B-297804, LLH & Associates, LLC, March 6, 2006

B-297804 Mar 06, 2006 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights LLH & Associates, LLC protests the award of a contract to Alpha-Omega Change Engineering, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. FA4890-05-R-0173, issued by the Department of the Air Force for services supporting the agency's foreign military sales programs. We deny the protest. View Decision B-297804, LLH & Associates, LLC, March 6, 2006 Decision Matter of: LLH & Associates, LLC File: B-297804 Date: March 6, 2006 James Ballentine, Esq., for the protester. Maj. Jeffrey Branstetter and David L. Bell, Esq., Department of the Air Force, for the agency. Guy R. Pietrovito, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST In a negotiated procurement which provided for award on the basis of a price/past performance tradeoff assessment, protest challenging the selection of the awardee on the basis of that firm's lower proposed priced is denied, where the protester's and awardee's past performance reasonably received equal ratings. DECISION LLH & Associates, LLC protests the award of a contract to Alpha-Omega Change Engineering, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. FA4890-05-R-0173, issued by the Department of the Air Force for services supporting the agency's foreign military sales programs. We deny the protest. The RFP, issued as a small business set-aside, provided for the award of a fixed-price contract for a base year with 4 option years for services supporting the agency's Air Combat Command, Security Assistance Branch. The RFP's statement of work (SOW) required the contractor to provide the following personnel in performance of the contract: an international fighter program manager, an exercises program manager, and an aircraft ferry support program manager. RFP, amend. 2, SOW, at 3. Required technical skills and qualifications were identified for each of these three managers. Id. at 7-8. The SOW further provided: 4.4.2 Contractor Employee Resume Requirements. Personnel provided under this SOW are critical to the mission of the Air Force program office. The contractor may not change the personnel performing under this order without prior notification and approval by the Government Contracting Officer. Any replacement personnel proposed must be at least as qualified as the individual they are replacing. A resume shall be submitted for initial cadre of personnel and any proposed replacement personnel at least 10 working days prior to the time the personnel change is expected to occur. There is no limitation on the number of pages for resumes and these do not count against the technical proposal limitation of pages. The Government will review the resume to ensure compliance with this requirement. Id. at 10. The RFP identified the following evaluation factors: technical proposal, past performance, and price. The RFP provided that offerors' technical proposals would be evaluated to determine whether the offeror was capable of fully providing the services identified in the SOW. In this regard, offerors were informed that the firms' technical proposals must –identify the management structure (to include quality program plan), technical capability, and appropriate manning and skill mix to fully meet all taskings under the resulting contract.—[1] Offerors were also informed that technical proposals would be evaluated as either acceptable, reasonably susceptible of being made acceptable, or unacceptable. Offers that were found technically acceptable would then be qualitatively assessed under the past performance factor. The RFP stated that the source selection authority (SSA) would weigh offerors' evaluated past performance and proposed prices in making the award decision, although it did not state the relative importance of past performance vis- -vis price.[2] Proposals were received from LLH (the incumbent contractor) and Alpha'Omega, and evaluated by the agency's source selection evaluation team (SSET) as follows: Technical Proposal Past Performance Price Alpha-Omega Acceptable Significant Confidence[3] $2,101,416 LLH Acceptable Significant Confidence $2,190,978 Agency Report (AR), Tab 12, Performance Analysis Report, at 10. The SSET found that each firm's technical proposal demonstrated an acceptable management structure and technical capability, and were therefore technically acceptable. Id. at 5-6, 10. The firms' past performance information was assessed by the agency's performance confidence assessment group (PCAG). The PCAG found that Alpha-Omega's identified past performance was relevant and that all four references identified by Alpha-Omega reported –high confidence— in the awardee. Id. at 8-9.