[Protest of Army's Exclusion of Proposal From Competitive Range]

A firm protested the Army's exclusion of its proposal from the competitive range under a solicitation for a resuscitation fluids production and reconstitution system, contending that: (1) its proposal should not have been eliminated based on the design details of its system, which met the solicitation requirements; (2) the elimination of its proposal converted the competition into a sole-source award; (3) the chairman of the source selection board was biased in favor of the awardee; and (4) the members of the board were not qualified to evaluate the proposals. GAO found that: (1) the board reasonably determined that the protester's proposal design did not meet the specification requirements; (2) the Army conducted the procurement on a competitive basis since it received and evaluated four offers; and (3) there was no indication in the record that the chairman tried to influence any members of the board to favor the awardee. GAO will not appraise qualifications of personnel involved in the technical evaluation of offers without a showing of fraud, conflict of interest, or actual bias on the part of the evaluators. Accordingly, the protest was denied.