Wilson 5 Service Company, Inc., B-285343.2; B-285343.3, October 10, 2000

Wilson 5 Service Company, Inc., B-285343.2; B-285343.3, October 10, 2000 TITLE: Wilson 5 Service Company, Inc., B-285343.2; B-285343.3, October 10, 2000 BNUMBER: B-285343.2; B-285343.3 DATE: October 10, 2000 ********************************************************************** Wilson 5 Service Company, Inc., B-285343.2; B-285343.3, October 10, 2000 Decision Matter of: Wilson 5 Service Company, Inc. File: B-285343.2; B-285343.3 Date: October 10, 2000 Robert G. Fryling, Esq., and Edward J. Hoffman, Esq., Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley, for the protester. Robert J. McCall, Esq., General Services Administration, 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 Protester's contention that its proposal was improperly excluded from the competitive range is denied where the decision to exclude the proposal from further consideration was consistent with applicable regulations, and where the protester fails to show that the evaluation--upon which the decision to exclude the proposal was based--was unreasonable or inconsistent with the stated evaluation criteria. DECISION Wilson 5 Service Company, Inc. protests the exclusion of its proposal from the competitive range under solicitation for offers (SFO) No. GS-03P-00-DXC-0001, issued by the General Services Administration (GSA) for facilities engineering maintenance services for six federal buildings in the Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia areas. Wilson argues that its exclusion from the competitive range was improper because GSA did not follow the competitive range procedures identified in its source selection plan. It also argues that the evaluation of its proposal was unreasonable due to alleged discrepancies in the scores assigned by one of the evaluators, and due to the agency's erroneous conclusion that its proposal was weak when, in Wilson's view, the alleged weaknesses were only minor informational deficiencies. We deny the protest. The GSA issued this solicitation via its Electronic Posting System on March 14, 2000, and anticipated award of a fixed-price 1-year contract followed by one 2-year option, and three 3-year options, for a total performance period of 12 years. SFO sect.sect. F.2, 4. The SFO advised potential offerors that GSA would "select the offeror whose proposal offers the Greatest Value to the Government in terms of technical and pricing merit," and that technical and price would be given "approximately equal weight." SFO sect. M.1. It also advised that total price would be calculated using the price for all option years, and that technical merit would be calculated using a level of confidence rating (LOCR). Id. sect.sect. M.1, 2. Four technical evaluation factors were identified by the SFO--management plan, corporate experience, qualifications of key personnel, and extent of participation of small disadvantaged business (SDB) concerns. Id., amend. 3, sect. M.3. Of these four factors, management plan was the most important, corporate experience and key personnel were equally important and more important than the factor for evaluating a proposal's use of SDB concerns, which was the least important evaluation factor. Id. Although this solicitation was not reserved for exclusive small business or HUBZone [1] small business participation, it contained a cascading award preference, as described below. Specifically, the SFO provided that: (1) if competitive proposals were received from at least two HUBZone small business concerns, award would be made to a HUBZone small business; (2) if fewer than two proposals were received from eligible HUBZone small businesses, but competitive proposals were received from at least two small businesses, award would be made to a small business; and (3) if fewer than two proposals were received from qualified small business concerns, then award would be made on the basis of full and open competition among all competing offerors. SFO sect. I.22. Eleven proposals were received in response to this SFO. Of the 11, 1 was submitted by a HUBZone small business concern, 6 were submitted by small businesses not considered HUBZone concerns, and 4 were submitted by large businesses. After the initial evaluation of offers, the source selection evaluation board (SSEB) concluded that the competition could not be limited to HUBZone concerns, but could likely be limited to the seven small business offerors (including the HUBZone small business concern). Technical Proposal Evaluation and Consensus Report, at 3. After the SSEB developed consensus scores for each of the proposals submitted by a small business, and conducted a detailed review of prices, the SSEB concluded that there was a natural break in the technical merit scores between the two highest-rated small business offerors and the five remaining small businesses.