Link: GAO Opinion
Agency: Department of the Army
Disposition: Protest denied.
Keywords: Past Performance
General Counsel P.C. Highlight: Where a solicitation requires the evaluation of offerors’ past performance, GAO reviews an agency’s evaluation only to ensure that it was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation’s evaluation criteria and procurement statutes and regulations, because determining the relative merits of offerors’ past performance information is primarily a matter within the contracting agency’s discretion.
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Nova Technologies protests the award of a contract, issued by the Department of the Army, for Digital Training Management System (DTMS) sustainment.
The RFP sought the delivery of training products and training management support to various Army units and organizations. With respect to past performance, the RFP advised that the agency would be assessing risks associated with the offeror’s past performance record and that recent performance would be evaluated if it is the “same or similar in nature, size, and complexity to the services/products being procured under this solicitation.” Offerors were to go back no further than 36 months. Nova’s past performance was rated “good” and the agency considered three of the four contracts, one not reviewed due to the limited period of performance.
Nova challenges the agency’s evaluation of the past performance portion of its proposal as “Good,” asserting that the agency improperly failed to credit Nova for successful performance of the incumbent contract for a period of approximately 10 weeks before final proposals were submitted. GAO states that where a solicitation requires the evaluation of offerors’ past performance, it will examine an agency’s evaluation only to ensure that it was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation’s evaluation criteria and procurement statutes and regulations, because determining the relative merits of offerors’ past performance information is primarily a matter within the contracting agency’s discretion. Mere disagreement with an agency’s evaluation is not sufficient to render the evaluation unreasonable. Solicitations must identify all significant evaluation factors and any significant subfactors that will be considered in awarding the contract, and the evaluation of proposals must be based on the factors set forth in the solicitation. While agencies are required to identify the major evaluation factors, they are not required to identify all areas of each factor which might be taken into account, provided that the unidentified areas are reasonably related to, or encompassed by, the stated criteria.
The RFP did not state that the agency would consider the length of time that an offeror had performed a contract; it is self-evident that the length or duration of an offeror’s prior contract effort logically relates to both the relevance and quality of an offeror’s past performance. In evaluating an offeror’s likelihood of successful performance, a prior contract effort that is of brief or limited duration is simply not as probative of an offeror’s record as a contract for a lengthier period of time. Where, as here, the RFP stated that prior contracts would be assessed to determine whether they were the same or similar in nature, size, and complexity as the requirement being procured under this solicitation, GAO sees nothing unreasonable in the agency’s consideration of the length of contract performance in its evaluation of past performance. The protest is denied.