Advanced Data Concepts, Inc., B-277801.4, June 1, 1998

B-277801.4 Jun 01, 1998 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights A firm protested a Department of Energy (DOE) contract award for technical and administrative services, contending that: (1) DOE's evaluation of its proposal was unreasonable in the areas of personnel, past performance, and uncompensated overtime; and (2) DOE failed to hold meaningful discussions with it and was biased in favor of the awardee. GAO held that: (1) the protester's proposal was unreasonably downgraded under the personnel subcriterion; (2) DOE reasonably evaluated the protester's past performance in accordance with the solicitation's evaluation criteria; (3) DOE conducted meaningful discussions with the protester; and (4) GAO would not sustain the protest since, even though the contentions raised had merit, the protester did not have a reasonable chance of receiving the award. Accordingly, the protest was denied. View Decision Matter of: Advanced Data Concepts, Inc. File: B-277801.4 Date: June 1, 1998 * Redacted Decision DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Advanced Data Concepts, Inc. (ADC) protests the award of a contract to DynCorp EENSP, Inc., d/b/a DynMeridian by the Department of Energy (DOE), pursuant to request for proposals (RFP) No. DE-RP01-97NN50008, issued to procure technical, analytical and administrative services for DOE's Office of Declassification. ADC argues that DOE's evaluation of its proposal was unreasonable in the areas of personnel, past performance, and uncompensated overtime, and also contends that the agency failed to hold meaningful discussions with ADC and was biased in favor of the incumbent. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFP here was issued on April 1, 1997, and anticipated award of a fixed-rate labor-hour contract for a 2-year base period, with three 1-year options. RFP Sec. L.16 (as modified by amend. 3 at 3). Offerors were instructed to prepare two proposal volumes and an oral presentation, as follows: a volume for the offer and other documents (RFP Sec. L.29); a volume for the price proposal (RFP Sec. L.31); and oral presentation slides and materials for the technical portion of the proposal (RFP Sec. L.30). Offerors were advised that award would be made to the offeror whose proposal was considered most advantageous to the government. RFP Sec. M.1. The RFP explained that the oral technical proposal would be more important than price in determining which proposal was most advantageous. RFP Sec. M.2. The solicitation identified four technical evaluation criteria, each of which was comprised of additional subcriteria. Although the RFP did not specifically identify the available points for the evaluation criteria, the criteria and the points used to evaluate them, are set forth below: /1/ Personnel Qualifications and Availability 333 Technical Approach 317 Past Performance 250 Organization and Management Capabilities 100 TOTAL 1,000 RFP Sec. M.3; Rating Plan, Feb. 4, 1997, at 2. (We need not set forth here all of the subcriteria and their relative weights, but will discuss them below, as needed.) In assessing the criteria and subcriteria, evaluators assigned a score of 0, 2, 5, 8, or 10, which was then multiplied by preestablished weights to determine the actual score. Rating Plan, supra. After receiving and evaluating initial proposals, the agency made an award without discussions, which was challenged by ADC in two protests to our Office. Both protests were dismissed after the agency agreed to take corrective action in the form of rescinding its initial award decision, making a competitive range determination, and convening discussions with the offerors whose proposals were included in the competitive range. Advanced Data Concepts, Inc., B-277801, B-277801.2, Sept. 16, 1997. At the conclusion of discussions with the three competitive range offerors in the renewed competition, best and final offers (BAFO) were received from DynMeridian and ADC on November 17. (The third competitive range offeror elected not to submit a revised proposal, and asked to be considered based on its initial submission. Since it did not participate here, and since its scores were lower than those of the protester and the awardee, we will not discuss it further.) After completing its review of the BAFOs, the technical evaluation committee (TEC) assigned the following scores to DynMeridian's and ADC's proposals: Evaluation Criteria Dyn. ADC Personnel Qualifications and Availability [deleted] [deleted] Technical Approach [deleted] [deleted] Past Performance [deleted] [deleted] Organization and Management Capabilities [deleted] [deleted] TOTAL 970 644.9 Upon reviewing DynMeridian's evaluated price of $15.9 million, and ADC's price of $12.6 million, the TEC recommended, and the source selection official (SSO) concluded, that DynMeridian's superior technical proposal was worth its higher evaluated price. TEC Report, Nov. 26, 1997 at 3; Source Selection Statement, Jan.