BNUMBER:  B-277416 
DATE:  August 4, 1997
TITLE: SRM Manufacturing Company, B-277416, August 4, 1997
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Matter of:SRM Manufacturing Company

File:     B-277416

Date:August 4, 1997

Luke Morin for the protester.
Jeffery Greer, Esq., Defense Logistics Agency, for the agency.
Marie Penny Ahearn, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the 
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

General Accounting Office will not review an agency decision to issue 
a project order to a federal agency rather than contract for the 
supplies in the private sector, where no competitive solicitation was 
issued for the purpose of determining the cost of contracting out.

DECISION

SRM Manufacturing Company (SRM) protests the Defense Logistics 
Agency's (DLA) issuance of project order No. SPO749-97-P-B085 to 
Warner Robbins Air Logistics Center, Warner Robbins Air Force Base, 
for 212 metal tube assemblies, a critical application item used on 
F-15 aircraft.  SRM contends that DLA should not have issued the 
project order to a government agency without first performing a 
comparison between in-house and contractor performance.

We dismiss the protest.

On October 12, 1995, DLA issued a competitive solicitation, request 
for proposals (RFP) No. SPO740-95-R-0166, seeking offers for the metal 
tube assembly, with  McDonald Douglas Corporation (McDonald Douglas) 
part number 68A691706-1009 listed as the approved item of supply.  SRM 
submitted the sole offer of $506.79 for an alternate item.  While DLA 
evaluated SRM's alternate offer, the agency made two interim purchases 
of the item--24 units from McDonald Douglas at $282.69 per unit and 2 
units from Warner Robins at $300.00 per unit.  DLA subsequently 
approved SRM's alternate item as technically acceptable.  However, 
because DLA was unable to determine that SRM's offered price under the 
RFP was reasonable, the agency canceled the solicitation on December 
28, 1996.  Subsequently, on February 27, 1997, DLA issued request for 
quotations (RFQ) No. SPO740-97-Q-0913, for the same items.  In 
response, both SRM and McDonald Douglas submitted quotes.  However, 
DLA determined that neither quote was acceptable--McDonald Douglas's 
quote of $295.30 failed to meet the delivery requirement and SRM's 
quote of $494 per unit ($508.15 with first article) could not be 
determined reasonable.  As a result, DLA made no award under the RFQ, 
and instead issued the protested project order to Warner Robbins for 
212 units at $231 per unit.[1] 

As a general rule, our Office does not review agency decisions to 
perform in-house, rather than contract out, because we regard such 
decisions as matters of executive branch policy.  Boulder Scientific 
Co., B-225644, Mar. 20, 1987, 87-1 CPD  para.  323.  Accordingly, we will 
review such decisions only where a competitive solicitation has been 
issued for the purpose of determining the cost of contracting out, and 
a protester alleges that the resulting comparison with the cost of 
performing the work in-house is faulty or misleading.  Id.  Since no 
competitive solicitation for the tube assemblies was issued here for 
cost comparison purposes, we will not review DLA's decision to issue a 
project order to Warner Robbins, another federal agency.

The protest is dismissed.

Comptroller General 
of the United States 

1. Defense Logistics Acquisition Directive 4105.1,  sec.  17.9103 
authorizes issuance of a project order to a "government-owned, 
government-operated establishment" when offers received from the 
private sector are unacceptable because, among other reasons, "[t]he 
offeror does not propose to meet the required delivery date" and 
"[t]he proposed price is considered unreasonable."