Link: GAO Opinion
Agency: Department of the Navy
Disposition: Protest denied.
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GAO Digest:
Protest that agency improperly evaluated protester’s proposal, resulting in a flawed best value determination, is denied where the record shows both that the agency reasonably evaluated the protester’s proposal as failing to meet key requirements of the solicitation and that the agency’s best value determination was reasonable.
General Counsel P.C. Highlight:
GAO denies the protest of Oceantronics, Inc., regarding the issuance of a task order to another contractor under a multiple-award indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract by the Department of the Navy, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, for engineering and technical services supporting a Mobil At-sea Sensor System, a seagoing platform outfitted with a variety of sensors and research and test equipment.
The protester argues that the experience and educational credentials of the engineers or the training and experience level of the senior marine mechanical technician is sufficient to enable them to perform the statement of work. GAO states that it will not reevaluate offerors’ proposals; rather, GAO’s review is limited to considering whether the agency’s evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the terms of the solicitation and applicable procurement laws and regulations.
Here, the agency announced certain personnel requirements in the solicitation. Not only was it proper for the agency to consider the education level of the proposed engineers and the experience and training of the proposed senior marine mechanical technician, the solicitation required the agency to do so. GAO, therefore, sees no merit to the protester’s argument that, regardless of the failure of its proposed personnel to meet certain requirements in the solicitation, its proposal should have been more highly rated. Moreover, a protester’s mere disagreement with the agency’s determination as to the merits of a proposal and its judgment as to which proposal offers the best value to the agency does not establish that the evaluation or source selection was unreasonable. Thus, for example, the protester’s contention that locating its proposed engineers in Hawaii is an advantage constitutes at best a disagreement with the agency’s judgment–explicitly set out in the solicitation–that locating them in the National Capital Region is preferable. The protest is denied.