SAIC loses protest over $927M incumbent Air Force contract
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By
Nick Wakeman
The Air Force gets backing in its decision to eliminate company from the competition for a modeling-and-simulation contract based on self-scoring methodology.
Science Applications International Corp. has lost its fight to get back into the competition for an incumbent contracts with the Air Force.
The service branch removed SAIC from the competition for a $972 million modeling-and-simulation services contract after company did not have the highest score on the self-scoring portion of the solicitation.
SAIC went to the Government Accountability Office in May with a protest, arguing the Air Force needed to complete the evaluation of its proposal.
However, the Air Force is using a two-part self-scoring methodology. The service branch only continued the evaluation with the unnamed company that had the highest score.
Bidders had to complete a pair of tables to compete for the work.
One table was for scoring the bidder’s experience in performing similar modeling and simulation work. The contracts had to have more than 400 full-time equivalent employees and a value greater than $750 million.
The second table was based on CPARS reports and ratings. Both tables automatically calculated the scores.
The Air Force then took the highest-rated bidder and validated the scores. But the unnamed company’s pricing proposal was missing information, so the Air Force opened discussions to address the pricing issues.
SAIC objected to all of this, saying the Air Force needed to validate all of the scores of each company before opening discussions with the highest-scoring bidder.
But the Air Force structured the contract so that the company with the highest validated self-score and a reasonable price would win the award. GAO ruled in favor of the Air Force because SAIC did not have the highest score, which meant it was not in-line for the award.
GAO's apparent conclusion is that it was reasonable for Air Force to only validate the highest score because no other firm with a lower score could win the contract. Validating the other scores would be a waste of time.
SAIC officials declined to comment on the GAO decision. The company apparently does have the option of taking this protest to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
The Air Force has not made an award and apparently is still in pricing discussions with the unnamed company.