B-295126.5; B-295126.6, Engineered Electric Company d/b/a/ DRS Fermont, December 7, 2007

B-295126.5; B-295126.6, Engineered Electric Company d/b/a/ DRS Fermont, December 7, 2007 TITLE: B-295126.5; B-295126.6, Engineered Electric Company d/b/a/ DRS Fermont, December 7, 2007 BNUMBER: B-295126.5; B-295126.6 DATE: December 7, 2007 **************************************************************************************** B-295126.5; B-295126.6, Engineered Electric Company d/b/a/ DRS Fermont, December 7, 2007 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: Engineered Electric Company d/b/a/ DRS Fermont File: B-295126.5; B-295126.6 Date: December 7, 2007 David Z. Bodenheimer, Esq., and Richard W. Arnholt, Esq., Crowell & Moring LLP, for the protester. David T. Ralston, Esq., Philip A. Nacke, Esq., and Frank S. Murray, Esq., Foley & Lardner LLP, for Onan Corporation, an intervenor. Brian E. Toland, Esq., Michael G. Skennion, Esq. and William J. Kampo, Esq., U.S. Army Materiel Command, for the agency. Scott H. Riback, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Allegation that agency misevaluated proposals is denied where record supports agency's evaluation regarding merits of firms' proposals and performance of prototypes furnished during earlier phase of acquisition. 2. Allegation that agency engaged in unequal discussions is denied where record shows that discussions were appropriately tailored to firms' respective proposals. 3. Allegation that agency engaged in misleading discussions is untimely where protester was aware during discussions that agency's questions were inconsistent with solicitation requirements, but did not raise the assertion until more than 10 days later. DECISION Engineered Electric Company d/b/a DRS Fermont protests the exclusion of its proposal from the competitive range under request for proposals (RFP) No. W15P7T-04-R-A001, issued by the Department of the Army for various mobile electrical generators. DRS maintains that the agency misevaluated proposals and engaged in improper discussions. We deny the protest. The solicitation originally contemplated the award of up to three indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts to design, build and furnish to the Army a new set of generators (variously sized and configured, and ranging from 5 to 60 kilowatts (kW)). Performance under the resulting contracts was to occur in three phases. During phase I, the contractors were to develop prototype generators, complete a maintenance demonstration, perform limited testing, and provide limited logistics data. At the conclusion of phase I, the solicitation and resulting contracts provided that the agency would perform a "downselect" among the phase I contractors and issue a delivery order to one of the contractors for performance of phases II and III. The protester and Onan Corporation received phase I contracts, and the phase II/III downselect is the subject of this protest. The firms' contracts, at clause H-13, set forth the procedures and evaluation criteria to be applied in the phase II/III downselect competition. That clause provides that the agency will award the phase II and III work to the contractor submitting the proposal deemed to offer the "best value" to the government, considering cost/price and the following non-cost/price factors (in descending order of importance): technical (with subfactors for key operational performance parameters--reliability, schedule, other key operational performance parameters, specific design characteristics, and design concept); integrated logistics support (ILS) (with subfactors for number of parts per generator family, other supportability analysis, logistics support, and maintenance planning); and small business participation plan. In order to receive consideration for award, a proposal had to be rated no less than acceptable for every factor and subfactor. When performance of phase I was sufficiently complete, the agency solicited proposals from DRS and Onan. After evaluating those proposals, the agency established a competitive range comprised of only Onan's proposal, and DRS filed a protest with our Office complaining that its proposal improperly had been excluded from the competitive range. In response, the agency advised that it would include DRS's proposal in the competitive range; we therefore dismissed DRS's protest. (B-295126.2, B-295126.3, Aug. 26, 2006). Thereafter, the agency issued a solicitation amendment that relaxed the specifications relating to the generators' fuel efficiency standards. DRS filed a protest objecting to the revised specifications.