Protest Involving the Supply of Dictating Equipment

As the basis for protest, a dictating equipment supply company contended that the Air Force should have developed specifications for the equipment specified in the delivery order in question and procured it competitively by the use of a separate written solicitation. As a mandatory user of the Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) for dictating equipment the Air Force does not have the option to procure such equipment competitively through written solicitation, but must purchase the lowest cost FSS-listed equipment. Furthermore, where only one of four FSS vendors of dictating equipment initially offered trade-in allowance for used equipment, it was not improper for the agency to later afford all four vendors opportunity to submit new proposals to include trade-in allowances. The protest was denied.