Matter of:TSI Incorporated File: B-249815 Date:December 22, 1992

Matter of:TSI Incorporated File: B-249815 Date:December 22, 1992

PROCUREMENT Special Procurement Methods/Categories Federal supply schedule Contract awards Propriety Agency properly made delivery order award under a nonmandatory Federal Supply Schedule contract to the only schedule contractor meeting the government's minimum needs.

Attorneys

DECISION TSI Incorporated protests the award of delivery order No. F33601 -92-FE997 by the Department of the Air Force to Dantec Electronics, Inc., Measurement Technology Division, for a laser doppler velocimeter under nonmandatory, multiple-award Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contract No. GS -00F-2344A. TSI objects to the Air Force's failure to first solicit competition.

We deny the protest.

The Air Force issued the delivery order to Dantec on June 29, 1992, to obtain a laser doppler velocimeter/ anenometer for the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The laser veloci-meter is a complex instrument for measuring velocities in the research of aerodynamics for the design of aircraft and aircraft parts. The delivery order was awarded to Dantec under a General Services Administration (GSA) nonmandatory FSS, Group 66, Part II, Section R, covering laboratory and scientific equipment, for a total price of $247,436.75. The order was for 35 components making up the Dantec system. On August 13, TSI filed this protest after learning of the award.

TSI contends that the delivery order violated the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requirement for full and open competition because the Air Force did not synopsize the procurement or attempt to solicit an offer from TSI, which also has an FSS contract for this type of equipment.

The FSS program managed by GSA provides federal agencies with a "simplified process for obtaining commonly used supplies and services at prices associated with volume buying." See FAR Sec. 8.401(a); 41 C.F.R. Sec. 101-26.402-1(a). When placing an order under an FSS, the procuring agency is not required to seek further competition, synopsize the solicitation or award, or determine fair and reasonable pricing, since the planning, solicitation and award phases of the FSS comply with FAR requirements. See FAR Sec. 8.404(a); 41 C.F.R. Sec. 101-26.401(a).

When ordering from the FSS, the procuring agency is required to place orders with the schedule contractor offering the lowest delivered price for products meeting the needs of the government unless the agency prepares an appropriate justification for purchase from a higher-priced vendor. FAR Sec. 8.405-1. The determination of the agency's minimum needs and which product on the FSS meets those needs is properly the agency's responsibility, and thus we will only examine the agency's assessment of technical acceptability to ensure that it had a reasonable basis. See American Body Armor & Equip., Inc., B-238860, July 3, 1990, 90-2 CPD Para. 4.

The Air Force reports that the velocimeter will be utilized during the upcoming academic year for teaching and research in support of the Masters and Doctoral degree programs. Prior to issuance of the order, the Air Force reports that over a period of years technical experts at the AFIT evaluated and researched the capabilities of several velocimeter systems, including TSI's system. While TSI asserts that its velocimeter would meet the Air Force's minimum needs if they had been expressed as performance requirements, the AFIT determined that only Dantec's system provided students with the necessary state-of-the-art technology since it possessed the following TSI's system):

(1) a fiber transmitter box handling 10 watts of laser power;

(2) built-in laser safety shutters on the transmitter box and fiber manipulators;

(3) advanced data analysis, including moments, spectrum flow, vector plots and three dimensional display of data;

(4) a flow visualization fiber optic light sheet;

(5) a hard wire Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) signal processing scheme to enable high speed data collection, measurements of small particles, measurements near walls for boundary layers, and long focal lengths including:

(a) a processor frequency range of less than 200 Hertz to 120 megahertz; (b) a front panel display of velocity and date rate; and (c) validation and control of processor settings, such as high voltage, bandwidth, and burst detector.

With respect to these features, the Air Force reports that it requires 10 watts of power for the transmitter box to cover future work involving the examination of very high speed gas flow as well as long focal length optics. The safety shutters are needed for eye safety since students might incur serious eye damage from inadvertently viewing a laser beam directly. Advanced data analysis is needed to compare experimental results with future computational studies and the three dimensional animation provided in the Dantec system will allow experimental results to be examined from all angles. The Air Force also states that the fiber optic light sheet allows for visual observation of otherwise complicated gaseous flows, as required in student demonstrations. Finally, the Air Force states that the FFT processor allows for fast data collection and permits the real signal to be distinguished over noise when investigating gaseous flows.

TSI argues that its system is functionally equivalent to Dantec's, but only specifically asserts that its system can fulfill the functional requirements provided by Dantec's FFT processor. TSI does not assert that it can meet any of the other listed features or that the features are not necessary to satisfy the Air Force's minimum needs. From our review, the Air Force reaso the Dantec system were critical and that TSI's system did not possess these characteristics. Given the discretion afforded the agency in determining whether a product meets its minimum needs, we find that TSI's disagreement, based only upon challenging one of the features, to be insufficient to establish that the agency's technical assessment was unreasonable. See American Body Armor & Equip., Inc., supra.

A number of items needed to supply a system equivalent to Dantec's system are not in TSI's FSS contract. While TSI asserts that its FSS schedule is outdated and that GSA could purchase the necessary items from TSI on the open market at a lower price than offered by Dantec on the FSS, procuring agencies are encouraged to use the FSS unless the agency has actual knowledge that the purchase can be made more advantageously from a source other than the FSS. See 41 C.F.R. Sec. 101-26.401-5. Here, the Air Force reasonably considered the Dantec system to be the only acceptable system because the TSI system lacked the features set forth above. Therefore, the Air Force had no obligation to solicit competitive quotes from Dantec and TSI.

The protest is denied.