Front Line Apparel Group, B-295989, June 1, 2005

B-295989 Jun 01, 2005 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Front Line Apparel Group (FLAG) protests the award of several contracts under request for proposals (RFP) No. SP0100-04-R-0135, issued by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to acquire Army combat uniform trousers. FLAG maintains that the agency misevaluated proposals and engaged in unequal discussions among the offerors. We sustain the protest. View Decision B-295989, Front Line Apparel Group, June 1, 2005 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: Front Line Apparel Group File: B-295989 Date: June 1, 2005 Ruth E. Ganister, Esq., Rosenthal and Ganister, for the protester. James J. McCullough, Esq., and Steven A. Alerding, Esq., Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, LLP, for Tullahoma Industries, LLC, an intervenor. John P. Patkus, Esq., Defense Logistics Agency, for the agency. Scott H. Riback, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest is sustained where record shows that agency improperly engaged in a second round of discussions with awardees, but not protester; while there is nothing inherently improper in an agency's conducting additional discussions relating to previously-discussed issues with only one or a limited number of offerors where the agency has remaining concerns relating to those issues, where agency conducts multiple rounds of discussions relating to the same issues with one offeror, it must afford other similarly-situated offerors the same benefit of additional discussions. DECISION Front Line Apparel Group (FLAG) protests the award of several contracts under request for proposals (RFP) No. SP0100-04-R-0135, issued by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to acquire Army combat uniform trousers. FLAG maintains that the agency misevaluated proposals and engaged in unequal discussions among the offerors. We sustain the protest. The RFP contemplated the award of multiple indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts to supply army combat uniforms. A portion of the requirement was set aside for small businesses and the balance was solicited on an unrestricted basis; FLAG's protest concerns only contract line item numbers (CLIN) 0011 and 0012, which were for trousers and were set aside for competition among small businesses. The RFP advised that the agency would award one or more contracts on a "best value" basis, considering price and several non-price criteria. The non-price evaluation criteria for the set-aside portion were, in descending order of importance, product demonstration models (PDM), experience/past performance, surge and sustainment, and DLA mentoring business agreement program. For purposes of the evaluation, the agency subdivided the PDM, experience/past performance and surge sustainment criteria into several subfactors. [1] For the PDM criterion, the subfactors were visual, dimensional and manufacturing operations; for the experience/past performance criterion, the subfactors were delivery, quality, customer satisfaction and experience with the item and, if the firm was manufacturing the item for the first time, whether its previous performance demonstrated its ability to successfully produce the item; for the surge and sustainment criterion, the subfactors were production plan, production schedule, equipment and facilities and management plan. Proposals were assigned adjectival ratings of exceptional, very good, satisfactory, marginal, or unsatisfactory for the PDM, experience/past performance and surge sustainment criteria. Under the DLA mentoring business agreement program criterion (not at issue in the protest), the agency assigned numeric rankings based on its assessment of the relative quality of the proposals. The non-price considerations were, collectively, significantly more important than price, but to the extent that proposals were found closer to equal under the non-price considerations, price would become more important. DLA received numerous proposals in response to the RFP and, after evaluating them, established an initial competitive range for each CLIN for purposes of conducting discussions. The agency then issued discussion letters to the competitive range offerors seeking revisions to the firms' technical proposals. After evaluating these responses, the agency further reduced the competitive range and requested final proposal revisions (FPR) from the remaining competitive range offerors. (Prior to issuing the request for FPRs, the agency sent two of the competitive range offerors a second letter reopening discussions.