Department of the Army--Reconsideration

B-271492.2 Nov 27, 1996 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Request for reconsideration by an agency is denied where the factual errors it identified and the new information it provided do not warrant reversal or modification of the decision sustaining the protest. This small purchase RFQ was issued and responses were invited to be submitted through the Federal Acquisition Computer Network (FACNET). The agency did not consider S.D.M.'s quote because it was unaware it had received it due to a computer system problem. Inasmuch as the agency did not have adequate procedures in place to ensure that quotations received through FACNET would be considered. We found that the agency's loss of the protester's quotation was due to a systemic failure that resulted in the loss of all other quotations submitted for this RFQ through FACNET and that similar systemic failures have occurred for other RFQs issued by Ft. View Decision Matter of: Department of the Army--Reconsideration File: B-271492.2 Date: November 27, 1996 Request for reconsideration by an agency is denied where the factual errors it identified and the new information it provided do not warrant reversal or modification of the decision sustaining the protest. Attorneys DECISION The Department of the Army requests reconsideration of our decision S.D.M. Supply, Inc., B-271492, June 26, 1996, 96-1 CPD Para. 288, which sustained the protest of S.D.M Supply, Inc. against the issuance of purchase order No. DABT01-96-V-0248 to New Pig Corporation under request for quotations (RFQ) No. DABT01-96-T-0112 by the U.S. Army Aviation Center, Fort Rucker, Alabama, for a quantity of aerosol can puncturing systems. We deny the reconsideration request. This small purchase RFQ was issued and responses were invited to be submitted through the Federal Acquisition Computer Network (FACNET). S.D.M. protested that the agency failed to consider its low-priced quote to the agency submitted through FACNET. The agency did not consider S.D.M.'s quote because it was unaware it had received it due to a computer system problem. We sustained the protest because the record evidenced that the agency failed to satisfy its obligation under the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984, 10 U.S.C. Sec. 2304(g)(3) (1994), to promote competition to the maximum extent practicable, inasmuch as the agency did not have adequate procedures in place to ensure that quotations received through FACNET would be considered. See East West Research Inc., B-239565; B-239566, Aug. 21, 1990, 90-2 CPD Para. 147, aff'd, Defense Logistics Agency--Recon., B-239565.2; B-239566.2, Mar. 19, 1991, 91-1 CPD Para. 298. Specifically, we found that the agency's loss of the protester's quotation was due to a systemic failure that resulted in the loss of all other quotations submitted for this RFQ through FACNET and that similar systemic failures have occurred for other RFQs issued by Ft. Rucker. The Army first asserts that the following statements made on pages 2 and 3 of the decision contain factual errors and these errors may have caused our Office to erroneously sustain the protest. The contested statements are: "[a]ll transactions conducted over FACNET, except the issuance of RFQs, are acknowledged automatically by the end of the business day following the arrival of the transmission at its destination to notify the sender as to whether a transaction has been received, e.g., to notify a trading partner that its quotation has been received by the contracting agency." "quotations . . . were received by the Standard Army Automated Contracting System (SAACONS) government computer gateway located at Fort Lee, Virginia, and relayed to Fort Rucker." "the acknowledgment received by S.D.M. was generated by the SAACONS government gateway. . . ." The Army states that there is no true end-to-end confirmation of the receipt of quotations over FACNET from the contracting office to the quoting trading partner, as it thinks was implied by the first of these statements. [1] Rather, according to the Army, once a government gateway computer receives a quotation from a trading partner such as S.D.M., the gateway computer sends an acknowledgment back to the trading partner through the trading partner's Value Added Network (VAN) to confirm that the quotation has been received at the gateway and that the quotation has been retransmitted to its intended destination; in other words, this notice from the gateway computer does not verify that the contracting activity has actually received the quotation submitted over FACNET. The Army also explains that the government computer gateway which processes the Army's FACNET transactions, and which acknowledged S.D.M.'s quote, is the Standard Automated Contracting System (SACONS) operated by the Defense Information Systems Agency, not SAACONS, as identified in the decision.