SWR, Inc., B-284710.2; B-284710.3, November 15, 2000

SWR, Inc., B-284710.2; B-284710.3, November 15, 2000 TITLE: SWR, Inc., B-284710.2; B-284710.3, November 15, 2000 BNUMBER: B-284710.2; B-284710.3 DATE: November 15, 2000 ********************************************************************** SWR, Inc., B-284710.2; B-284710.3, November 15, 2000 Decision Matter of: SWR, Inc. File: B-284710.2; B-284710.3 Date: November 15, 2000 Benjamin M. Bowden, Esq., Albrittons, Clifton, Alverson & Moody, for the protester. Julius Rothlein, Esq., Theresa M. Young, Esq., and Rachel B. Thompson, Esq., United States Marine Corps, for the agency. Linda C. Glass, Esq., and Michael R. Golden, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest that the agency unreasonably concluded that the protester's proposal was unacceptable under the management oversight factor and would not receive further consideration is denied where the record shows that the decision to eliminate the protester's proposal was reasonably based on the protester's failure to meet an explicit solicitation management requirement. DECISION SWR, Inc. protests the award of a contract to Starlight Corporation under request for proposals (RFP) No. M00681-99-R-0010, issued by the Marine Corps Base at Camp Pendleton for aircraft washing. SWR principally contends that the agency unreasonably excluded its proposal from the competition. We deny the protest. The RFP, issued on August 12, 1999 as a total small business set-aside, contemplated the award of a fixed-price contract to provide commercial wash services for aircraft and mobile facilities at Marine Corps Air Stations in California and Arizona. RFP sect. A.2.1.0. The RFP was subsequently amended three times. Amendment No. 3 replaced the original statement of work (SOW) with a revised SOW that reflected performance-based standards. Agency Report (AR) at 1. As relevant here, the revised RFP SOW under "Management Responsibilities" required that "[t]he contractor shall provide a Project Manager who shall be responsible for the performance of the work. The Project Manager . . . shall . . . have full authority to act for the contractor on all contract matters relating to the daily operation of this contract." RFP sect. A.2.13.1. The RFP called for the evaluation of the proposals under the criteria of past performance, price, management oversight, and technical ability. RFP sect. A.6.2; RFP amend. No. 1. All evaluation factors were of equal importance. RFP sect. A.6.2. The RFP provided for award to be made without discussions. RFP sect. A.6.g. Five proposals were received by the closing date. The proposals were evaluated by one individual who had written the performance-based standards for the RFP. This technical evaluator rated SWR's proposal "excellent" under the past performance factor and "good" under the technical ability factor. SWR Technical Evaluation. The evaluator assigned SWR's proposal a "marginal" rating in the area of management oversight because he concluded that SWR's approach to management oversight was inadequate. The evaluator found that SWR had not proposed "‘one person' to talk to" for daily operations as required by the RFP; that "[the] number of personnel . . . [were] not adequate at [the air station in] Miramar [California] . . . to provide number of washes proposed"; and that SWR's proposed tool inventory approach would slow the wash schedule at Miramar. The evaluator concluded that SWR did not "understand the scope of management requirement in order to sustain the contract wash schedule." Starlight received an overall technical rating of "excellent." Starlight's price for the base year was $1,258,080, and SWR's price was [DELETED]. After reviewing the evaluation results and all evaluation factors, the contracting officer eliminated the proposals of SWR and another offeror from further consideration because their proposals received "marginal" ratings, indicating the agency's belief that these offerors could not meet the agency's needs. AR exh. 3, Source Selection Decision. Consequently, SWR was not assigned an overall technical rating and its proposal was eliminated as "unacceptable" based on its receipt of a "marginal" rating in the management oversight evaluation factor. Id. The contracting officer determined that Starlight's proposal was the best value based on Starlight's overall "excellent" rating. The contracting officer recognized that Starlight had submitted the second lowest priced proposal, but that the proposal of the low priced offeror, SWR, was not acceptable because of its "marginal" rating in the management oversight factor. On August 25, award was made to Starlight. SWR challenges the agency's decision to rate its proposal "marginal" under the management oversight factor and to eliminate the firm from the competition.