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B-411583 Sep 04, 2015 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Technatomy Corporation, a small business, of Fairfax, Virginia, protests its exclusion from the competition under request for quotations (RFQ) No. D15PS00160, issued by the Department of the Interior, for program support services. The protester argues that the agency unreasonably evaluated aspects of its quotation and treated vendors unequally. 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. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Decision Matter of: Technatomy Corporation File: B-411583 Date: September 4, 2015 Joseph P. Hornyak, Esq., and Megan Mocho Jeschke, Esq., Holland & Knight LLP, for the protester. Sherry Kinland Kaswell, Esq., Department of the Interior, for the agency. Young S. Lee, Esq., and Nora K. Adkins, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Protest challenging agency's evaluation of protester's quotation and its exclusion from the competition is denied where the record shows that the evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation's evaluation criteria. 2. Protest alleging that agency conducted unequal clarifications is denied where the record shows that agency was not required to request clarifications from protester. DECISION Technatomy Corporation, a small business, of Fairfax, Virginia, protests its exclusion from the competition under request for quotations (RFQ) No. D15PS00160, issued by the Department of the Interior, for program support services. The protester argues that the agency unreasonably evaluated aspects of its quotation and treated vendors unequally. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The Department of the Interior, on behalf of the Department of Defense (DoD), issued the RFQ on March 5, 2015, under the provisions of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) subpart 16.5, to existing small business holders of the National Institutes of Health, Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center Chief Information Officer--Solutions and Partners 3 (CIO-SP3) government-wide acquisition contract (GWAC).[1] RFQ at 1.[2] The solicitation sought quotations for a full range of business and technical management services for DoD's program executive office for the Defense Healthcare Management Systems (PEO DHMS). Id. at 2. The RFQ contemplated the issuance of a hybrid fixed‑price, time and materials, and cost-plus-fixed-fee (CPFF) task order with a 1‑year base period and four 1-year options, to the vendor submitting the best value quotation. Id. at 2, 15. Quotations were to be evaluated using the following six factors: management approach, technical approach, corporate experience, personnel qualifications, past performance, and price. Id. at 16. All non‑price factors were, individually, more important than price. Id. The solicitation required vendors to submit their quotations in two volumes, a technical volume and a price volume. Id. at 2. With regard to the technical volume, vendors were instructed to submit a worksheet establishing that their quotation met certain minimum requirements for technical acceptability. Id. Similarly, the solicitation also required that vendors' price volumes include a completed pricing template.[3] Id. at 12-13. The solicitation cautioned vendors that "[a]ny quotation that is non-compliant with any requested submission requirements of this RFQ may immediately be removed from further consideration," and "[f]ailure to use the Excel template as provided . . . will be viewed as unacceptable and the Offeror will be removed from consideration for award." [4] Id. at 2, 13. The solicitation stated that quotations would first be evaluated to determine whether the technical volume demonstrated compliance with the minimum requirements provided in the technical volume worksheet. Id. at 6. It also warned that if a vendor's quotation failed to demonstrate compliance with these three key minimum requirements, it would be deemed technically unacceptable and rejected by the agency. Id. at 6, 7. The RFQ further advised that if a quotation was found to be technically unacceptable, no further evaluation would be conducted and the vendor would be eliminated from the competition. Id. The agency received multiple quotations in response to the RFQ, including Technatomy's.[5] Contracting Officer (CO) Statement at 2. During the CO's initial compliance review of the quotations, the CO determined that Technatomy's quotation contained an incorrect version of the pricing template. Id. at 4. In this regard, the CO found that Technatomy submitted the version of the pricing template that was issued under RFQ amendment 3, and not the updated version provided by RFQ amendment 4. AR, Tab 6b.2, Technatomy Pricing Template.