Equinoxys Inc. (91990020Q0020)

B-419237,B-419237.2 Jan 06, 2021 Jump To FULL REPORT VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Equinoxys, Inc., a small business of Great Falls, Virginia, protests the award of an order to Creoal Consulting, a small business of Washington, D.C., under request for quotations (RFQ) No. 91990020Q0020, which was issued by the Department of Education (DOE), for Hyperion software system enhancements. Equinoxys challenges the agency's evaluation of quotations. 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 version has been approved for public release.   Decision Matter of:  Equinoxys, Inc. File:  B-419237; B-419237.2 Date:  January 6, 2021 Thomas K. David, Esq., Kenneth D. Brody, Esq., and Katherine A. David, Esq., David, Brody & Dondershine, LLP, for the protester. John W. Kim, Esq., Department of Education, for the agency. Evan D. Wesser, Esq., and Edward Goldstein, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest challenging an agency’s technical evaluation is denied where, notwithstanding apparent errors, the protester fails to establish competitive prejudice. DECISION   Equinoxys, Inc., a small business of Great Falls, Virginia, protests the award of an order to Creoal Consulting, a small business of Washington, D.C., under request for quotations (RFQ) No. 91990020Q0020, which was issued by the Department of Education (DOE), for Hyperion software system enhancements.  Equinoxys challenges the agency’s evaluation of quotations. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFQ, which was issued on June 15, 2020, and subsequently amended five times, sought quotations from small business holders of Federal Supply Schedule 70 contracts to enhance the system capabilities of the agency’s Hyperion financial management software.  See Agency Report (AR), Tab A, Contracting Officer’s Statement (COS) at 1; Tab C, RFQ at 1.[1]  Specifically, the RFQ’s performance work statement (PWS) divided the anticipated effort into five tasks.  Under task 1, the contractor will be required to provide program and project management to establish the control, management, monitoring, and notification mechanisms to ensure that tasks stay on track and important milestones are met.  AR, Tab C, RFQ, attach. A, PWS at 4-5.  Under task 2, the contractor will be required to “lift and shift” the existing functionality from the current DOE instance of the Oracle Hyperion module residing in a data center in Boulder, Colorado, to the Oracle Cloud Enterprise Performance Management offering.  Id. at 5-6.  Under task 3, the contractor will be required to develop a salary and expense payroll modeling system.  Id. at 6-10.  Tasks 2 and 3 collectively constitute Phase I of the project.  Under task 4, which constitutes Phase II of the project, the contractor will be required to develop and implement an enterprise-wide budget system.  Id. at 10-12.  Under task 5, the contractor will be required to provide continuing tasks in support of the other tasks, including initial operations and maintenance, transition, release and configuration management, and training/documentation/change management.  Id. at 12‑14. The RFQ anticipated the award of a single order with fixed-price and time-and-materials contract line items.  AR, Tab C, RFQ at 3.  Phase I of the project will have a 1-year period of performance; Phase II will commence after the completion of Phase I and will consist of two option years.  AR, Tab C, RFQ, attach.