Assisted Building Solutions, LLC (B-423895, B-423895.2)

You should not care.

Category: Technical evaluation, RF attenuation, best value

Date: 8 January 2026

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423895,b-423895.2

Assisted Building Solutions protested a Navy award for prefabricated secure modular buildings, arguing the agency misevaluated its proposal and botched the tradeoff in favor of CenCore’s much higher-priced offer.

GAO denied the protest. The agency reasonably assessed a significant weakness because ABS’s proposal did not clearly show compliance with the solicitation’s 80-decibel RF-attenuation requirements for both the facility and its doors. GAO also upheld a separate weakness tied to ABS’s failure to provide a meaningful transportation security plan for delivering the secure modules.

With those weaknesses in place, GAO found the source selection authority reasonably looked beyond adjectival labels and concluded CenCore’s stronger technical approach justified the price premium.

Digest

1. Protest that the agency unreasonably evaluated the protester's proposal is denied where the record shows the agency reasonably conducted its evaluation in accordance with the terms of the solicitation.
2. Protest that the agency conducted a flawed best-value tradeoff analysis is denied where the record shows the agency looked behind adjectival ratings and compared the relative merits of proposals.