AHNTECH Inc., B-291998, April 29, 2003

B-291998 Apr 29, 2003 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights DIGEST Agency's rejection of protester's proposal for failing to meet two solicitation requirements was unobjectionable where record shows that proposal was unacceptable. AHNTECH asserts that its proposal met the RFP requirements and should have been considered for award. The protest is denied. Award was to be made to the offeror whose proposal was considered most advantageous to the government. Are relevant to this protest. The technical factor was to be evaluated on a pass/fail basis and a proposal found to be unacceptable under any factor or subfactor would result in an overall technically unacceptable rating. Discussions with offerors were not contemplated. AHNTECH asserts that the evaluation was flawed because it was based on an erroneous interpretation of the RFP requirements. View Decision AHNTECH Inc., B-291998, April 29, 2003 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION AHNTECH Inc. protests the rejection of its proposal under request for proposals (RFP) No. F26600-02-R-B004, issued by the Department of the Air Force for automation support services at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. AHNTECH asserts that its proposal met the RFP requirements and should have been considered for award. The protest is denied. The RFP sought proposals to provide personnel and supervision to perform all training and testing operations using the Nellis Air Combat Training System and the Nellis Combined Air Operations Center. The support includes analysis, evaluation, graphics, computer programming, data entry, retrieval and processing, computer maintenance, technical library, software development, administrative support, and facility maintenance. The RFP contemplated the award of a fixed-price contract for a base year, with 4 option years. Award was to be made to the offeror whose proposal was considered most advantageous to the government, considering three factors: technical, past performance and price. The RFP identified four technical subfactors, two of which--security and operations support/range training officer (RTO)--are relevant to this protest. The technical factor was to be evaluated on a pass/fail basis and a proposal found to be unacceptable under any factor or subfactor would result in an overall technically unacceptable rating. Proposals found to be acceptable under the technical factor would be evaluated under the past performance and price factors. Discussions with offerors were not contemplated. The agency found AHNTECH's proposal unacceptable under the security subfactor for failing to provide a copy of its Defense Security Service Facility Clearance (DSSFC) letter, and under the RTO subfactor for proposing an RTO lacking the requisite experience; the agency thus rejected the proposal as unacceptable. AHNTECH asserts that the evaluation was flawed because it was based on an erroneous interpretation of the RFP requirements. In AHNTECH's view, its proposal met "the only possible, logical and grammatical interpretation" of the two requirements in question. /1/ Comments at 2. Evaluation and award in negotiated procurements must be in accordance with the terms of the solicitation. Industrial Data Link Corp., B-248477.2, Sept. 14, 1992, 92-2 CPD Para. 176 at 4. Where a protester and agency disagree over the meaning of solicitation language, we will resolve the matter by reading the solicitation as a whole and in a manner that gives effect to all its provisions; to be reasonable, and therefore valid, an interpretation must be consistent with the solicitation when read as a whole and in a reasonable manner. Fox Dev. Corp., B287118.2, Aug. 3, 2001, 2001 CPD Para. 140 at 2. SECURITY SUBFACTOR The security subfactor stated as follows: (i) "SECURITY (MUST PASS THIS FACTOR) Must have a Top Secret Facility Clearance (must provide a copy of their [DSSFC] letter)." RFP at 11. AHNTECH asserts that the first part of this provision simply requires an offeror to possess the requisite clearance. AHNTECH apparently possesses this clearance, but claims it did not submit the appropriate letter with its proposal because it read the second, parenthetical, portion of the requirement as not requiring it to do so. In this regard, AHNTECH claims that, since the agency used the plural possessive pronoun "their" to identify the entity that was required to submit the letter, and AHNTECH is a single entity, it concluded that the language must refer only to subcontractors (AHNTECH did not propose any subcontractors). AHNTECH therefore did not submit its DSSFC letter. The protester's claimed interpretation of the RFP language is unreasonable. While the security subfactor provision does not expressly state that "offerors" must submit the DSSFC letter, it is plain that this is what it required.