Heart of Dixie Machine & Fabrication Company, Inc.

B-271869 Jul 30, 1996 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Demonstrate its compliance with a solicitation requirement for manufacturer testing and certification of refurbishing component's physical characteristics is denied since by its terms. This requirement was a performance requirement. Protest contending that solicitation failed to apprise offerors that award could be made on the basis of initial proposals is denied since solicitation included a reference to a Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provision that contemplated this possibility. The protest is untimely as this was evident from the face of the solicitation but was not challenged until after the solicitation closing time. Post-closing time protest challenging agency's failure to evaluate offerors' past performance is dismissed as untimely since the solicitation included no reference to evaluation of past performance. View Decision Matter of: Heart of Dixie Machine & Fabrication Company, Inc. File: B-271869 Date: July 30, 1996 Protest challenging award under solicitation for flexor refurbishing services on the basis that the awardee did not, prior to award, demonstrate its compliance with a solicitation requirement for manufacturer testing and certification of refurbishing component's physical characteristics is denied since by its terms, this requirement was a performance requirement, not a precondition to award. Protest contending that solicitation failed to apprise offerors that award could be made on the basis of initial proposals is denied since solicitation included a reference to a Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provision that contemplated this possibility; to the extent the protester challenges the agency's use of the predecessor version of the current FAR provision, the protest is untimely as this was evident from the face of the solicitation but was not challenged until after the solicitation closing time. Post-closing time protest challenging agency's failure to evaluate offerors' past performance is dismissed as untimely since the solicitation included no reference to evaluation of past performance, and thus offerors clearly were on notice from the face of the solicitation that past performance was not intended to be an evaluation factor. Attorneys DECISION Heart of Dixie Machine & Fabrication Company, Inc. (Dixie) protests the award of a contract to Alabama Coastal Repair Company, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. N62604-96-R-7550, issued by the Department of the Navy for flexor refurbishing services at the Naval Construction Battalion Center, Gulfport, Mississippi. Dixie contends that the award to Alabama is improper because the awardee failed to comply with one of the solicitation's certification requirements. Dixie also maintains that the agency improperly made contract award on the basis of initial proposals, and that the agency failed to consider offerors' past performance in its evaluation of proposals. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFP was issued as a small business set-aside on January 19, 1996, and contemplated the award of a fixed-price contract to the offeror whose proposed price and delivery terms presented the most advantageous offer for the refurbishment of up to 141 flexors, which are steel/rubber devices used as buffers between barges or pontoons. Of significance to this protest, the RFP required offerors to refurbish the flexors with an outer cast rubber body comprised in part of a polyurethane material that "shall be tested and certified to meet" six physical properties identified in the RFP. For their proposals, offerors were to complete and submit the RFP's 1-page pricing schedule, along with several standard Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) certifications and representations (e.g., FAR Sec. 52.203-8, the Certificate of Procurement Integrity) which were set forth at section K of the RFP. The RFP also provided that the successful awardee would be required to produce an initial refurbished flexor unit for inspection by the agency. By the March 8 closing date, four proposals--including those submitted by Dixie and Alabama--were received. By correspondence dated March 13 and March 15, the contracting officer asked both Dixie and Alabama to submit a specification sheet indicating the manufacturer name and product number of the polyurethane each firm intended to use for the refurbishment work; the purpose of this inquiry was to verify each offeror's ability to provide an acceptable polyurethane compound since the originally specified brand name product had been deleted from the solicitation due to its unavailability.