Matter of: Meridian Management Corporation

B-285127 Jul 19, 2000 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Given that solicitation did not in any way refer to the specialized services and offerors were not given the opportunity to visually inspect the laboratories themselves to determine whether equipment requiring specialized service was present. Offerors were to submit unit prices on a monthly basis for certain services (preventive maintenance. Experience was more important than past performance. Offerors were instructed to submit a minimum of three references for similar past or current contracts. [Deleted] proposals were received. A point score of 0 to 5 was assigned for each response. Some questions were scored on an all-or-nothing basis (i.e. The only scores possible were 0 and 5). Others (generally those related to past performance) were scored on a graduated basis (i.e. View Decision Matter of: Meridian Management Corporation File: B-285127 Date: July 19, 2000 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Meridian Management Corporation protests the exclusion of its proposal from the competitive range under request for proposals (RFP) No. GS05P00GAC0126, issued by the General Services Administration (GSA) for operations and maintenance services at two buildings and two parking facilities in Chicago. The protester contends that the agency improperly failed to consider its proposed price before deciding to exclude its proposal from the competitive range. The protester also argues that the solicitation improperly failed to apprise offerors that they would be expected to perform specialized services in agency laboratories located in one of the buildings. We sustain the protest. The RFP requested proposals for a base period (of 12 months) and two option periods (of 12 and 36 months, respectively) to operate and maintain the mechanical, electrical, utility, and interior and exterior architectural/structural (A/S) systems in the four facilities. RFP Secs. B, C. Offerors were to submit unit prices on a monthly basis for certain services (preventive maintenance, repairs, and service calls) and unit prices on an hourly basis for other work (such as overtime service and emergency calls). RFP Sec. B. The solicitation provided for award to the offeror whose proposal represented the best value to the government in terms of total evaluated price, experience, and past performance. The solicitation noted that past performance and experience combined would be more important than price, but that as proposals became more equal in terms of past performance and experience, price would become more important. Similarly, experience was more important than past performance, but as experience became more equal, past performance would become more important. RFP Sec. M. To permit evaluation of their experience and past performance, offerors were instructed to submit a minimum of three references for similar past or current contracts. Id. [Deleted] proposals were received. The contract specialist contacted three references for each offeror and asked each a series of 31 questions, 16 focusing on the nature of the contract that the offeror had performed for it (e.g., type of services performed, length of contract, dollar amount) and 15 focusing on the offeror's performance under the contract. A point score of 0 to 5 was assigned for each response. Some questions were scored on an all-or-nothing basis (i.e., the only scores possible were 0 and 5); others (generally those related to past performance) were scored on a graduated basis (i.e., scores of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 were possible). For example, each reference was asked whether the contractor had worked in special use areas such as laboratories (with a response of "yes" receiving a score of 5, and a response of "no," a score of 0); the references were then asked to rate the contractor's performance in this area (with a rating of "excellent" receiving 5 points; a rating of "very good," 4 points; a rating of "good," 3 points; a rating of "fair," 2 points, a rating of "poor," 1 point, and a rating of "not applicable," 0 points). The contract specialist calculated an experience/past performance (E/PP) score for each contract by adding together the point scores for each of the 31 questions and dividing by 31. The agency then averaged the three E/PP scores for each offeror to come up with an overall E/PP rating for each firm and ranked the proposals in order of their E/PP ratings. The contracting officer determined that there were too many highly rated proposals for an efficient competition to be conducted and that the size of the competitive range should be limited. /1/ Contracting Officer's Statement, May 11, 2000, at 1.