E-Logic, Inc.

Decision

Matter of: E-Logic, Inc.

File: B-424566; B-424566.2

Date: September 9, 2026

Luis Padilla for the protester.
Erika Whelan Retta, Esq., Isabelle P. Cutting, Esq., and Captain Ellen R. Simic, Department of the Air Force, for the agency.
Paul N. Wengert, Esq., and Tania Calhoun, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Protest that agency misevaluated quotations in competition for task order among Federal Supply Schedule vendors is denied where the record shows the evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the terms of the solicitation.

DECISION

E-Logic, Inc., of Washington, D.C., a small business, protests the issuance of a Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) order to Prime Response, Inc., of Accokeek, Maryland, also a small business, under request for quotations (RFQ) No. FA701426Q0020, issued by the Department of the Air Force for commercial furniture installation, reconfiguration, moving, storage, and workspace support services and ad-hoc labor for Air Force and Space Force facilities in the Pentagon and the National Capital Region. The protester contends that the agency misevaluated the firm's quotation and unreasonably selected Prime's higher-priced quotation for award.

We deny the protest.

BACKGROUND

The Air Force issued the RFQ on April 7, 2026, seeking quotations from small business FSS vendors to provide services for a base year and four option years. Contracting Officer's Statement (COS) at 1-2. Quotations would be evaluated under two factors, technical capability and price, where technical capability was significantly more important than price. Agency Report (AR), Tab 4, RFQ attach. A, at 8.[1]

The RFQ directed vendors to provide quotations organized in four volumes. As relevant here, Volume II, technical capability, was to address both the vendor's prior experience and its technical approach, within a 30-page limit. Id. at 4.

The RFQ described a multi-step process for evaluating quotations. First, the agency would evaluate on an acceptable/unacceptable basis whether the vendor had a facility security clearance of secret or higher. Id. at 8-9. For vendors rated acceptable, the agency would evaluate technical capability under two subfactors. Id. at 8. Technical capability subfactor 1, prior experience, would be evaluated on a pass/fail basis. Id. For vendors rated pass under subfactor 1, the agency would evaluate the quotation under subfactor 2, technical approach. Id. The technical approach subfactor evaluation would assess the soundness, feasibility, and effectiveness of the proposed technical approach with regard to five areas: overall methodology, staffing and management approach, surge and high-volume task handling, inventory management solution, and the vendor's controls for “ensuring accountability and performance continuity[.]” Id. at 10. The subfactor 2 evaluation would result in an adjectival rating of outstanding, good, acceptable, or unacceptable.[2] Each vendor's prices would be evaluated for “reasonableness, completeness, and balance[.]” A best-value tradeoff would conclude the source selection process. Id. at 8.

E-Logic's quotation passed both the facility security clearance gate and the prior experience subfactor. The technical approach subfactor evaluation identified multiple strengths and weaknesses for E‑Logic.[3] The evaluation resulted in the following ratings and prices:

AR, Tab 18, Post-Award Emails with E-Logic at 1, 4.

The contracting officer reviewed the evaluation record and made a tradeoff judgment, which determined that the technical advantages of Prime's quotation provided sufficient additional value to justify incurring its higher price, compared to E-Logic's lower-rated and lower priced quotation, so the contracting officer selected Prime to receive the order. Id. at 4. After being notified of the source selection and receiving a brief explanation of the award decision, E-Logic filed this protest with our Office.

DISCUSSION

E-Logic contends that the Air Force misevaluated the firm's quotation as merely acceptable under the technical capability factor. The protester argues that a reasonable evaluation of its quotation would have identified multiple aspects as strengths and, as a result, its quotation would have been the best value due to its lower price.[4]

In particular, E-Logic contends that its proposal should have been assessed strengths for an overall approach that managed work by prioritizing jobs, a staffing approach that ensured accountability, an approach to managing fluctuating workloads, a superior inventory management solution, accountability and continuity controls that included a facility clearance, a local logistics base, and practices that ensured quality performance and property protection. Protest at 8-9. The firm contends that the Air Force assessed no strengths for E-Logic's proposal, which resulted in an overall rating of acceptable, instead of the multiple strengths that it asserts should have been recognized and a good or outstanding rating that should have been the result. Id. at 10.

Where a protester challenges the evaluation of quotations in a competition among FSS vendors under FAR subpart 8.4, we do not reevaluate the quotations. Our Office will review the record to ensure that the agency's evaluation is reasonable and consistent with the terms of the solicitation and applicable procurement laws and regulations. Atlantic Sys. Grp., Inc., B-413901, B-413901.2, Jan. 9, 2017, at 3.

The Air Force argues that no strengths were to be assigned to the evaluation of whether a vendor had the required facility security clearance aspect of the evaluation because that was an acceptable/unacceptable assessment. Similarly, no strengths were to be assigned under evaluation of the prior experience subfactor, which was a pass/fail assessment. Consequently, the Air Force contends the RFQ provides no basis for the protester's argument that strengths should have been assessed to its quotation for those issues. Memorandum of Law (MOL) at 2, 5; AR, Tab 20, Declaration of Technical Evaluator at 2.

