B-298720; B-298720.2, Midland Supply, Inc., November 29, 2006

B-298720; B-298720.2, Midland Supply, Inc., November 29, 2006 TITLE: B-298720; B-298720.2, Midland Supply, Inc., November 29, 2006 BNUMBER: B-298720; B-298720.2 DATE: November 29, 2006 ************************************************************* B-298720; B-298720.2, Midland Supply, Inc., November 29, 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: Midland Supply, Inc. File: B-298720; B-298720.2 Date: November 29, 2006 Richard D. Lieberman, Esq., and Nicole S. Allen, Esq., McCarthy, Sweeney & Harkaway, P.C., for the protester. Adele Ross Vine, Esq., General Services Administration, for the agency. Linda S. Lebowitz, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Under solicitation providing for award to offeror whose proposal is found to be the most advantageous to the government based on past performance, delivery, and price, selection of lower technically rated, lower-priced proposal is improper where the record shows that selection decision was based on a mechanical comparison of offerors' total point scores and lacks any documentation indicating that a price/technical tradeoff was made. DECISION Midland Supply, Inc. protests the award of a contract to Danaher Tool Group under solicitation No. 6FLS-G3-050327-N, issued by the General Services Administration for quantities of 50 commercial line items in the 5120 Federal Supply Class (handtools, non-edged, non-powered). Midland challenges the agency's award for line item No. 1 for socket wrench sets (an item Midland has provided to the government since 2001) to Danaher, a firm submitting a lower technically rated, lower-priced proposal for this line item. We sustain the protest. The solicitation, issued on February 24, 2006, contemplated awards of fixed-price requirements contracts for a 2-year base period with three 1-year option periods. The solicitation included the clause at Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) sect. 52.212-2, captioned "Evaluation--Commercial Items," which provided that the agency would award contracts to the responsible offerors whose proposals, conforming to the solicitation, were determined to be most advantageous to the government, past performance, delivery, and price considered. (The past performance evaluation factor had three subfactors--on-time delivery, quality deficiency notices, and orders terminated.) The solicitation stated that past performance and delivery, when combined, would be considered significantly more important than price. The solicitation also stated that if proposals were determined to be essentially technically equal, awards would be made to the firms submitting the lowest prices. With respect to the time of delivery, the solicitation required that delivery be made "within 120 calendar days after receipt of order for all items." Solicitation at 99. The solicitation also permitted an offeror to propose for evaluation an alternate, more favorable delivery time by inserting in its proposal a specific number of calendar days for delivery after receipt of order for all items. Id. In evaluating proposals, the agency assigned the following raw points under the three evaluation factors: excellent (5 points); good (4 points); average (3 points); and poor (0 points). These raw scores were then multiplied by the following weights: 35 percent for both past performance and delivery (for a total combined weight of 70 percent) and 30 percent for price.[1] The agency then added the weighted scores together to arrive at a total point score for each proposal. In evaluating Midland's past performance, the agency assigned it a raw score of 3 points under the on-time delivery subfactor based on Midland's [deleted]-percent on-time delivery record. Because Midland had no quality deficiency notices and no terminated orders, the agency assigned it a raw score of 5 points under each of the other two past performance subfactors. The agency averaged these scores, for a final past performance raw score of 4.34 points. Because Midland proposed a [deleted]-day delivery schedule, the agency assigned it the highest raw score of 5 points under the delivery factor.[2] Midland's price for line item No. 1--$[deleted] per item--received a raw score of 3 points.[3] Contracting Officer's (CO) Statement, Sept. 26, 2006, at 4. (Midland's price was approximately [deleted] percent higher than Danaher's price.) In evaluating Danaher's past performance, the agency assigned it a raw score of 3 points under the on-time delivery subfactor based on Danaher's [deleted]-percent on-time delivery record.