Metson Marine Services, Inc.

B-413392 Oct 19, 2016 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Metson Marine Services, Inc., of Ventura, California, protests the award of a contract to Adept Process Services, of National City, California, by the Department of the Navy under request for proposals (RFP) No. N00604-16-R-3010 for port operations services at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. Metson challenges the agency's evaluation of the awardee's proposal under the technical, price, and past performance factors, as well as the evaluation of Metson's own proposal under the past performance factor. We deny the protest in part and dismiss it in part. We deny the protest in part and dismiss it in part. 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:  Metson Marine Services, Inc. File:  B-413392 Date:  October 19, 2016 Corianne W. Lau, Esq., Terry E. Thomason, Esq., and Jessica Y.K. Wong, Esq., Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing, for the protester. Nicholas A. Konoske, Esq., Konoske Akiyama & Brust, LLP, for the intervenor. Andre Ahuna, Esq., and Richard Carlile, Esq., Department of the Navy, for the agency. Gabriel D. Soll, Esq., and Christina Sklarew, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1.  Protest challenging the evaluation of awardee’s staffing plan is denied where the record demonstrates the agency’s evaluation was consistent with the solicitation. 2.  Protest challenging the evaluation of protester’s proposal is dismissed where protester would not be in line for award even if its protest were sustained. DECISION Metson Marine Services, Inc., of Ventura, California, protests the award of a contract to Adept Process Services, of National City, California, by the Department of the Navy under request for proposals (RFP) No. N00604-16-R-3010 for port operations services at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.  Metson challenges the agency’s evaluation of the awardee’s proposal under the technical, price, and past performance factors, as well as the evaluation of Metson’s own proposal under the past performance factor. We deny the protest in part and dismiss it in part. BACKGROUND The RFP, issued on May 2, 2016, advised offerors that the contract would be awarded based on the lowest-priced, technically acceptable (LPTA) offer in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) § 15.101-2(b)(1).  RFP at 93. The solicitation sought proposals to provide various port operations services at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam to include dockmaster services, equipment maintenance, oil spill response, and other services.  Id. at 27.  Proposals were to be evaluated under three evaluation factors:  technical acceptability, past performance, and price.  Id. at 93-95.  Both technical acceptability and past performance were to be evaluated as either acceptable or unacceptable.  Id. at 95.  The solicitation established that a proposal’s failure to meet all of the requirements under any factor would make the proposal unacceptable and preclude award.  Id. at 93. The technical acceptability factor included two subfactors, technical approach and performance plans.  Id. at 93-94.  Within the second of these subfactors, offerors were to demonstrate their understanding of seven identified performance requirements.  Included among these items, and at issue in this protest, was the requirement to propose a “clear and feasible” staffing and management plan to perform each task described in the performance work statement (PWS).  Id. at 94, 105.  The PWS described 13 categories of tasks and estimated that 52 full-time equivalents (FTEs) would be needed.  Id. at 27-39. With regard to past performance, offerors were required to identify a maximum of three prior contracts considered to be the most recent and relevant.  Id. at 85-86.  Past performance was to be evaluated for “recentness and relevancy,” defined in the solicitation to mean performance within the previous five years of contract work that was similar in nature to that being solicited.  Id. at 94.  As relevant here, the RFP stated that where an offeror had no record of past performance, a rating of neutral would be assigned, and that a neutral rating would be considered acceptable.  Id. With respect to price, the RFP included both fixed-price and cost-reimbursable contract line item numbers (CLINs) for port operations services.  Id. at 94.  Price was to be analyzed for completeness and reasonableness.  Id.