Excel Manufacturing, LLC

B-412332.2 Jun 30, 2016 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Excel Manufacturing, LLC (Excel), of El Paso, Texas, protests the Defense Logistics Agency's (DLA) award of a contract under request for proposals (RFP) No. SPEC1C1-15-R-0073 to Carter Industries, Inc. (Carter), of Olive Hill, KY, for supply of three varieties of coveralls. The protester challenges the agency's past performance evaluation. We deny the protest. We deny the protest. View Decision 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:  Excel Manufacturing, LLC File:  B-412332.2 Date:  June 30, 2016 Ruth E. Ganister, Esq., Rosenthal and Ganister, LLC, for the protester. Allison Colsey Eck, Esq., Defense Logistics Agency, for the agency. Frank Maguire, Esq., and Jennifer D. Westfall-McGrail, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest is denied where the record does not show that the agency’s rating of the protester’s past performance was unreasonable or inconsistent with the solicitation’s evaluation criteria. DECISION Excel Manufacturing, LLC (Excel), of El Paso, Texas, protests the Defense Logistics Agency’s (DLA) award of a contract under request for proposals (RFP) No. SPEC1C1-15-R-0073 to Carter Industries, Inc. (Carter), of Olive Hill, KY, for supply of three varieties of coveralls.  The protester challenges the agency’s past performance evaluation. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFP, issued as a small business set-aside, was for award of an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract, for a base year and three option years.  RFP at 56-57; Contracting Officer’s (CO) Statement (COS) at 2.  Award was to be made on a best-value basis to the offeror whose proposal conformed to the RFP and was most advantageous to the Government, cost or price, and other evaluation factors considered.  RFP at 56.  Non-price factors, in order of importance, were product demonstration model (PDM)/technical risk and past performance confidence assessment.[1]  The non-price factors, when combined, were significantly less important than price.  Id. at 57.  Offerors were to be assigned a past performance confidence rating on the basis of two equally-weighted subfactors:  relevance of prior contracts and past performance compliance (i.e., how well the contractor performed).  Under the relevance subfactor, prior contracts were to be rated as very relevant, relevant, somewhat relevant, not relevant, or neutral.  RFP at 60.  Under the compliance subfactor, two elements--past quality performance and past delivery performance--were to be rated as outstanding, good, acceptable marginal, unacceptable, or neutral.  RFP at 59.  The possible overall confidence ratings were substantial confidence, satisfactory confidence, limited confidence, no confidence, or unknown confidence (neutral).[2] The agency received five proposals prior to the June 12, 2015 closing date.  After evaluating the proposals, as relevant to the protest, the agency assigned the following ratings:   PDM Past Performance OFFEROR Manufacturing Visual Dimensional Overall Relevancy Quality Delivery Overall Total Price Carter G/G/G O/O/O O/O/O G VR O O SubC $ [deleted] Excel O/G/G O/O/O G/G/G G VR G G SatC $ [deleted] Agency Report (AR), exh. 12, Source Selection Decision Document (SSDD) at 4. In comparing Carter to Excel for purposes of the award decision, the source selection authority (SSA) noted that while both offerors had been rated good for their PDMs, Carter had fewer deficiencies than Excel and thus was considered slightly superior to Excel under the factor.  Further, with regard to past performance, the SSA found as follows: For the past performance confidence assessment, Carter is rated outstanding for quality and delivery having no quality issues and delivering all of their orders ahead of schedule or on-time with no delinquencies.  Carter has Very Relevant experience producing the same item . . .