ATA Defense Industries, Inc., B-282511; B-282511.2, July 21, 1999

ATA Defense Industries, Inc., B-282511; B-282511.2, July 21, 1999 TITLE: ATA Defense Industries, Inc., B-282511; B-282511.2, July 21, 1999 BNUMBER: B-282511; B-282511.2 DATE: July 21, 1999 ********************************************************************** ATA Defense Industries, Inc., B-282511; B-282511.2, July 21, 1999 Matter of: ATA Defense Industries, Inc. File: B-282511; B-282511.2 Date: July 21, 1999 Claude P. Goddard, Jr., Esq., Hal J. Perloff, Esq., and Vivian H. Gembara, Wickwire Gavin, for the protester. Rodney A. Grandon, Esq., Patton Boggs, for Caswell International Corporation, an intervenor. Jeffrey I. Kessler, Esq., and Caridad Ramos, Esq., Department of the Army, for the agency. Ralph O. White, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Protester's contention that the awardee's proposal for a targetry system was improperly evaluated is sustained where the record shows that the agency could not reasonably conclude that the awardee's proposal merited a rating of excellent under the technical evaluation scheme, which reserved an excellent rating for those systems which locate hits for armor targets to within 60 millimeters of where a round actually penetrates the plane of the target, and the awardee's proposal shows that it does not meet this margin of error. 2. General Accounting Office (GAO) will not review an agency's determination to waive Buy American Act preference requirements as being in the public interest, nor will GAO invalidate an agency's source selection decision merely because the waiver is approved after the award decision. DECISION ATA Defense Industries, Inc. protests the award of a contract to Caswell International Corporation under request for proposals (RFP) No. DAAE20-98-R-0215, issued by the Department of the Army, Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM), for the Intermediate New Generation Army Targetry System (INGATS). ATA argues that the Army's evaluation was unreasonable in several technical areas, that the source selection decision improperly discounted ATA's strengths and overlooked Caswell's weaknesses, and that the Army improperly failed to apply the Buy American Act price evaluation factor to Caswell's proposal. We sustain the protest. BACKGROUND The INGATS procurement calls for the installation of complete live-fire training ranges, including training in range operations, at various Army facilities throughout the world. RFP at 3. The training ranges purchased under the INGATS contract will be composed of commercially-available targetry equipment, thus the procurement was conducted under the commercial item procedures set forth in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 12. Question and Answers (posted on the Internet with the solicitation), Jan. 7, 1999, at 1. The major subsystems that are assembled into training ranges include, among other things: stationary infantry targets (SIT), moving infantry targets (MIT), stationary armor targets (SAT), moving armor targets (MAT), moving armor targets-vertical (MAT-V) (used to simulate helicopters, etc.), hit detector devices (HDD), sound effects simulators (SES), battle effects simulators (BES), hand-held controllers (HHC), and central control systems (CCS). Performance Description (PD), Oct. 30, 1998, sect. 3.1. The RFP, issued October 8, 1998, anticipated award of a fixed-price indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract, covering approximately 5 years, to the offeror whose proposal presents the best value to the government. RFP at 3-4, 36. The RFP set forth eight contract line items (CLIN) with each identifying a separate target range. [1] RFP amend. 0001, at 3-9. These eight ranges include one acceptance test installation at Fort A.P. Hill, in Virginia, followed by the installation of seven other ranges in the Republic of Korea. Id. at 2. Listed within each CLIN, but not indicated as separate sub-CLINs, are the components which will make up the range, and the quantity of each component needed. For example, CLIN 0001 requires installation of a sniper range at Camp Casey, composed of 2 HHCs, 70 RFSITs, 12 SESs, and 12 RFMITs. [2] The RFP identifies four evaluation elements: technical, performance risk, small business utilization, and price. RFP at 36. Of these four elements, technical is significantly more important than performance risk and small business utilization combined, while performance risk is slightly more important than small business utilization. The RFP also states that price is "less important than all other elements combined within the non-price area." Id.