selection criteria | The Contracting Education Academy

February 25, 2020 By cs

Contractor successfully uses GAO pre-award protest to modify solicitation

When the terms of a solicitation run contrary to the regulations, challenging the solicitation in a pre-award protest may provide contractors the chance to shift the tide in their favor before bids are submitted and an award is made.

In January 2020, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) sustained a pre-award bid protest brought by Noble Supply & Logistics, Inc. that challenged the terms of a General Services Administration (GSA) solicitation. Noble Supply & Logistics, Inc., B-418141, 2020 WL 289546 (Jan. 16, 2020). Noble Supply argued the RFQ’s price evaluation methodology, as written, failed to provide for an evaluation of which offeror presented the best value and the lowest overall cost alternative, in violation of FAR part 8.

In the RFQ, GSA asked holders of GSA 51V Hardware Superstore Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts to bid on four blanket purchase agreements (BPAs) to provide hardware products and services to four military branches. For its price evaluation factor, the RFQ stated that GSA would evaluate price quotations “to ensure that offered pricing, to include flat rates and tiered volume discounts, is fair and reasonable.” The RFQ then stated that GSA would not evaluate whether the award was the “lowest-priced technically acceptable” (LPTA), nor would it conduct a “best value tradeoff source selection methodology.” Thus, GSA would only evaluate the quotes for price reasonableness to determine whether prices were unreasonably high.

Noble Supply argued that this price methodology was contrary to 41 U.S.C. sections 152, 8.404(d) and 8.405-3(a), which require GSA to award BPAs to the awardee that provides the “best value and results in the lowest overall cost alternative.” GAO agreed, explaining that “consideration of the lowest cost is an imperative when using the FSS” and therefore GSA is required to “reach a determination regarding which FSS vendor meets the agency’s needs at the lowest overall cost.” Noble Supply & Logistics, Inc., B-418141, 2020 WL 289546, at *6 (Jan. 16, 2020).

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/Article/891604

February 11, 2020 By cs

Draft E.O. to ‘Make Federal Buildings Beautiful Again’ causes stir with current, former officials

A draft executive order from the Trump administration would make classical architectural styles “the preferred and default style” for new federal construction projects.

**Draft Executive Order refers to headquarters buildings of the departments of Labor, HHS, and HUD, as being undistinguished, uninspiring, and just plain ugly.**

However, current and former officials who have played a role in federal real property projects have raised concerns over how this preference would impact the function and cost of buildings in the government’s portfolio.

The draft EO, first obtained and reported by Architectural Record, states that the austere Brutalist and modern designs prevalent in Washington, D.C. “fail to satisfy these requirements and shall not be used” for new construction.

The executive order, titled “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again,” would also direct the General Services Administration to consider “the feasibility of redesign in a preferred architectural style” when renovating existing federal buildings.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/facilities-construction/2020/02/draft-eo-to-make-federal-buildings-beautiful-again-causes-stir-with-current-former-officials/

November 14, 2019 By cs

Bid protests hit 10-year low

Companies filed 16% fewer bid protests in fiscal 2019 than the year prior.

According to data released last Thursday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), vendors filed 2,198 protests in fiscal 2019, 16% fewer than were filed in the previous year. Fiscal 2019’s total represented 22% fewer protests than GAO’s 10-year high-water mark—the 2,789 filed in fiscal 2016.

According to GAO, the agency closed 2,200 cases in fiscal 2019 and sustained 77 of the 587 total decisions decided on merit. Fiscal 2019’s 13% sustain rate—wherein GAO agrees with the bid protestor—was its lowest since fiscal 2015. A large number of bid protests are resolved when agencies agree to take corrective action rather than GAO carrying the protest to full conclusion.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/11/bid-protests-hit-10-year-low/161168/

August 30, 2019 By cs

NOAA, NASA launched next-gen satellite with known issues, scrubbed performance metrics from contract

The main instrument of the GOES-R next-generation satellite constellation wasn’t working before launch but officials sent it into space anyway.

Persistent problems with the premier sensors of the GOES-R series satellites — designed to provide the next generation of weather observation for North America — were identified before launch and not properly tested or resolved, according to a new inspector general report.

Further, the Commerce Department IG found evidence that program managers changed the evaluation criteria for the contractor after the issues were identified—metrics that would have led to a 40-75% reduction in payment had they remained.

The $11 billion GOES-R series of satellites includes GOES-16—launched November 2016—and GOES-17—launched March 2018—as well as the pending GOES-T and GOES-U still in production. The satellite constellation is equipped with a set of next-generation sensors to better predict weather patterns, including the Advanced Baseline Imager, or ABI, the “most essential instrument for mission success of the GOES-R satellites,” according to the IG.

However, shortly after GOES-17 entered orbit, the cooling system for the ABI instrument malfunctioned, “severely degrading” the amount of data the satellite could collect, NOAA officials said at the time.

“This is a serious problem,” Steve Volz, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, or NESDIS, said during a May 2018 briefing with reporters. “This is the premier Earth-pointing instrument on the GOES platform and the 16 channels … are important elements of our observing requirements.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/08/ig-noaa-nasa-launched-next-gen-satellite-known-issues-scrubbed-performance-metrics-contract/159276/

November 15, 2018 By AMK

GAO reiterates that agencies must meaningfully consider price in ‘best value’ tradeoffs

In three related bid protest decisions made public in the last few weeks, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reaffirmed the principle that agencies must meaningfully consider price when making best value tradeoff decisions.

GAO sustained the protests, stressing that merely paying lip service to price while selecting a more expensive, higher-rated offeror is not sufficient — agencies must provide a rational explanation for why they have decided to pay a premium for the awardee’s technical superiority.

In Solers, Inc., B-414672.3 et al.; Technatomy Corporation, B-414672.5; and OGSystems, LLC, B-414672.6 et al., three disappointed offerors challenged the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) award of Multiple Award Task Order contracts to 14 contractors as part of the Systems Engineering, Technology, and Innovation program.

The solicitation provided that DISA would make award on a best-value tradeoff basis considering price and four technical factors that, when combined, were significantly more important than price. The agency made award to the 14 highest rated proposals in the non-price factors, opining — without elaboration — that “the technical merit of those proposals justifies paying a price premium over lower-rated, lower-priced proposals.” Indeed, throughout the evaluation process, the agency repeatedly noted — again without elaboration — that the awardees’ proposals were worth a premium.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2018/11/hey-big-spender-gao-reiterates-that-agencies-must-meaningfully-consider-price-in-best-value-tradeoffs/

When the terms of a solicitation run contrary to the regulations, challenging the solicitation in a pre-award protest may provide contractors the chance to shift the tide in their favor before bids are submitted and an award is made.

A draft executive order from the Trump administration would make classical architectural styles “the preferred and default style” for new federal construction projects.

Companies filed 16% fewer bid protests in fiscal 2019 than the year prior.

The main instrument of the GOES-R next-generation satellite constellation wasn’t working before launch but officials sent it into space anyway.

In three related bid protest decisions made public in the last few weeks, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reaffirmed the principle that agencies must meaningfully consider price when making best value tradeoff decisions.

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