Webco Dental & Medical Supplies, Inc.

B-410587 Jan 08, 2015 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Webco Dental & Medical Supplies, Inc., of Hudson, Florida, a small business, protests the award of a contract to Executive Career Search Inc., of Oviedo, Florida, by the Department of the Army, under solicitation No. 20140617KODAK (also identified as FedBid Buy No. 623573) for dental imaging equipment and accessories for medical facilities in multiple states. Webco primarily argues that the Army misevaluated the firm's product as unacceptable and made an unreasonable source selection decision. We deny the protest. We deny the protest. View Decision DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. No party requested redactions; we are therefore releasing the decision in its entirety. Decision Matter of: Webco Dental & Medical Supplies, Inc. File: B-410587 Date: January 8, 2015 John M. Manfredonia, Esq., and Jim Petersen, Esq., Manfredonia Law Offices, LLC, for the protester. Debra J. Talley, Esq., and Peter G. Tuttle, Esq., Department of the Army, 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 Protester’s contention that agency misevaluated the product offered by protester as unacceptable under a brand-name-or-equal specification is denied where the agency based its evaluation on the allegedly equal product’s failure to meet specific salient characteristics that were stated in the solicitation, and the protester does not challenge the agency’s evaluation findings. DECISION Webco Dental & Medical Supplies, Inc., of Hudson, Florida, a small business, protests the award of a contract to Executive Career Search Inc., of Oviedo, Florida, by the Department of the Army, under solicitation No. 20140617KODAK (also identified as FedBid Buy No. 623573) for dental imaging equipment and accessories for medical facilities in multiple states. Webco primarily argues that the Army misevaluated the firm’s product as unacceptable and made an unreasonable source selection decision. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The Army issued the solicitation as a reverse auction on June 17, 2014, originally seeking bids to supply two Carestream CS 9300-C dental imaging equipment bundles, and six Carestream intraoral sensors, under a brand-name-or-equal specification.[1] Solicitation at 3. A subsequent series of solicitation amendments added one more imaging equipment unit bundle, and 142 more sensors, which significantly increased the target price. The amendments also restricted the competition to small businesses. Solicitation amend. 8 at 1-3. The solicitation indicated that award would be made to the responsible firm whose bid conformed to the solicitation and was the “most advantageous . . . on the basis of price, technical capability, delivery, and past performance.” Solicitation at 2. A note in an attachment to the final amendment added a further statement that bids would be evaluated under three factors, in descending order of significance: technical, past performance, and price. Solicitation amend. 8, attach. 1 (Delivery Locations Chart), at 1 (“Note”). Since the solicitation contained a brand-name-or-equal specification, it also listed a detailed set of salient characteristics that bids not offering the Carestream products were required to meet in order to be considered acceptable, and thus, equal. Many of the salient characteristics were grouped under the headings of cone beam CT [computed tomography] modality, panoramic modality, and cephalometric modality. Solicitation amend. 8, attach. 2 (“Technical Specifications”), at 1. Three of those salient characteristics are relevant to the issues in this protest: Under the cephalometric modality, the solicitation listed sensor technology as “CCD” [charge-coupled device]. Id. Under panoramic modality, the solicitation listed five radiological exam options: panoramic, segmented panoramic, maxillary sinus, LA [lateral] TMJ [temporomandibular joint] x2, and LA TMJ x4. Id. Under cone beam CT modality, the solicitation listed the field of view as “[r]anging from 5x5cm to 17x13.5cm.” Id. Webco, Executive, and a third firm participated in the reverse auction. Executive’s bid was for the brand name Carestream products, while Webco’s bid was for another manufacturer’s product and sensors. When the reverse auction closed, the third firm had bid the lowest price; Webco had bid the next-lowest price, at $1.1 million; and Executive had bid the highest price, at $1.3 million. In evaluating Webco’s bid, the evaluator concluded that its units did not meet the three salient characteristics listed above. First, where the solicitation required CCD sensor technology for the cephalometric mode, the Webco-offered product utilized a TFT [thin-film transistor] sensor.