Open SAN Consulting, LLC dba OSC Edge (B-423287; B-423287.2)

You should not care.

Category: Technical evaluation, unstated evaluation criteria, key personnel, best value

Date: 25 April 2025

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423287%2Cb-423287.2

Open SAN Consulting, LLC (OSC Edge), protested Navy’s issuance of a task order to Scientific Research Corporation (SRC) under the SeaPort Next Generation IDIQ for technical engineering and installation services supporting US Space Command in Colorado. OSC objected to the agency's evaluation under organizational experience and key personnel, particularly arguing it unjustly assessed a significant weakness and failed to credit strengths. OSC also claimed the awardee, SRC, improperly benefited from additional experience references, and that the best-value tradeoff was unreasonable.

The Navy received five proposals, ultimately rating SRC higher than OSC on key nonprice factors, and selecting SRC’s $44.3M proposal over OSC’s lower-cost $43.4M. OSC’s protest, filed after its debriefing, focused on challenges to the evaluation of its own and SRC’s experience and personnel, and the agency’s application of evaluation criteria.

• Organizational experience: hiring and retention: GAO found Navy reasonably assigned a significant weakness to OSC for failing to demonstrate sufficient experience hiring and retaining key engineering talent in Colorado Springs, as OSC’s quote lacked clear connection between surge hiring and FTE averages.
• Unstated evaluation criteria allegation: GAO found the agency’s insistence on experience with infrastructure and cyber engineering roles was consistent with solicitation criteria; there was no unstated criterion or requirement to cite labor categories.
• Reference relevance & remote staff: OSC’s cited experience outside Colorado Springs (with remote hires) was deemed not relevant to on-site requirements, a determination GAO found logical and consistent with the solicitation.
• Key personnel, senior systems engineer and project manager: The agency reasonably concluded OSC’s senior systems engineer resume did not clearly demonstrate the required experience at the senior level or for DOD, justifying an assigned weakness. GAO found no impact on competitive standing from the agency’s assignment of a “strength” (vs. “significant strength”) to OSC’s project manager.
• Best value tradeoff: All challenges to the tradeoff decision were predicated on the above issues, so the best value claim was dismissed as derivative.

The protest was denied. All challenges were found to be either lacking merit or untimely. GAO reiterated that proposal evaluation is within the agency’s discretion if reasonable and consistent with solicitation terms.

Digest

Protest challenging agency evaluation of proposals and tradeoff decision is denied where the evaluation and tradeoff decision were reasonable and consistent with the terms of the solicitation.