Cydecor Inc. (B-422942; B-422942.2)

You should not care.

Category: Technical evaluation

Date: 23 December 2024

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-422942%2Cb-422942.2

Cydecor Inc. protested GSA’s award of a task order to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in a DOD procurement for defense readiness reporting system (DRRS) sustainment services. Cydecor challenged GSA's evaluation of proposals under several factors, including task order technical approach, key personnel, and corporate experience, and the agency’s best-value decision methodology. The protest primarily asserted errors in GSA’s evaluation process and alleged that Cydecor’s proposal offered superior merits that were undervalued:

Evaluation of task order proposals: Cydecor alleged that its proposal warranted higher ratings due to its incumbency and approach. GAO found that the agency's evaluation judgments were reasonable noted that incumbency does not inherently entitle an offeror to additional strengths or higher ratings.

Best value decision methodology: Cydecor claimed that GSA improperly weighted evaluation factors and misunderstood its technical rating as "acceptable" instead of "good." GAO concluded that while errors occurred, they did not affect the outcome, as SAIC's proposal remained the highest technically rated, making the errors nonprejudicial.

The protest was denied. GAO determined that GSA's evaluation was largely reasonable and that any errors in weighting or adjectival interpretation did not result in competitive prejudice against Cydecor.

Digest

1. Protest challenging the agency’s evaluation of task order proposals is denied where the record shows the evaluation largely was reasonable, and any errors that occurred did not competitively prejudice the protester.
2. Protest arguing the agency applied an incorrect evaluation factor weighting scheme when making the best-value decision is denied where the record reflects that correcting this error would not change the award outcome based on the solicitation’s highest technically rated, reasonably priced offer source selection methodology.