American Recreation Products, B-292689; B-292689.2; B-292689.3, November 6, 2003

American Recreation Products, B-292689; B-292689.2; B-292689.3, November 6, 2003 TITLE: American Recreation Products, B-292689; B-292689.2; B-292689.3, November 6, 2003 BNUMBER: B-292689; B-292689.2; B-292689.3 DATE: November 6, 2003 ********************************************************************** American Recreation Products, B-292689; B-292689.2; B-292689.3, November 6, 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. Decision Matter of: American Recreation Products File: B-292689; B-292689.2; B-292689.3 Date: November 6, 2003 Ronald K. Henry, Esq., Kaye Scholer, for the protester. Ruth E. Ganister, Esq., Rosenthal and Ganister, for Tennier Industures, Inc., an intervenor. Sean P. Bamford, Esq., Defense Logistics Agency, 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. Protest that agency unreasonably determined that awardee's past performance was superior to protester's is denied where awardee had performed a substantial number of contracts of similar complexity ahead of schedule, received high marks for customer satisfaction, and met its subcontracting goals, while protester had performed fewer contracts, those contracts were not of similar complexity, and the protester did not address subcontracting goals in its proposal. 2. Protest that agency unreasonably evaluated protester's production demonstration model (PDM) is denied where record shows agency reasonably concluded that PDM did not meet certain dimensional requirements and specifications. DECISION American Recreation Products (ARP) protests the award of a contract to Tennier Industries, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. SPO100-02-R-4024, issued by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) for modular sleep systems (MSS).[1] ARP asserts that the agency misevaluated its technical proposal and past performance, and the past performance of Tennier. We deny the protest. The RFP contemplated award of a fixed-price contract on a *best value* basis, applying the following technical evaluation factors (listed in descending order of importance)--product demonstration model (PDM); experience/past performance; industrial mobilization; socio-economic considerations; DLA mentoring business agreements; Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act (JWOD)--and price, which was less important than the technical factors. The results of the evaluation under the first three technical factors were to be expressed in terms of adjectival ratings (exceptional, very good, satisfactory, marginal or unsatisfactory), and proposals were to be assigned numerical rankings under the last three factors. DLA received eight proposals, including one from ARP and two from Tennier, a small business concern. ARP's proposal was rated very good for PDM and satisfactory for past performance and industrial mobilization, and was ranked one (the highest ranking) for the socio-economic considerations, DLA mentoring and JWOD factors. Tennier's proposal was rated very good for PDM, exceptional for past performance, satisfactory for industrial mobilization, and was ranked three for the socio‑economic considerations factor and one for the DLA Mentoring and JWOD factors. Tennier's evaluated price, at $116,532,250, was lower than ARP's at [DELETED]. The source selection official (SSO) reviewed the evaluation results and found that Tennier had a slight technical advantage over ARP for the PDM and had superior past performance, while ARP was superior under the industrial mobilization plan and socio-economic considerations factors. Since PDM and past performance/ experience were the most important technical factors, the SSA concluded that Tennier's technical proposal was superior to ARP's, and that Tennier's technically superior, lower cost proposal represented the best value to the government. ARP protests the agency's evaluation of each technical factor (except DLA mentoring). In reviewing a protest against an agency's proposal evaluation, our role is limited to ensuring that the evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the terms of the solicitation. National Toxicology Labs, Inc., B-281074.2, Jan. 11, 1999, 99-1 CPD P: 5 at 3. We have reviewed the record and find all of ARP's argument to be without merit. We discuss ARP's primary arguments below. EXPERIENCE/PAST PERFORMANCE The solicitation required offerors to describe their experience producing the same or similar items within the past 2 years. Offerors were to provide, among other things, a point of contact and a brief description of the item produced.