B-310814, Accumark, Inc., February 13, 2008

B-310814 Feb 13, 2008 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Accumark, Inc. protests the award of a contract to InfraMap Corporation under request for proposals (RFP) No. N40085-05-R-2545, issued by the Department of the Navy to acquire utility and underground facilities locating and marking services at various Naval facilities in the Hampton Roads, Virginia area. Accumark asserts that the agency misevaluated the awardee's price proposal. We deny the protest. View Decision B-310814, Accumark, Inc., February 13, 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: Accumark, Inc. File: B-310814 Date: February 13, 2008 Thomas O. Mason, Esq., and Francis E. Purcell, Jr., Esq., Williams Mullen, for the protester. John Pope Midyette for InfraMap Corporation, an intervenor. Dave Nimmich, Esq., Naval Facilities Engineering 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. Protest that agency unreasonably found that awardee's prices were realistic under a fixed-price contract is denied where record shows agency based its determination on a comparison of all offerors' prices to one another and to the government estimate, and all prices received were within a narrow range. 2. Protest that agency should have rejected awardee's proposal for offering unbalanced prices is denied where awardee's price was low overall and, to extent that its prices for one element of contract were high in comparison to other offerors' prices and government estimate, record shows estimated quantity for that element was reasonably accurate; thus, based on the record, there is little risk that award will not result in lowest cost to government. DECISION Accumark, Inc. protests the award of a contract to InfraMap Corporation under request for proposals (RFP) No. N40085-05-R-2545, issued by the Department of the Navy to acquire utility and underground facilities locating and marking services at various Naval facilities in the Hampton Roads, Virginia area. Accumark asserts that the agency misevaluated the awardee's price proposal. We deny the protest. The RFP contemplated the award of a fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract for a base period, with 4 option years and 5 award option years. Award was to be made on a –best value— basis, considering price and three non-price evaluation factors--technical approach/management, corporate experience and past performance. RFP sect. M.2. The technical factors, combined, were equal in weight to price. The agency was to consider the reasonableness, realism and completeness of the proposed prices; proposals that offered unreasonable, unrealistic, or unbalanced prices could be downgraded or considered unacceptable. Id.In this regard, realism was defined as follows: –Prices are compatible with the scope of solicitation performance requirements and proposed technical approach.— Id. The agency received three proposals and included all in the competitive range. Following discussions with the offerors, the agency made award to Accumark. InfraMap challenged the award in an agency-level protest, alleging that the Navy improperly had failed to solicit final proposal revisions (FPR) at the conclusion of discussions. The agency determined that InfraMap was correct, and thereafter advised all three offerors that they would be permitted to submit FPRs. In soliciting FPRs, the agency disclosed all offerors' total prices in order to ameliorate any competitive harm to Accumark due to the release of its price in connection with the announcement of the award. Agency Report (AR), exhs. 17, 18. InfraMap and Accumark (and the third offeror) submitted revised proposals; Accumark made limited changes to its technical proposal and also slightly revised its proposed prices, while InfraMap revised only its price. After evaluating the proposals, the agency rated the proposals as follows: Offeror Tech./Mgmt. Corp. Exp. Past Perf. Overall Tech. Rating Price Accumark Very Good Satisfactory Satisfactory Satisfactory $15,088,000 InfraMap Exceptional Very Good Very Good Very Good $13,607,638 Offeror A Satisfactory Marginal Neutral Marginal $14,494,800 AR, exhs. 21, 27. On the basis of these evaluation results, the agency made award to InfraMap, concluding that, because the firm had submitted the best technical proposal at the lowest price, it offered the best value to the government. AR, exh. 22.