MW-All Star Joint Venture, B-291170.4, August 4, 2003

B-291170.4 Aug 04, 2003 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights MW-All Star Joint Venture protests the award of a contract to Madison Services, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. DAPC50-02-R-0029, issued by the Department of the Army for maintenance services for military family housing at military installations in Hawaii. MW-All Star complains that the Army misevaluated its and Madison's past performance, and the price realism of Madison's offer. We deny the protest. View Decision B-291170.4, MW-All Star Joint Venture, August 4, 2003 DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Matter of: MW-All Star Joint Venture File: B-291170.4 Date: August 4, 2003 Mitchell W. Quick, Esq., Michael Best & Friedrich, for the protester. Christopher Solop, Esq., Ott & Purdy, for Madison Services, Inc., an intervenor. Capt. Charles K. Bucknor, Jr., Department of the Army, for the agency. Mary G. Curcio, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Agency reasonably assigned neutral rating for past performance of mentor'prot-g- joint venture offeror, where solicitation provided that a neutral rating would be assigned to firms with no past performance and, although mentor firm had performance history, the joint venture itself did not. 2. Agency reasonably rated awardee's performance risk lower than protester's where awardee had performed contracts similar to that contemplated by the solicitation while joint venture protester had not, and evaluation was otherwise in accordance with solicitation. 3. Agency reasonably evaluated realism of awardee's proposal where it determined that, although awardee's total price was lower than that of other proposals, its prices for four of the five most ordered items were in line with the incumbent's, and its lower prices resulted from cost saving measures and lower profit. DECISION MW-All Star Joint Venture protests the award of a contract to Madison Services, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. DAPC50-02-R-0029, issued by the Department of the Army for maintenance services for military family housing at military installations in Hawaii. MW-All Star complains that the Army misevaluated its and Madison's past performance, and the price realism of Madison's offer. We deny the protest. The solicitation, for award of a fixed-price contract, provided for a –best value— evaluation based on three factors: performance risk, technical and price. The performance risk factor was comprised of two subfactors--past performance and experience. Proposals were to receive color/adjectival ratings under the performance risk factor (including the past performance and experience subfactors) and the technical factor.[1] Price was to be evaluated to determine if it was reasonable, realistic and consistent with the proposal, for purposes of assessing whether the offeror understood the project and would be able to perform successfully.[2] MW-All Star is a joint venture formed under the Small Business Administration's (SBA) mentor-prot-g- program. See 13 C.F.R. 124.520 (2003). It is comprised of MW Services, Inc., a small disadvantaged business, and All Star Services Corporation, a large business. Under the firms' joint venture agreement, All Star, as the mentor firm, would be involved in performing the contract and would assist MW, the prot-g- firm, in gaining the experience and training necessary to compete for and perform federal contracts in the future. All Star would provide management support under the contract, while MW would be the managing partner of the joint venture, with responsibility for managing and supervising project performance. Joint Venture Agreement at 2-3. Following the evaluation, MW-All Star's proposal was rated gray for past performance, yellow for experience, yellow for performance risk and green for technical.[3] In assigning a gray (neutral) rating to the MW-All Star proposal for past performance, the SSA considered that, while All Star had substantial past performance, the MW-All Star joint venture entity had none. Source Selection Decision (SSD) at 17. Likewise, in rating the joint venture's proposal yellow (acceptable) for experience, the SSA took into account All Star's substantial experience, but determined that, because MW was a prot-g- with no experience, the joint venture proposal represented a moderate risk. Id. The SSA averaged the gray past performance rating and the yellow experience rating for a yellow performance risk rating. Id. Madison's proposal, which offered the lowest price, was rated green for past performance, green for experience, green for performance risk, and green for technical.