[Protest of Army Rejection of Bid Contending Improper Bid Evaluation]

A firm protested the Army's rejection of its proposal, contending that: (1) the Army improperly evaluated its proposal; (2) the evaluators presented inaccurate information to the source selection authority; (3) the Army ignored the significant cost savings that its proposal would yield; and (4) the source selection board substituted its own data for the data it had supplied. GAO noted that: (1) the Army rejected the proposal because of unacceptable ratings for six evaluation subfactors; (2) the Army concluded that the proposed design posed an unacceptable risk of producing a payload that would be overweight; and (3) the assessment of the risk of weight growth was a matter of technical judgment. GAO found that: (1) the Army had good reason, based on its own analysis, to conclude that the protester's design would not meet the solicitation requirements; (2) the determination of needs and the method of accommodating those needs are primarily the responsibility of the procuring agency; (3) the data the protester supplied was hard to find, incomplete, or conclusory; and (4) a source selection board may substitute its own data when the technical data in an offerer's proposal have not been supported. GAO also found that: (1) a protester's reservation of the right to raise new issues subsequent to the initial filing of a protest does not exempt the protester from GAO timeliness requirements; (2) issues concerning the evaluation of a protester's cost proposal were academic since the Army properly determined that the technical proposal was unacceptable; (3) the protester had not shown that the agency's analysis of its proposal was improper; (4) the protester failed to provide adequate backup material to support the use of its data; (5) the protester admitted that the proposed rate in its design did not satisfy the solicitation requirements; and (6) an agency must make an independent judgment of the risks inherent in a proposed design. Accordingly, the protest was denied in part and dismissed in part.