We agree. The RFQ did not indicate that those elements of the evaluation would be used to distinguish among vendors beyond determining that the quotation was acceptable under those criteria. Confirming this, the RFQ also expressly stated that “[t]he overall Technical rating will be based on Subfactor 2 [the technical approach subfactor] for those quotations receiving a Pass [rating] under Subfactor 1 [the prior experience subfactor].” AR, Tab 4, RFQ attach. A at 10.

Moving to the technical approach subfactor, in response to E-Logic's argument that it was unreasonably assessed no strengths, the Air Force argues that the contemporaneous evaluation record undermines the protester's arguments. Contrary to the protester's claims, the evaluation did recognize multiple strengths in E‑Logic's quotation under each of the subfactor's evaluation areas. Among the strengths were a key strength in the firm's workflow process, strong proficiency in managing inventory, and a responsive approach to managing workload increases. AR, Tab 17, Evaluation Report for E-Logic at 1-2. The evaluation also identified a key strength in the firm's experienced and well-qualified top-level managers, and credited both the firm's experienced core staff and its surge labor bench to respond to periods of increased workload. Id. at 3-4. The firm's approach to high-volume/short-notice tasks was credited for a key strength in identifying and responding to urgent requirements, along with a plan to activate supplemental trained personnel. Id. at 5. The firm's proposed inventory management solution was praised for significant enhancements and providing the agency with visibility and oversight. With regard to ensuring inventory accountability and system usability, the agency identified additional strengths in E-Logic's structured and organized approach to inventory accountability that provided government-readable records. Id. at 8.

The agency argues that other aspects of E-Logic's quotation that the firm contends should have been deemed strengths were reasonably evaluated as not exceeding the RFQ requirements and therefore did not constitute strengths. For example, the agency argues that having logistics capabilities in the local area did not constitute a strength for E-Logic because having resources in the locale specified in the RFQ as the place of performance was simply a necessity for being able to perform the requirement, rather than a strength that provided additional value to the agency. MOL at 6.

Our review of the record indicates that the agency's evaluation was reasonable. T he record shows that the agency recognized key strengths in the protester's quotation along with additional advantages for E-Logic's quotation under the technical approach subfactor, and that the agency had a reasonable basis for not evaluating additional strengths for aspects of the quotation that did not provide additional value to the agency. For example, while the protester argues that its approach provided a strength by proposing measures to ensure that its vehicles were kept ready for performance demands, Comments at 7, the record supports the evaluators' determination that ensuring that sufficient vehicles used for performing the work were kept ready was a basic expectation for performance and did not merit the assessment of a strength for any vendor. MOL at 6; AR, Tab 20, Decl. of Technical Evaluator at 3. The agency's explanation provides a reasonable basis for the evaluation of E-Logic's quotation and refuted the firm's contention that the evaluation improperly overlooked strengths in the firm's technical approach.

The record also shows that the evaluation of the protester's quotation as acceptable overall, rather than good or outstanding, was based on multiple weaknesses in the protester's quotation under each evaluation area that contrasted with those strengths. AR, Tab 17, Evaluation Report for E-Logic at 2-10. Most significantly, in the overall evaluation summary, the evaluators focused their assessment on their findings that E‑Logic's quotation lacked sufficient detail regarding daily workforce performance, communication with stakeholders, and conflict resolution. Id. at 12. This lack of adequate operational detail indicated a “moderate level of performance risk” in the judgment of the evaluators, which resulted in an overall rating of acceptable under the technical approach subfactor and, as a result, the overall technical capability factor. Id.

In its comments on the agency report, E-Logic disputes the assessment of any weaknesses in the evaluation of its quotation. Comments at 5. The protester contends that the evaluation of weaknesses was unreasonable and questions whether the record shows that the weaknesses were “were real [and] material, [but not] duplicative, based on unstated criteria, or outweighed by the proposal's strengths.” Id.

We have reviewed the record--including portions not provided to the protester--and find that it reasonably supports the evaluation of the most significant weaknesses in E‑Logic's quotation. In particular, we reviewed E-Logic's quotation with respect to the issues assessed weaknesses in the firm's technical approach. Our review provides no basis to find unreasonable the agency's judgments that E-Logic's technical approach provided only limited discussion of an approach to daily management of the performance of its workforce and lacked detail about both ensuring communication with people directly receiving the services and utilizing conflict resolution tools. We have no basis to question the evaluators' judgment that these aspects of the quotation were sufficient to lower the agency's confidence in successful performance under E-Logic's proposed technical approach. Accordingly, we have no basis to question the agency's judgment that E-Logic's quotation provided a technical approach that was acceptable but for which evaluated weaknesses precluded considering it to be either good or outstanding, which then provided a reasonable basis for the source selection judgment that Prime's quotation provided a better value. Accordingly, we deny E-Logic's challenges to the evaluation and source selection decision.

The protest is denied.

Edda Emmanuelli Perez
General Counsel