AVCARD, B-293775.2, December 30, 2004

B-293775.2 Dec 30, 2004 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Kropp Holdings, Inc., d.b.a. AVCARD, protests the award of a contract to Multi Service Corporation (MSC) under request for proposals (RFP) No. SP0600-04-R-0026, issued by the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) for commercial charge card services for the "Aviation Into-plane Reimbursement (AIR Card) and Ships' Bunkers Easy Acquisition (SEA Card)" programs. AVCARD primarily objects to the agency's evaluation of proposals and the agency's source selection decision. We deny the protest. View Decision B-293775.2, AVCARD, December 30, 2004 Decision Matter of: AVCARD File: B-293775.2 Date: December 30, 2004 John P. Janecek, Esq., Jay P. Urwitz, Esq., and Aimen Mir, Esq., Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Door, for the protester. Craig A. Holman, Esq., and Kara L. Daniels, Esq., Holland and Knight, and Timothy W. Triplett, Esq., J. Michael Grier, Esq., Tamara L. Niles, Esq., and Seila L. Seck, Esq., Warden Triplett Grier, for Multi Service Corporation, an intervenor. Louise Hansen, Esq., Defense Logistics Agency, 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 agencys evaluation and source selection decision were flawed is denied where the record shows that the agencys evaluation and source selection decision were reasonable and consistent with the solicitations evaluation factors. DECISION Kropp Holdings, Inc., d.b.a. AVCARD, protests the award of a contract to Multi Service Corporation (MSC) under request for proposals (RFP) No. SP0600-04-R-0026, issued by the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) for commercial charge card services for the Aviation Into-plane Reimbursement (AIR Card) and Ships Bunkers Easy Acquisition (SEA Card) programs. AVCARD primarily objects to the agencys evaluation of proposals and the agencys source selection decision. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The solicitation was issued on January 16, 2004 for the award of a fixed-price contract to satisfy DESCs requirements to process retail fuel transactions using commercially available services and to input detailed transaction information for these purchases into DESCs fuels automated system. The AIR and SEA cards will be used by government air and sea crews to purchase aviation and ship bunker fuel and ancillary services at commercial airports and seaports worldwide. [1] The solicitation, as amended, contained a statement of objectives (SOO) that listed 26 minimum contract objectives that offerors were required to address in their proposals. RFP amend. No. 5, at 3. The RFP provided that the award would be made on the basis of the proposal determined to represent the best value to the government. The RFP, as amended, contained four evaluation factors listed in descending order of importance--technical, price, past performance, and socioeconomic subcontracting plan. Id. at 7. The solicitation provided that the price factor was more important than the past performance factor and the socioeconomic subcontracting plan factor, both separately and combined. Offerors were further advised that the agency would evaluate technical proposals to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed solutions in meeting the SOO goals and that additional evaluation credits would be given to proposals that offered a single solution for both the SEA and AIR card requirements and offered innovative commercial approaches that satisfied the requirements of the SOO. Offerors could submit a proposal for the AIR card and the SEA card, individually or together. The agency received four proposals by the closing date. The four offerors proposed to furnish both types of cards. After reviewing the results of the technical evaluation teams evaluation of proposals, the contracting officer concluded that the offerors needed further guidance on DESCs requirements. As a result, amendment No. 5 was issued to revise certain terms of the RFP. All of the original offerors submitted revised proposals by the June 16 closing date. After a review of the revised proposals, the agency conducted discussions with all offerors and received final proposal revisions. The evaluators final consensus ratings with offerors prices were as follows: OFFEROR TECHNICAL FACTOR PAST PERFORMANCE FACTOR SOCIOECONOMIC FACTOR PRICE FACTOR [DELETED] [DELETED] [DELETED] [DELETED] [DELETED] MSC Very Good Exceptional Very Good $6,274,688 AVCARD Satisfactory Very Good Satisfactory [DELETED] [DELETED] [DELETED] [DELETED] [DELETED] [DELETED] Agency Report (AR), Tab 25, Contracting Officers Recommendation, at 1. The contracting officer reviewed the evaluation results in order to make a recommendation to the source selection authority (SSA).