B-297648.3, Yardney Technical Products, Inc.--Costs, March 28, 2006

B-297648.3 Mar 28, 2006 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Yardney Technical Products, Inc. requests that we recommend that it be reimbursed the costs of filing and pursuing its protest challenging the award of a contract to Quallion, LLC under broad agency announcement (BAA) No. BAA-04-08-PKM Call 8, issued by the Department of the Air Force for establishment of a domestic supplier of spacecraft-quality rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. We deny the request. View Decision B-297648.3, Yardney Technical Products, Inc.--Costs, March 28, 2006 DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Decision Matter of: Yardney Technical Products, Inc.--Costs File: B-297648.3 Date: March 28, 2006 Jonathan D. Shaffer, Esq., Smith Pachter McWhorter & Allen PLC, for the protester. Clarence D. Long, III, Esq., Department of the Air Force, for the agency. Paul E. Jordan, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest was not clearly meritorious, and reimbursement of protest costs following agency corrective action therefore is not warranted, where additional record development and substantial further analysis would have been required to resolve protest. DECISION Yardney Technical Products, Inc. requests that we recommend that it be reimbursed the costs of filing and pursuing its protest challenging the award of a contract to Quallion, LLC under broad agency announcement (BAA) No. BAA-04-08-PKM Call 8, issued by the Department of the Air Force for establishment of a domestic supplier of spacecraft-quality rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. We deny the request. The BAA identified three program objectives: establish U.S.-owned domestic trusted source(s) of cathode materials; strengthen U.S.-owned domestic industrial base for true prismatic lithium-ion cells and batteries for spacecraft use; and establish U.S.-owned domestic trusted source(s) of other base cell components and their precursors. Proposals were to be evaluated under three factors, listed in descending order of importance--business and technical aspect, cost/price, and proposal risk assessment. Proposals were to be rated as category I--well conceived and technically sound (recommended for acceptance); category II--technically sound, but requires further development (recommended for acceptance but at a lower priority than the first category); and category III--not technically sound or does not meet agency needs. The BAA contemplated the possibility of awarding multiple contracts, depending upon the evaluated order of merit of competing proposals and the availability of funding. Four offerors, including Yardney and Quallion, submitted proposals, which were evaluated by the technical team. Both Yardney's and Quallion's proposals were determined to be in category I, with Quallion's considered first in order of merit based on its superior, low-risk technical approach, which included $7 million in cost sharing. Yardney's proposal was evaluated as acceptable but high-risk, due to uncertainties associated with its technical approach; it did not provide for cost sharing. Since funding ultimately was available for only one award, the agency selected Quallion for award. In its protest, Yardney alleged that the agency evaluated the proposals based on factors outside the stated evaluation scheme, that its proposal should have been rated superior because it had greater experience and existing manufacturing capability than Quallion, and that Quallion's approach to developing and supplying the raw material was flawed. Yardney further asserted that one of the evaluators was biased in favor of Quallion and had unduly influenced the source selection team. In support of this claim, Yardney cited the fact that the evaluator had traveled to Japan with the firm, while refusing to accompany Yardney on a similar visit, and had offered to support the transfer of a material license to Quallion, without making the same offer to Yardney. The Air Force filed an agency report that addressed all of Yardney's arguments and included a sworn statement from the allegedly biased evaluator, who was the program manager for battery technology at the National Reconnaissance Office. Agency Report, Tab 10, Statement of Program Manager. The program manager denied any improper influence over the evaluators in favor of Quallion's proposal. Statement of Program Manager, at 3. With regard to his Japan trip, the program manager stated that, approximately 1 year before issuance of BAA Call 8, he recognized the need to ensure supply of a critical cathode material--available from a specific Japanese company--for use in spacecraft-quality rechargeable batteries. Id. at 1.