B-298196; B-298196.2, Capps Shoe Company, Inc., July 6, 2006

B-298196; B-298196.2, Capps Shoe Company, Inc., July 6, 2006 TITLE: B-298196; B-298196.2, Capps Shoe Company, Inc., July 6, 2006 BNUMBER: B-298196; B-298196.2 DATE: July 6, 2006 ************************************************************ B-298196; B-298196.2, Capps Shoe Company, Inc., July 6, 2006 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: Capps Shoe Company, Inc. File: B-298196; B-298196.2 Date: July 6, 2006 William S. Foster, Esq., John H. Williamson, Esq., and Anand V. Ramana, Esq., McGuire Woods LLP, for the protester. David T. Ralston, Jr., Esq., George W. Ash, Esq., Frank S. Murray, Esq., and Philip A. Nacke, Esq., Foley & Lardner LLP, for Wolverine World Wide, Inc., an intervenor. Maria Ventresca, Esq., Defense Logistics Agency, for the agency. Katherine I. Riback, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protester's delivery performance, which evidenced significant delinquencies, was reasonably found marginal by the agency. DECISION Capps Shoe Company, Inc. protests the award of a contract to Wolverine World Wide, Inc., under request for proposals (RFP) No. SP0100-05-R-0036, issued by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) for men's and women's leather dress shoes. The protester argues that the agency improperly evaluated its past performance. We deny the protest. The RFP contemplated the award of an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract with minimum and maximum quantities for a 1-year base ordering period with four 1-year option periods to the offeror whose proposal was "most advantageous" to the government, price and other factors considered. The RFP specified the following evaluation factors, listed in descending order of importance: past performance, vendor managed program, bill and hold capability, socio-economic considerations, and Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act (JWOD) entity. The solicitation provided that "technical and past performance, when combined, are . . . significantly more important than cost or price." RFP at 74. The RFP provided that the first three non-price factors would be assigned an overall rating of exceptional, very good, satisfactory, marginal, and unsatisfactory, whereas the proposals would be rank-ordered under the two lowest weighted non-price factors. Past performance, the most important evaluation factor, was divided into the following subfactors: experience, quality of items/delivery performance, and compliance with contractual socioeconomic subcontracting/mentoring goals. With regard to delivery performance, offerors were to indicate in their proposals whether previously supplied items were delivered on time, ahead of or behind schedule. If the items were not delivered on time, the offeror was to provide the number of days delivered ahead of or behind schedule, whether revised delivery schedules were granted, and an explanation for any delivery extensions. For delinquent delivery, the description also was to include an explanation for its occurrence, a clear plan or evidence of measures taken to preclude a recurrence, and whether or not the problem was the offeror's fault, otherwise excusable or subject to mitigating circumstances. RFP at 47. Six offerors, including Capps and Wolverine, submitted proposals. After evaluating the proposals, the agency decided to make award to Wolverine on the basis of initial proposals without discussions. Capps received a satisfactory rating for the most important factor--past performance--and very good ratings for the vendor managed programs and bill & hold capability factors. Capps' proposal was ranked first for the JWOD entity factor, and second for the socio-economic considerations factor. Capps' proposal was rated satisfactory overall with a price of $34,902,086. Wolverine's proposal received a rating of very good under the past performance factor, and excellent ratings under the vendor managed programs and bill & hold capability factors. Its proposal was ranked first for the socio-economic considerations factor and second for the JWOD entity factor. Its proposal was the only one to receive an overall very good rating, and its price was $35,867,494. The agency considered Wolverine's proposal's superiority to Capps' on four of the five factors to be worth the 2.7-percent higher price. Agency Report, Tab 8, Price Negotiation Memorandum. Capps' overall satisfactory rating was primarily the result of its satisfactory past performance, given that factor's primary importance under the evaluation scheme.