfactor score. After conducting discussions, the agency received best and final offers (BAFO) on October 29, 1996. Evaluation of BAFOs resulted in the following technical and cost rankings: [2] Offeror Technical Evaluated Price/Cost [3] (as adjusted for realism) CPFF T&M EHSI [Deleted] [Deleted] [Deleted] UXB [Deleted] [Deleted] [Deleted] EOD [Deleted] [Deleted] [Deleted] ECC [Deleted] [Deleted] [Deleted] The chairman of the technical evaluation panel issued a memorandum to the source selection authority (SSA) ranking EHSI, UXB, and EOD as first, second, and third, respectively. The agency evaluators did not recommend ECC for consideration to the SSA since they found various irregularities and weaknesses in its proposal that are not relevant here. The SSA followed this recommendation, and awards were made to these firms. This protest followed. In response to the protest, the SSA reevaluated BAFOs, including ECC's BAFO, and determined that even if ECC had been considered, its proposal would not have been selected for award. [4] The SSA found as follows: "The closest call is between [EOD] and ECC. [EOD] is superior to ECC on both past performance and oral presentation. While ECC has an advantage over [EOD] on [individual labor rates, EOD] has a significant price advantage (greater than [deleted]) over ECC on the most probable cost evaluation of the sample task order.