Protest of Exclusion From Competitive Range

A firm protested the Air Force's decision to exclude its proposal from the competitive range in connection with a request for proposals (RFP). The procurement was for the development of a laser source for an airborne laser radar system. The Air Force found the protester's proposal to be technically unacceptable because its proposed baseline design was a high-risk approach to solving the problems presented in the RFP and because it did not address the issue of heterodyning. The protester contended that: (1) Air Force objections to its proposal were not sufficient to exclude it from the competitive range, but should been resolved through discussion; (2) the Air Force misapplied the evaluation criteria in evaluating its proposal and improperly treated its baseline approach as a design study rather than a flexible starting point; (3) even though its proposed large-bore approach involved risk, this did not justify the rejection of the proposal; (4) various aspects of the proposal implied heterodyne capabilities; and (5) since its proposed personnel are the leading authorities in their field, the proposal should not have been excluded from the competitive range. GAO found that: (1) the determination that the protester's proposal was unacceptable was not clearly unreasonable or arbitrary; (2) the proposed baseline design limited the reasonably available options in the remainder of the program and had to be evaluated as proposed; (3) implications scattered throughout the proposal were not an adequate way of addressing the critical and complex issue of heterodyning; (4) regardless of the excellence of the protester's personnel, the proposal had to be evaluated on its merits as written; and (5) the baseline design proposed by the protester was unproven, not based on demonstrated technology, and therefore presented an unnecessarily high risk. Accordingly, the protest was denied.