Olympus Building Services, Inc., B-285351; B-285351.2, August 17, 2000

Olympus Building Services, Inc., B-285351; B-285351.2, August 17, 2000 TITLE: Olympus Building Services, Inc., B-285351; B-285351.2, August 17, 2000 BNUMBER: B-285351; B-285351.2 DATE: August 17, 2000 ********************************************************************** Olympus Building Services, Inc., B-285351; B-285351.2, August 17, 2000 Decision Matter of: Olympus Building Services, Inc. File: B-285351; B-285351.2 Date: August 17, 2000 Ruth E. Ganister, Esq., Rosenthal and Ganister, for the protester. Mark R. Warnick, Esq., General Services Administration, for the agency. Jacqueline Maeder, Esq., and Paul I. Lieberman, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Agency's proposal evaluation and resulting competitive range determination were unreasonable where offerors' experience, staffing and authority standards, and management approach/resources were evaluated by the mechanical and otherwise unsupported application of undisclosed source selection plan standards, which resulted in an irrational evaluation outcome. DECISION Olympus Building Services, Inc. protests the exclusion of its proposal from the competitive range under request for proposals (RFP) No. GS06P-99-GXC-0021, issued by the General Services Administration (GSA) for janitorial and related services at the Thomas F. Eagleton Courthouse, St. Louis, Missouri. Olympus contends that the exclusion was the result of GSA's improperly downgrading Olympus's proposal on the basis of the mechanical application of arbitrary evaluation criteria that were not disclosed in the RFP. We sustain the protest. The solicitation, issued September 16, 1999, provides for the best value award of a fixed-price contract for a base year with four 1-year options. RFP sect.sect. B.2, M.2.a. The RFP identifies the following evaluation factors, listed in descending order of importance (with the two subfactors of equal value): 1. Experience 2. Past Performance 3. Staffing and Authority Standards 4. Management Approach a. Quality Control b. Resources RFP sect. M.2.b. Under GSA's source selection plan (which was not disclosed in the RFP), each factor and subfactor was assigned a possible point score and a weight, for a possible total weighted score of 1,000, as indicated below: Points Weight Total Possible Score Experience 50 10 500 Past Performance 50 6 300 Staffing and Authority 60 2 120 Standards Management Approach Quality Control 20 2 40 Resources 20 2 40 Total 1,000 Agency Report, Tab 3, Source Selection Plan, at 4; Contracting Officer's Statement at 4. The RFP advised offerors to address each of the above-listed evaluation factors and subfactors in their proposals, and provided general guidelines, discussed below, regarding the information that offerors were expected to include under each factor. RFP sect. L.2. [Deleted] proposals, including Olympus's, were received by the November 15 closing date. Contracting Officer's Statement at 2. The proposals were evaluated and scored by the source selection evaluation board (SSEB), which applied specific criteria contained in the source selection plan. Id. at 4-5. The five highest technically rated offers included two proposals rated "excellent," with weighted point scores of [deleted], and three proposals rated "poor," one with a weighted point score of [deleted] and two with weighted point scores of [deleted]. [1] Id. at 5. Olympus's proposal was assigned an overall "poor" rating based on its weighted point score of [deleted]. Olympus's evaluated price was the second low of these five, and was substantially lower than the prices of the two highest-scored proposals. Because there was a "natural break" in technical scores between the two highest-rated proposals and the next three proposals, the agency determined to include only the two highest technically rated proposals in the competitive range. Supplemental Agency Report at 4. By letter dated April 19, GSA notified Olympus that its proposal was eliminated from the competitive range and after a May 8 debriefing, Olympus filed this protest with our Office. [2] The protester argues that GSA improperly applied undisclosed standards in evaluating the experience, staffing and authority standards, and management approach factors which resulted in the downgrading and exclusion from the competitive range of Olympus's proposal.