DSDJ, Inc., B-288438; B-288438.2; B-288438.3; B-288438.4, October 24, 2001

DSDJ, Inc., B-288438; B-288438.2; B-288438.3; B-288438.4, October 24, 2001 TITLE: DSDJ, Inc., B-288438; B-288438.2; B-288438.3; B-288438.4, October 24, 2001 BNUMBER: B-288438; B-288438.2; B-288438.3; B-288438.4 DATE: October 24, 2001 ********************************************************************** Decision Matter of: DSDJ, Inc. File: B-288438; B-288438.2; B-288438.3; B-288438.4 Date: October 24, 2001 Laura Rose, Esq., for the protester. John D. Inazu, Esq., and Robert D. M. Allen, Esq., Department of the Air Force, for the agency. David A. Ashen, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Exclusion of proposal from competitive range was reasonable where agency reasonably determined that, notwithstanding solicitation requirement to include such information, proposal included inadequate detail concerning offeror's technical plan or approach to performing task orders for contracted advisory and assistance services. DECISION DSDJ, Inc. protests the Department of the Air Force's exclusion of its proposal from the competitive range under request for proposals (RFP) No. F44650-01-R0001, for contracted advisory and assistance services (CAAS) in support of the Air Combat Command (ACC) and the Air Force Command and Control Training and Innovation Group (AFC2TIG). DSDJ asserts that the evaluation of its proposal was inconsistent with the evaluation scheme set forth in the RFP and was otherwise unreasonable. We deny the protest. As set forth in the solicitation's statement of work (SOW), ACC and AFC2TIG require CAAS (as well as ongoing operational services) to support or improve organizational policy development, decision making capabilities, program and/or project management and administration, technical and analytical tools, and the operation of systems supporting the ACC mission of furnishing air combat forces. RFP Description of Services sect. 1.2. The RFP provided for award of six indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts (three contracts to be awarded on an unrestricted basis and three contracts to be awarded to small business concerns), for a base year, with 4 option years, to meet this requirement. (In preproposal questions and answers, the agency stated that it planned to award six to eight contracts, with half the awards reserved for small business concerns.) Under these CAAS contracts, fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee, labor-hour, or other task orders were to be issued for: (1) management and professional services, including support, assistance, advice or training; (2) studies, analyses, and evaluations; and (3) engineering and technical services, including advice, assistance, and training required to maintain and operate ACC fielded weapon systems, equipment and components at design or required levels of effectiveness. Award was to be made to the offerors whose proposals were most advantageous and represented the best value to the government. The solicitation provided that proposals were to be evaluated based on the following factors: (1) past performance, evaluated using five references for the most recent and relevant contract efforts (with relevance defined as management and professional support services; studies, analyses and evaluations; and engineering and technical support service experiences, especially those provided to the military at multiple locations); (2) mission capability, with subfactors for management, technical, and proposals for three sample task orders (STO); (3) proposal risk, focusing on the risks and weaknesses associated with the offeror's proposed approach, and assigned at the subfactor level; and (4) price, including reasonableness and realism. Past performance, mission capability and proposal risk were equally important, and the three combined were significantly more important than price. The Air Force excluded DSDJ's proposal from the competitive range based upon its finding that the proposal was unacceptable due to major deficiencies and inadequacies throughout the proposal such that a major rewrite would be required to render the proposal capable of being accepted. Specifically, although DSDJ received a very good/significant confidence past performance rating, its proposal was rated as unacceptable/high risk under the management and technical subfactors, and as unacceptable/high risk under two of the three STOs and marginal/high risk under the third.