Aalco Forwarding, Inc., et al., B-277241.16, March 11, 1998

B-277241.16 Mar 11, 1998 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Where the contracting officer had no reasonable expectation that two or more interested small business concerns have the capability to handle all the shipments and perform all the related requirements designated under the pilot program. 2. Contracting agency's partial small business set-aside decision under a solicitation for a pilot program for the shipment and storage of the personal property of military service members and civilian employees is not reasonable. The protesters contend that the RFP is not properly set aside for small business concerns. /2/ The protests that the RFP should be totally set aside for small business concerns are denied and the protests of the reasonableness of the partial set-aside are sustained. View Decision Matter of: Aalco Forwarding, Inc., et al. File: B-277241.16 Date: March 11, 1998 DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Aalco Forwarding, Inc. and 96 other self-certified small business concerns protest the terms of request for proposals (RFP) No. DAMT01-97-R-3001, issued by the Military Traffic Management Command (MTMC), Department of the Army, for all personnel, equipment, materials, supervision, and other items necessary to provide transportation and transportation-related services for 50 percent of the eligible Department of Defense (DOD) and U.S. Coast Guard sponsored personal property shipments from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida, to any or all of 13 destination regions in the continental United States and/or any or all of 5 destination regions in Europe. /1/ The solicitation implements a pilot program to reengineer DOD's current program for shipping and storing the personal property of its military service members and civilian employees. In these protests, the protesters contend that the RFP is not properly set aside for small business concerns. /2/ The protests that the RFP should be totally set aside for small business concerns are denied and the protests of the reasonableness of the partial set-aside are sustained. BACKGROUND This procurement was the subject of prior decisions in Aalco Forwarding, Inc., et al., B-277241.8, B-277241.9, Oct. 21, 1997, 97-2 CPD Para. 110, which denied various protests primarily against the acquisition of these services under the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) part 12 commercial item procedures, and in Aalco Forwarding, Inc., et al., B-277241.12, B-277241.13, December 29, 1997, 97-2 CPD Para. 175, which denied protests that the RFP unnecessarily bundled certain contract requirements to the detriment of small business concerns. Those decisions contain much of the background for this procurement, which will not be repeated here. MTMC's intent to issue a draft solicitation for the reengineering of the personal property program was synopsized in the November 26, 1996, Commerce Business Daily (CBD), which requested that interested small business concerns provide the contracting office a positive statement of small business eligibility, the number of their employees, and evidence of capability to perform (including references) not later than 30 calendar days after release of the draft solicitation. The notice stated that the determination to partially set-aside the solicitation for small business concerns, based upon the responses received, was solely within the discretion of the government. MTMC issued the draft solicitation for a proposed pilot program on December 12, 1996, but did not identify the solicitation as a set-aside for small business. MTMC received more than 300 expressions of interest in response to the CBD synopsis from firms that represented themselves as small business concerns. MTMC later issued notices in the CBD, which provided that the solicitation may be partially set aside for small business concerns and that all responsible small business concerns, including those who responded to the earlier announcement of the draft solicitation, interested in being considered for a potential small business set-aside should submit statements identifying the specific traffic channels, state-to-region, which they would be interested in servicing, as well as evidence of capability to perform if they had not already done so. The agency received about 150 responses from small business concerns to these notices. MTMC issued the "final" solicitation on March 14, 1997, for services in 53 designated traffic channels (origin state to destination region). In an amendment issued May 14, MTMC replaced the solicitation in its entirety and set aside 12 percent of the traffic volume of 27 designated high traffic volume channels for exclusive small business participation.