B-297053.4, Haworth Inc., June 7, 2006

B-297053.4 Jun 07, 2006 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Haworth, Inc. protests the award of a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) to Herman Miller, Inc. under its Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contract, pursuant to request for quotations (RFQ) No. RFQ78965, issued by the General Services Administration (GSA) to acquire furniture for a new federal office building in San Francisco, California. Haworth asserts that the agency improperly rejected its quotation as unacceptable. We deny the protest. View Decision B-297053.4, Haworth Inc., June 7, 2006 Decision Matter of: Haworth Inc. File: B-297053.4 Date: June 7, 2006 David W. Burgett, Esq., and Allison D. Pugsley, Esq., Hogan & Hartson LLP, for the protester. Robert J. Conlan, Esq., Sidley Austin LLP, for Herman Miller, Inc., an intervenor. Cecillia Chu, Esq., GSA Public Buildings Service, 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 1. Protest that agency unreasonably rejected protester's quotation for failing to timely include all quoted items under its Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contract is denied where agency advised firms that it required all quoted items to be included under FSS contract by a specific date, and protester failed to ensure that all of its quoted items were in fact included under its FSS contract by that date. 2. Protest assertion raised initially in protester's comments is dismissed as untimely where record shows that protester had all necessary information to raise argument at time initial protest was filed. DECISION Haworth, Inc. protests the award of a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) to Herman Miller, Inc. under its Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contract, pursuant to request for quotations (RFQ) No. RFQ78965, issued by the General Services Administration (GSA) to acquire furniture for a new federal office building in San Francisco, California. Haworth asserts that the agency improperly rejected its quotation as unacceptable. We deny the protest. The agency issued the RFQ in April 2005, soliciting quotations to provide the furniture requirements of the tenant organizations that are to occupy the new San FranciscoFederalBuilding. Vendors were required to offer both a stand-alone and a modular line of furniture. In June 2005, GSA awarded a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) to Herman Miller. Haworth challenged the award in an agency-level protest and, subsequently, filed a protest with our Office. After reviewing the protest filed in our Office, the agency took corrective action by terminating the BPA and reevaluating the quotations; based on the reevaluation, the agency awarded a BPA to Haworth. Herman Miller challenged this award in a protest filed in our Office. After investigating the bases for protest, GSA again took corrective action, terminating Haworth's BPA and reopening the acquisition. Both of these protests were based on assertions that the awardees of the BPAs did not have all of their quoted furniture items included under their respective FSS contracts at the time contemplated by the RFQ. Thereafter, the agency issued a series of amendments to the RFQ. Amendment No. 0004 established a revised deadline for having quoted furniture items included under vendors' FSS contracts.[1] After receiving new quotations, the agency determined that the vendors still did not have all of their products included under their respective FSS contracts. Accordingly, GSA issued amendment No. 0008, which provided as follows: All products offered must be on GSA schedule contract no later than February 8, 2006. Note, it is the contractor's full responsibility to ensure that all products in their offer are entirely on the FSS Schedule by the referenced date. The Government will consider an offeror's failure to do so as non-responsive and may be grounds for default. Agency Report (AR), exh. 17. Haworth submitted a preliminary revised quotation, based on which the agency determined that not all of the firm's quoted items were on its FSS contract. The agency brought this to Haworth's attention in a series of correspondence; Haworth submitted various iterations of revised materials (the last of which was submitted on February 8) to demonstrate that, in fact, all of its quoted products were included under its FSS contract. On February 9, the agency engaged in discussions with Haworth, during which it noted (among other things), that it appeared that the firm still did not have all of its quoted items included under its FSS contract. Thereafter, during another series of correspondence between the agency and Haworth, GSA again pointed out (among other things) that it appeared that some of Haworth's quoted items still were not included under its FSS contract.