Hernandez Engineering, Inc.; ASR International Corporation, B-286336; B-286336.2; B-286336.3; B-286336.4, January 2, 2001

Hernandez Engineering, Inc.; ASR International Corporation, B-286336; B-286336.2; B-286336.3; B-286336.4, January 2, 2001 TITLE: Hernandez Engineering, Inc.; ASR International Corporation, B-286336; B-286336.2; B-286336.3; B-286336.4, January 2, 2001 BNUMBER: B-286336; B-286336.2; B-286336.3; B-286336.4 DATE: January 2, 2001 ********************************************************************** Hernandez Engineering, Inc.; ASR International Corporation, B-286336; B-286336.2; B-286336.3; B-286336.4, January 2, 2001 Decision Matter of: Hernandez Engineering, Inc.; ASR International Corporation File: B-286336; B-286336.2; B-286336.3; B-286336.4 Date: January 2, 2001 Richard J. Webber, Esq., and David A. Vogel, Esq., Arent Fox, for Hernandez Engineering, Inc., and Anthony B. Barton, Esq., Forchelli, Curto, Schwartz, Mineo, Carlino & Cohn, for ASR International Corporation, the protesters. Alan M. Grayson, Esq., Ira E. Hoffman, Esq., and Mark R. Mann, Esq., Grayson and Kubli, for SRS Information Services, an intervenor. Bernard J. Roan, Esq., National Aeronautics & Space Administration, for the agency. Katherine I. Riback, Esq., and James Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Protest that contracting agency improperly evaluated awardee's past performance as "very good" is denied, even though the agency considered references of the awardee's parent corporation in the past performance evaluation, where the solicitation did not require any specific minimum of reference questionnaire responses and the agency received a reference questionnaire response regarding a comparable contract performed by the awardee rating its performance as "very good" to "excellent." 2. Consistent with the solicitation's evaluation factors, agency reasonably found significant strengths in awardee's proposal that justified a technical rating that was significantly higher than that of protesters. 3. In calculating probable costs of protesters' proposals, agency reasonably upwardly adjusted their costs where protesters proposed less staffing than forecasted in the solicitation for some of the required services without adequate explanations of the methodology used to develop the proposed lesser levels of staffing and/or accounting for the enhanced levels of services contemplated by the solicitation. DECISION Hernandez Engineering, Inc. and ASR International Corporation protest the award of a contract to SRS Information Services, for mission assurance services by the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) pursuant to request for proposals (RFP) No. 5-02035-502. Both protesters challenge NASA's evaluation of their and the awardee's proposals. We deny the protests. BACKGROUND The Office of Systems Safety and Mission Assurance at Goddard Space Flight Center conducts reviews before and after launches of flight projects and provides independent technical support, including risk assessment and guidance to all flight programs. The procurement at issue here is to support NASA's mission by providing services in the mission assurance engineering, system safety, reliability, continuous risk management, and information and assurance technology areas. RFP attach. A, at 1. The solicitation, issued on April 6, 2000, as a 100-percent small business set-aside, anticipated the award of a cost-plus-award-fee (CPAF) contract for 5 years. The RFP stated the agency's intention to award the contract without discussions. The three evaluation factors listed in the RFP were, in descending order of importance: mission suitability, past performance, and cost/price. The RFP stated that the non-cost/price factors, when combined, were significantly more important than the cost factor. The mission suitability factor was point scored and adjectivally rated considering four subfactors: technical approach and methodology (300 points), scenarios (300 points), management approach (200 points), and quality approach (200 points). [1] RFP sect. M.3. The past performance factor was adjectivally rated based largely on responses to the "Experience and Past Performance Questionnaire" that each offeror was to send to its references. RFP sect. L.16. For the cost/price factor, the agency considered both proposed and probable costs, as calculated through cost realism analyses, for the offerors' proposals for the total 5-year contract effort as well as for the offerors' responses to the seven scenarios. RFP sect. M.4. The RFP further provided for the deduction of points from the mission suitability score where there was a significant variance between an offeror's proposed costs and probable costs. [2] As indicated, under the RFP, cost realism adjustments could be made to the offeror's proposed CPAF value for the total 5-year effort and to the total CPAF value associated with the seven scenarios.