Request for Contract Modification Based on Bid Error

About 16 months after award of the contract, the contractor requested modification of its contract to cover material costs for a component of the end item, alleging that the price had been inadvertently omitted from its bid. The request was denied since the contracting officer had adequately discharged his bid verification duty prior to acceptance by calling to the bidder's attention the noticeable variance between its bid and the next low bid. The identification of the error as omission of a component price in item one of several line items was not possible since the invitation for bids had not separately listed prices for each component under item one.