B-297061, ADC, Ltd., October 14, 2005

B-297061 Oct 14, 2005 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights ADC, Ltd. protests the award of a contract to MPRI, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. HHM402-05-Q-0134, issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for civilian employee applicant processing. The protester argues that the agency improperly evaluated its technical proposal and applied undisclosed evaluation criteria. We deny the protest. View Decision B-297061, ADC, Ltd., October 14, 2005 Decision Matter of: ADC, Ltd. File: B-297061 Date: October 14, 2005 Arthur D. Cordova, Jr., for the protester. Maj. Peter H. Tran, Department of the Army, for the agency. Jonathan L. Kang, Esq., and Michael R. Golden, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest is denied where the agency reasonably determined that the protester's proposal failed to adequately describe how solicitation's statement of objectives would be met. DECISION ADC, Ltd. protests the award of a contract to MPRI, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. HHM402-05-Q-0134, issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for civilian employee applicant processing. The protester argues that the agency improperly evaluated its technical proposal and applied undisclosed evaluation criteria. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFP sought proposals to provide services to conduct civilian application human resource and security processing prior to entry on duty with the agency. The RFP anticipated award of a fixed-price contract and the procurement was conducted under the streamlined acquisition procedures of Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 12.6. The base performance period for the contract is 6 months, with four 1-year option periods. Award was restricted to offerors who possessed General Services Administration schedule contracts –pertaining to Human Resources and Professional, Administrative, and Management support services under the Federal Service Code R408.— RFP amend. 2, Question and Answer (Q&A) 2. The RFP advised offerors that proposals would be evaluated on the basis of price and three non-price factors: technical, past performance, and management. The non-price factors, when combined, were more important than price; the technical and past performance factors were equal to each other in weight and were each more important than the management factor. The performance requirements were set forth in a statement of objectives (SOO) that listed 18 requirements for meeting the agency's needs. The solicitation did not list specific standards of performance or any particular approach to fulfilling the agency's needs; rather, the solicitation instructed offerors to propose a statement of work (SOW) that explained the intended approach to meeting the SOO.[1] The agency received proposals from ADC and MPRI. The agency evaluated the offerors' proposals as follows: ADC MPRI Technical Unacceptable Excellent Past Performance Marginal Excellent Management Unacceptable Excellent Proposed Price $4,397,248 $9,418,552 Agency Report (AR), Tab 12, Price Negotiation Memorandum/Source Selection Decision (SSD), at 3. The agency concluded that ADC's proposal was overall technically unacceptable. Contracting Officer's Statement at 1. The agency then determined that MPRI's technically superior, higher-priced proposal merited award. AR, Tab 12, SSD, at 4-5. DISCUSSION ADC primarily argues that the agency improperly determined that its proposal failed to adequately demonstrate that ADC could meet the human resource requirements identified in the SOO. The agency concluded that ADC's proposal was unacceptable under the technical and management evaluation factors because: (1) ADC's proposal did not adequately address all human resource pre-employment requirements as outlined in the SOO; (2) ADC's proposal did not specifically indicate how human resource objectives would be met; (3) ADC's proposal lacked substantive support for the agency's civilian employment human resource applications; and (4) ADC failed to submit resumes on candidates with human resource skills required by the solicitation.[2] AR, Tab 10, ADC Technical Evaluation at 2, 4; AR, Tab 12, SSD, at 4; AR, Tab 14, ADC Debriefing, at 3. In reviewing a procuring agency's evaluation of an offeror's technical proposal, our Office's role is limited to ensuring that the evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the terms of the solicitation and applicable statutes and regulations. Urban-Meridian Joint Venture, B-287168, B-287168.2, May 7, 2001, 2001 CPD para. 91 at 2. Our Office will not question an agency's evaluation judgments absent evidence that those judgments were unreasonable or contrary to the stated evaluation criteria. Kay & Assocs., Inc., B-291269, Dec. 11, 2002, 2003 CPD para.