CHE Consulting, Inc.; Digital Technologies, Inc., B-284110; B-284110.2; B-284110.3, February 18, 2000

CHE Consulting, Inc.; Digital Technologies, Inc., B-284110; B-284110.2; B-284110.3, February 18, 2000 TITLE: CHE Consulting, Inc.; Digital Technologies, Inc., B-284110; B-284110.2; B-284110.3, February 18, 2000 BNUMBER: B-284110; B-284110.2; B-284110.3 DATE: February 18, 2000 ********************************************************************** CHE Consulting, Inc.; Digital Technologies, Inc., B-284110; B-284110.2; B-284110.3, February 18, 2000 Decision Matter of: CHE Consulting, Inc.; Digital Technologies, Inc. File: B-284110; B-284110.2; B-284110.3 Date: February 18, 2000 L. James D'Agostino, Esq., Leigh T. Hansson, Esq., Jeff S. Robinette, Esq., and Richard L. Moorhouse, Esq., Reed Smith Hazel & Thomas, for CHE Consulting, Inc.; and Robert A. Mangrum, Esq., and Paul S. Ebert, Esq., Winston & Strawn, for Digital Technologies, Inc., the protesters. Joseph J. Petrillo, Esq., and Karen D. Powell, Esq., Petrillo & Powell, for CCL Service Corp.; and David R. Hazelton, Esq., and Erica P. McFarquhar, Esq., Latham & Watkins, for Federal Data Corp., intervenors. H. Jack Shearer, Esq., and Robert R. Goff, Esq., Defense Information Systems Agency, for the agency. Paul E. Jordan, Esq., and Paul Lieberman, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST In procurement of preventive and remedial maintenance for Department of Defense computer equipment, solicitation requirement that offerors obtain support agreements with original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to cover a minimum of 65 percent of the equipment is not unduly restrictive of competition. Record demonstrates that OEM support to that level reasonably reflects agency need to ensure prompt repair and limited downtime of critical computer resources. DECISION CHE Consulting, Inc. and Digital Technologies, Inc. protest the terms of request for proposals (RFP) No. DCA200-99-R-5011, issued by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) for on-site preventive and remedial hardware maintenance on data processing equipment located at various facilities throughout the United States. The protesters object to the RFP's requirement that offerors obtain support agreements from original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to cover a minimum of 65 percent of the equipment to be maintained. We deny the protests. BACKGROUND DISA Western Hemisphere is the principal information processing activity for the Department of Defense. It operates five mainframe processing centers (Defense Megacenters or DMC) and 18 regional support activities. These processing centers directly support a variety of military missions and support programs, and serve the military departments and major defense agencies. The primary contract vehicles for preventive maintenance and repair of computer equipment at these facilities are currently two contracts, awarded prior to DISA's assumption of responsibility for the facilities. Under one, awarded by the Army, CCL Service Corporation functions as an integrator. Under the other, awarded by the Air Force, TRW provides maintenance support through its subcontractor, CHE. While neither contract requires OEM maintenance support, CCL routinely obtains such support, while TRW/CHE does not have OEM support agreements. The RFP at issue is DISA's second attempt to consolidate preventive maintenance and repair requirements under a single contract. In August 1998, DISA awarded seven contracts to CHE. CCL and PCC Federal Systems protested these awards to the Court of Federal Claims, alleging that CHE's proposal had failed to demonstrate its ability to perform the contract. CCL Serv. Corp. v. United States, 43 Fed. Cl. 680 (1999). DISA ultimately took corrective action in the form of terminating CHE's contracts for convenience and reverting to the use of the existing contracts with CCL and TRW/CHE for maintenance and repair pending resolicitation of the consolidated requirement. The RFP, issued on September 3, 1999, contemplates the award of a fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract in each of four geographic regions in the continental United States. Proposals are to be evaluated under three factors, listed in descending order of importance: technical/management, past and present performance, and price. RFP sect. M.a. Non-price factors are "significantly more important than price." Id. Award in each region is to be made to the offeror whose proposal represents the best overall value to the government, based upon an integrated assessment of the proposals. As the result of having experienced extended outages of critical computer equipment maintained under the current contracts, DISA included the following requirement calling for offerors to obtain, and submit with their proposals, written agreements with OEMs for back-up support: The contractor must have OEM agreements which cover a minimum of 65% of the equipment inventory . . .