In Blount, Inc. v. United States, 22 Cl. Ct. 221 (1990), the claims court was asked to enjoin the Bureau of Prison's rejection, on nonresponsiveness grounds, of the lowest bid for a prison construction contract, submitted by Blount, Inc. (Blount). Blount had indicated, on a business management questionnaire submitted with its bid, that its firm would be self-performing "approximately 10%" or "approximately $ 6,000,000" of the work under the contract, for which Blount had bid a price of $ 63,287,000. Id. at 224. The IFB for the contract, however, included the following "Performance of Work" clause: The contractor shall perform on the site, and with its own organization, work equivalent to at least 20 percent of the total amount of work to be performed under the contract. This percentage may be reduced by a supplemental agreement to this contract if, during performing the work, the Contractor requests a reduction and the Contracting Officer determines that the reduction would be to the advantage of the Government. Id. at 223. The claims court initially stated: The court must determine at the outset whether the "Performance of Work" clause contained in the. IFB and the Business Management Questionnaire submitted with Blount's bid relate to bidder responsiveness or responsibility. Responsiveness refers to the question of whether a bidder has promised to perform in the precise manner requested by the government. Responsibility, by contrast, involves an inquiry into the bidder's ability and will to perform the subject contract as promised. Matters of bid responsiveness must be discerned solely by reference to the materials submitted with the bid and facts available to the government at the time of bid opening. However, responsibility determinations are made at the time of award. A bidder may present evidence subsequent to bid opening but prior to award to demonstrate the bidder's responsibility. . . . . A bid which contains a material nonconformity must be rejected as nonresponsive. Material terms and conditions of a solicitation involve price, quality, quantity, and delivery. The rule is designed to prevent bidders from taking exception to material provisions of the contract in order to gain an unfair advantage over competitors and to assure that the government evaluates all bids on an equal basis. In other words, a bidder cannot receive award by offering a less expensive method of performance than that required by the solicitation. Responsibility concerns how a bidder will accomplish conformance with the material provisions of the contract. Responsibility addresses the performance capability of a bidder, and normally involves an inquiry into the potential contractor's financial resources, experience, management, past performance, place of performance, and integrity. Id. at 226-27. The claims court refused to issue the injunction order requested by Blount, explaining as follows: The "Performance of Work" clause was . . . designed to ensure that critical construction contracts are awarded to firms which possess the requisite experience, management, and supervisory capabilities to complete the contract in a timely and satisfactory manner. The clause represents the foregone conclusion that a contractor with the ability to perform a certain percentage of the contract with its own resources is likely to possess such qualities. In so doing, the "Performance of Work" clause examines the method by which a bidder will meet the obligations of the contract rather than the bidder's promise to perform the contract . . . The court finds that the "Performance of Work" clause and question 3 of the Business Management Questionnaire examine the performance capability of bidders and were primarily included in the solicitation to ensure that the successful bidder on the prison facilities project was a responsible contractor. Although the 20 percent self-performance requirement was designed to test bidder responsibility, the court's analysis cannot end here. The court has previously stated that information intended to reflect on bidder responsibility can render a bid nonresponsive if the information indicates that the bidder does not intend to comply with the material requirements of the IFB. The "Performance of Work" clause was clearly a term or condition of the IFB. In requiring the contractor to self-perform 20 percent of the work under the contract, the clause directly impacted bid price. The self-performance requirement limited the amount of work which could be subcontracted under the contract. A contractor can generally achieve considerable savings by subcontracting work to firms with lower cost structures who are capable of performing the project with less expense. As such, a contractor may gain a sizeable bid pricing advantage by subcontracting more work than its competitors. Since compliance with the "Performance of Work" clause invariably affected bid price, the "Performance of Work" clause constitutes a material term of the IFB. Although the clause was designed to help ensure that award was made to a qualified bidder, the 20 percent self-performance requirement was nevertheless part of the IFB and, therefore, the contractor was expected to comply with this requirement like any other material provision of the contract. . . . . By promising to self-perform only 10 percent of the contract work in the face of the 20 percent requirement imposed by the "Performance of Work" clause, Blount took affirmative exception to a material provision of the IFB. Blount's response to question 3 of the business questionnaire therefore constituted a material deviation from the IFB which rendered its bid nonresponsive at bid opening. Blount could not, thereafter, correct its response to the questionnaire or attempt to explain why its bid was in fact responsive to the IFB. Id. at 227-29.