[Protest of Contract Awards Under Army IFB's]

A firm protested the award of two contracts issued by the Army, alleging that the awardee's bid for one contract should have been rejected as nonresponsive because its descriptive literature failed to show that its product conformed to certain material specifications set forth in the solicitation. Conversely, the protester argued that if the awardee's bid on the first contract was properly accepted, then the protester's bid for the second contract should not have been rejected because of a similar deficiency in its descriptive literature. In the first procurement, the Army stated that the purpose for obtaining product brochures was to enable it to evaluate overall compatibility with the automatic data processing equipment and not to demonstrate conformity with specific specifications. The protester also contended that the awardee's product did not conform to the specifications because it had to be modified. Since slight modifications to existing products did not violate a solicitation provision limiting offers to the manufacturer's current standard model and since the contract had already been awarded, the appropriate actions to be taken are matters of contract administration and not for GAO consideration. In the second procurement, the brand name or equal solicitation required fabric samples and color charts. The Army rejected the protester's bid as nonresponsive because its product was not equal to the other bidders' in certain material respects. In brand name or equal solicitations, a bid offering an allegedly "equal" product must contain sufficient descriptive material to permit the contractor to access whether the offered alternative possesses each salient characteristic of the brand name product. The protester contended that the Army acted improperly by not allowing it to demonstrate its product and furnish additional information after bid opening. GAO pointed out that the solicitation stated that modifications proposed after the bid opening to make a product conform to the brand name product would not be considered. Accordingly, the protest was denied.