KRA Corporation, B-278904; B-278904.5, April 2, 1998

KRA Corporation, B-278904; B-278904.5, April 2, 1998 BNUMBER: B-278904; B-278904.5 DATE: April 2, 1998 TITLE: KRA Corporation, B-278904; B-278904.5, April 2, 1998 ********************************************************************** 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. Matter of:KRA Corporation File: B-278904; B-278904.5 Date:April 2, 1998 John E. Jensen, Esq., Daryle A. Jordan, Esq., and Thomas A. Duckenfield, Esq., Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge, for the protester. Paralee White, Esq., Michael A. Hordell, Esq., and Laura L. Hoffman, Esq., Gadsby & Hannah, for Walcoff & Associates, an intervenor. Gena E. Cadieux, Esq., Patricia D. Graham, Esq., and Joseph A. Lenhard, Esq., Department of Energy, for the agency. Jacqueline Maeder, Esq., and Paul Lieberman, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Agency evaluation of technical proposals is unobjectionable where the record establishes that the evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the stated evaluation factors; protester's mere disagreement with the agency's conclusions does not render the evaluation unreasonable. 2. Protest that agency failed to perform proper cost/technical tradeoff is denied where source selection official considered technical evaluations, past performance ratings, and cost in his award determination and reasonably determined that the evaluated technical superiority of the six highest technically-rated proposals warranted payment of the cost premium associated with certain of these proposals vis-�-vis other lower technically-rated, lower cost proposals. DECISION KRA Corporation protests the Department of Energy's (DOE) decision not to award KRA a contract under request for proposals (RFP) No. DE-RP01-97EI30000, issued by DOE for technical services for the Energy Information Administration (EIA).[1] KRA primarily challenges the agency's evaluation of KRA's technical proposal and the source selection determination. We deny the protest. DOE issued the RFP, referred to as the EIA Omnibus Procurement (EOP), via the Internet on July 7, 1997. This solicitation, which combined technical support services that were currently being performed for EIA under 11 separate support services contracts, sought separate proposals for 3 functional areas/contract line items (CLIN), consisting of information management and product production (IM&PP) support services (CLIN 001); energy analysis and forecasting support services (CLIN 002); and information technology support services (CLIN 003). For each CLIN, the RFP listed a maximum number of direct productive labor hours (DPLH), consisting of 528,984 DPLH for CLIN 001, 183,000 DPLH for CLIN 002, and 412,920 DPLH for CLIN 003. The RFP provided for multiple indefinite-quantity awards with awardees becoming eligible for post-award competition for task orders for a 3-year base period with one 2-year option. Since each contract will have cost reimbursement and fixed-price provisions, the RFP provided that task orders will be issued on both a cost-plus-fixed-fee and a fixed-price basis. Section L.15 of the RFP stated that DOE would "award contracts resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offerors whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be the most advantageous to the Government, cost or price and other factors, specified elsewhere in the solicitation, considered" and advised that DOE intended to award on the basis of initial offers without discussions. Section M-1(B) reiterated that award would be made to the offerors whose conforming proposals were determined to be most advantageous to the government. At section M-3, the RFP identified the following weighted evaluation factors and subfactors: 1. Business management, technical and organizational approach50 1.1 Business management plan 20 1.2 Technical plan 20 1.3 Organizational approach 10 2. Past and present experience 20 3. Corporate resource management 20 3.1 Retain labor categories 5 3.2 Additional resources 5 3.3 Staff training and development 5 3.4 Provide automated data processing (ADP) hardware, software, facilities 5 4. Videotape response/presentation 10 5.