Digicomp Research Corporation

B-262139 Dec 01, 1995 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Protest against refusal of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to allow protester to compete under solicitation for award of a contract for standard terminal automation system is dismissed as untimely since protest was filed more than 10 working days after February 22. Which is to replace existing air traffic control systems at approximately 200 FAA and Department of Defense (DOD) operational terminal facilities. The precursor to STARS was the Advanced Automation System (AAS) program. Which was envisioned as an upgrade of the 1970s era air traffic control technology. That contract was partially terminated in 1993. The FAA reports that STARS is a one-time acquisition to "make up for lost time" by procuring some of the terminated portions of AAS using a "limited competition" acquisition strategy. View Decision Matter of: Digicomp Research Corporation File: B-262139 Date: December 1, 1995 Protest against refusal of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to allow protester to compete under solicitation for award of a contract for standard terminal automation system is dismissed as untimely since protest was filed more than 10 working days after February 22, 1995, announcement in the Commerce Business Daily, which placed protester on constructive notice that it would not be permitted to compete if it did not certify that it met qualification criteria by March 3. Attorneys DECISION Digicomp Research Corporation protests the refusal of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to allow Digicomp to compete under a solicitation for the standard terminal automation replacement system (STARS), which is to replace existing air traffic control systems at approximately 200 FAA and Department of Defense (DOD) operational terminal facilities. We dismiss the protest. The precursor to STARS was the Advanced Automation System (AAS) program, which was envisioned as an upgrade of the 1970s era air traffic control technology. The agency had awarded a production contract for AAS in July 1988 and, following performance difficulties, that contract was partially terminated in 1993. The FAA reports that STARS is a one-time acquisition to "make up for lost time" by procuring some of the terminated portions of AAS using a "limited competition" acquisition strategy. The FAA published a series of notices in the Commerce Business Daily (CBD) concerning STARS. The first notice, on September 6, 1994, announced a market survey to obtain information on the capabilities and availability of nondevelopmental terminal automation systems for air traffic control sites. The second CBD notice, on December 13, 1994, announced a meeting to provide information to potential sources on the planned approach for the STARS acquisition and announced that the agency planned to release a draft request for proposals (RFP) during the third quarter of 1995 and a formal RFP during the fourth quarter of 1995. The third CBD notice, published on February 22, 1995, stated that FAA "has limited the competition for the [STARS] to vendors who have developed and fielded operational terminal automated air traffic control systems somewhere in the world." The notice also stated "vendors will be prequalified through qualification criteria published in this announcement" and that the intent of the prequalification process is "to assure FAA that qualifying vendors are truly capable of successfully performing the STARS acquisition." In addition, the notice stated "[o]nce the prequalification criteria have been finalized, vendors will be required to certify in writing that they meet the criteria" and that "[a]s a means to assure fairness to potential STARS offerors that meet the prequalification criteria, any offeror found not to have met prequalification criteria will be disqualified from continuing in the STARS competition." Essentially, the proposed prequalification criteria were (1) previous deployment of an air traffic control system which is operational and is being used to separate aircraft; and (2) capability of performing software engineering activities such as requirements analysis, design, implementation, integration, test, distribution, installation, enhancement, correction, upgrade or maintenance of software. Finally, the notice required submission of responses to the STARS prequalification criteria no later than March 3. The fourth CBD announcement, published March 21, repeated the prequalification criteria, and again stated that vendors were required to certify in writing that they met the stated criteria and that any offeror found not to have met the criteria would be disqualified from continuing in the STARS competition. This announcement also extended the deadline for submission of the required certification to March 31. Eleven vendors, not including Digicomp, submitted minimum qualification packages on or before March 31.