BNUMBER:  B-261561.2; B-261777.2; B-261898.2; B-261899.3; B-262018.2
DATE:  November 2, 1995
TITLE:  BF Goodrich Aerospace--Reconsideration

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Matter of:BF Goodrich Aerospace--Reconsideration

File:     B-261561.2; B-261777.2; B-261898.2; B-261899.3; B-262018.2

Date:     November 2, 1995

Albert C. Ruehmann III, Esq., for the protester.
Tania L. Calhoun, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the 
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Request for reconsideration is denied where the requesting party does 
not show that our prior decision contains either errors of fact or law 
or present information not previously considered that warrants 
reversal or modification of our decision.

DECISION

BF Goodrich Aerospace (BFG) requests that we reconsider our decision 
in BF Goodrich Aerospace, B-261561 et al., Sept. 18, 1995, 95-2 CPD      
, denying its protests of the terms of request for proposal (RFP) Nos. 
N00383-94-R-0401, N00383-95-R-D364, N00383-95-R-D365, 
N00383-95-R-D366, and N00383-94-R-D260, issued by the Department of 
the Navy's Naval Aviation Supply Office (ASO) for various components 
of the landing gear assembly used on the Navy's F/A-18 aircraft.

We deny the request for reconsideration.

These flight-critical spare parts are subject to source approval 
pursuant to 10 U.S.C.  2319 (1994).  Prior to the issuance of these 
solicitations, ASO had two sources for these parts--McDonnell Douglas, 
the original equipment manufacturer, and BFG, which until recently 
supplied these parts to McDonnell Douglas for use on the firm's Navy 
aircraft production contracts.[1]

When it received these requirements, the Navy realized that it could 
not approve new sources or retain approval of existing sources for 
these parts and would have to procure them on a sole-source basis from 
McDonnell Douglas.  However, McDonnell Douglas agreed to expand the 
source base by offering licensing agreements to provide for the 
services necessary to ensure that the product delivered meets the same 
reliability and durability as the items previously provided.  The RFPs 
then were revised to require offerors to demonstrate, by the time of 
contract award, a bilateral agreement with McDonnell Douglas for 
certification, review, and approval of the parts.

In its protest, BFG argued that it did not need to be licensed by 
McDonnell Douglas because it had ready access to the drawings in 
question.  BFG further asserted that McDonnell Douglas's processing 
and manufacturing "know-how" was not exclusive because there were many 
ways to manufacture these parts.  

In our decision, we stated that BFG's argument overlooked the fact 
that processing and manufacturing procedures, different though they 
may be, must all result in a spare part that conforms to the current 
design controled by McDonnell Douglas.  Because an offeror has the 
burden of demonstrating its qualification and the acceptability of 
alternate products, Sterling Mach. Co., Inc., B-246467, Mar. 2, 1992, 
92-1 CPD  253, and the record was clear that McDonnell Douglas was in 
the best position to gauge that acceptability, we did not believe that 
the alternative licensing arrangement with McDonnell Douglas was 
improper.

Under our Bid Protest Regulations, to obtain reconsideration, the 
requesting party must show that our prior decision contains either 
errors of fact or law or present information not previously considered 
that warrants reversal or modification of our decision.  Section 
21.14(a), 60 Fed. Reg. 40,737, 40,744 (1995) (to be codified at 4 
C.F.R.  21.14(a)); R.E. Scherrer, Inc.--Recon., B-231101.3, Sept. 21, 
1988, 88-2 CPD  274.  BFG has not met this standard.

BFG challenges our assertion that the Navy does not physically possess 
much of the data necessary for source approval and reiterates its 
allegation that the data may merely be inaccessible to the Navy.  
However, the Navy's legal memorandum specifically states, "the Navy 
does not physically possess all of the necessary data for the 
manufacture of these items."  

BFG also essentially repeats its earlier-raised argument that some of 
this data is merely manufacturing data which can be supplied by any 
capable manufacturer.  As noted above, we specifically addressed this 
argument in our prior decision.  BFG's mere repetition of its original 
argument demonstrates disagreement with our decision but does not 
satisfy the standard for reconsideration.  R.E. Scherrer, 
Inc.--Recon., supra.  

Finally, BFG complains that we did not address its allegation that the 
Navy wrongly asserted that the proposed licensing agreements for the 
parts at issue had been tailored to meet the Navy's minimum 
requirements for these parts.  In fact, the Navy never stated that the 
licensing agreements themselves were being tailored--these agreements 
are between McDonnell Douglas and the individual offerors--but that 
the requirements for these agreements, set forth in the solicitations, 
were tailored to the elements of each part being procured.  We thus 
declined to address BFG's allegation because it was premised on a 
misreading of the agency report and not essential to our decision. 

The request for reconsideration is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States

1. As McDonnell Douglas's supplier, BFG received copies of all updates 
to the technical data and was able to propose engineering changes, 
waivers and deviations.  Under these circumstances, ASO was able to 
use BFG as an alternate source for these parts.  BFG is no longer 
McDonnell Douglas's supplier.