Protest of Aircraft Maintenance Contract Award

Two companies, Dynalectron Corp. and Serv-Air, Inc. protested a contract award, contesting the propriety of the procuring agency's evaluation of the proposals. They also contended that the proposals should have been considered technically equal and the award made to the lower bidder, that no meaningful discussions were held during negotiations, and that they were advised during the debriefing of deficiencies in their proposals which were not mentioned during oral discussions. In the case of Dynalectron, the record supported the conclusion that it was misled into reasonable belief that only two deficiencies remained in its amended proposal, when actually, the list of five deficiencies, upon which discussions were based, omitted some deficiencies and showed three others which had been cleared by amendment. It could not be stated unequivocally that the protester was not prejudiced where the protester was misled concerning some deficiencies and not advised of others, for which the protester was assessed approximately 31 points out of a total of the 35 deducted, and where the evaluation scores of the protester and awardee differ by only 12 points out of 1,000. The protest was sustained. Since the first year of performance was almost completed, it was recommended that the options for additional years not be exercised and that corrective action be taken on the part of the procuring agency. Serv-air, the other protester, also alleged that the cost evaluation appeared questionable. It was held that there did appear to be inconsistencies in the evaluation, and it was suggested that greater attention be paid to the methods used in the cost evaluation of proposals when the requirement is again solicited.