B-310564, Gap Solutions, Inc., January 4, 2008

B-310564 Jan 04, 2008 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights GAP Solutions, Inc. (GAP) protests the award of a contract to Total Solutions, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. 2006-N-09171, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for domestic technical, operational and professional services. GAP maintains that the technical evaluation scheme used by the agency improperly failed to highlight the distinctions among the proposals, and that the agency misevaluated the awardee's price proposal. We deny the protest. View Decision B-310564, Gap Solutions, Inc., January 4, 2008 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: Gap Solutions, Inc. File: B-310564 Date: January 4, 2008 Lars E. Anderson, Esq., Peter A. Riesen, Esq., Keir X. Bancroft, Esq., and Patrick R. Quigley, Esq., Venable LLP, for the protester. Jerome S. Gabig, Esq., for Total Solutions, Inc., an intervenor. Elise Harris, Esq., Department of Health and Human Services, for the agency. Scott H. Riback, Esq., David A. Ashen, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest that agency's point scoring scheme was not sufficiently sensitive to highlight the distinctions among technical proposals is denied where record shows source selection decision was based on detailed narrative evaluation materials that reflected relative strengths and weaknesses of competing proposals, and protester raises no substantive challenge to agency's evaluation findings; point scores are merely guides to intelligent decision making and, absent a legitimate challenge to agency's underlying substantive findings, there is no basis to object to evaluation on basis of the point scoring. DECISION GAP Solutions, Inc. (GAP) protests the award of a contract to Total Solutions, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. 2006-N-09171, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for domestic technical, operational and professional services. GAP maintains that the technical evaluation scheme used by the agency improperly failed to highlight the distinctions among the proposals, and that the agency misevaluated the awardee's price proposal. We deny the protest. The RFP contemplated the award of an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, firm-fixed price labor hours contract (with cost reimbursable line items to cover other direct costs (ODC) such as travel) to perform various services for the Coordinating Center for Global Health for a period of 5 years from the date of award. The RFP advised that the agency intended to make award on a –best value— basis, with technical factors being given greater consideration than price. The RFP further advised, however, that, if the technical proposals were determined to be essentially equal, price would govern the agency's source selection decision. For evaluation purposes, the RFP provided that proposals would be scored using a 420 point scale, with 100 points allocated to the evaluation of the proposal overall,[1] 100 points allocated to the offerors' responses to each of three task orders,[2] and 20 points allocated to past performance. RFP sect. M (as amended by Amendment 3). For price evaluation purposes, offerors were required to prepare pricing sheets for each of the three sample task orders that showed proposed direct labor costs, fringe benefit costs, overhead costs, general and administrative (G&A) costs, and fee or profit. RFP attach. J.8 (as amended by Amendment 3). For purposes of preparing their business (price) proposals, the offerors also were provided prescribed ODC that were to reflect the cost reimbursable elements of their prices; for task order No. 1, the ODC specified was $250, for task order No. 2, the ODC was $12,000, and for task order No. 3, the ODC was $10,000. RFP attach. J.5-J.7 (as amended by Amendment 3). Notwithstanding the required detail in the task order pricing that was to be submitted, the RFP advised that the agency would evaluate proposed prices using price analysis, which the RFP defined as the process of examining and evaluating a proposed price without evaluating its separate cost elements and proposed profit. RFP sect. M (as amended by Amendment 3). The agency received nine proposals. After evaluation of the initial proposals, the agency included four in the competitive range. Thereafter, the agency engaged in discussions with the competitive range offerors and obtained final proposal revisions (FPR).