Career Quest, Inc., B-292865; B-292865.2, December 10, 2003

Career Quest, Inc., B-292865; B-292865.2, December 10, 2003 TITLE: Career Quest, Inc., B-292865; B-292865.2, December 10, 2003 BNUMBER: B-292865; B-292865.2 DATE: December 10, 2003 ********************************************************************** Career Quest, Inc., B-292865; B-292865.2, December 10, 2003 DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Decision Matter of: Career Quest, Inc. File: B-292865; B-292865.2 Date: December 10, 2003 Darcy V. Hennessy, Esq., and Leslie Anne Bailey, Esq., Moore Hennessy & Freeman, for the protester. Catherine G. Powers, Esq., Social Security Administration, for the agency. Paul E. Jordan, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. In evaluation under experience factor, where offerors were to establish similarity of prior contract to solicited requirement and sufficient experience of their own, agency reasonably found protester*s proposal unacceptable on basis that its experience as a prime contractor was limited to work not comparable to the requirement and otherwise indicated that the protester*s relevant experience was essentially limited to its subcontractor*s experience. 2. In evaluation of offerors* proposals, where agency found that one offeror*s experience as a prime contractor met requirements for similarity in size, scope, complexity and relevance to the solicited requirements, but concluded that protester*s experience as a prime was not sufficiently comparable to solicitation requirements, agency did not engage in unequal treatment of offerors, since record supports finding that the different conclusions were reasonable. DECISION Career Quest, Inc. protests the elimination of its proposal from the competition under request for proposals (RFP) No. SSA-RFP-03-0523, issued by the Social Security Administration (SSA) for clerical support services. Career Quest challenges the agency*s evaluation of the technical proposals. We deny the protest. The RFP, a section 8(a) set-aside, sought proposals to provide clerical services in support of SSA*s Megasite Folder Storage Facility in Baltimore, Maryland. The Megasite master files area is designed to house approximately 4.7 million folders, and the successful offeror will be responsible for providing all services necessary to the operation of the Megasite, including refiling, dropfiling, folder retrieval, preparation of temporary folders, validation, sequencing, and folder inactivation services. The RFP contemplated the award of a fixed-price requirements contract for a base year, with 4 option years. Proposals were to be evaluated on the basis of four factors--technical acceptability, experience, past performance, and price. The technical acceptability evaluation was to include a review of each offeror*s management plan and staffing proposal to determine whether the offeror had the resources, equipment, personnel and expertise to perform the required services. Experience was to be evaluated on the basis of how an offeror*s experience at a federal or state agency, or commercial corporation compared in size, scope, complexity and relevance to the current requirements--management and operation of a major files storage facility housing 3 to 5 million files, with a staff of at least 150, and requiring a high volume of file transfers at multiple external sites on a daily basis. To demonstrate experience, offerors were to submit a narrative description of at least two prior contracts that demonstrated experience performing work of complexity and size similar to that in the statement of work (SOW). The information had to be sufficient to convince the agency that the prior work met the similarity requirement, and the RFP warned that it was not enough to merely state that the work was sufficiently similar. Technical acceptability and experience were considered equal in importance and were the most important factors. The past performance and price factors were of equal importance, and less important than the first two factors. Only proposals found acceptable under both the technical acceptability and experience factors were to be evaluated under the remaining factors. Thirteen offerors, including Career Quest, [deleted], submitted proposals, which were evaluated by the technical evaluation committee (TEC). The TEC evaluated [deleted], and a third offeror*s proposal as *acceptable with clarifications,* but evaluated Career Quest*s proposal as unacceptable for lack of corporate experience performing contracts comparable in size, scope, and complexity to the current procurement. The contracting officer eliminated Career Quest*s proposal from the competitive range.