System Engineering International, Inc. (SEI), of Frederick, Maryland, protests the issuance of a purchase order to M.C. Dean, Inc., of Dulles, Virginia, under request for quotations (RFQ) No. PROAGAS-7UPMA7, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for preventive maintenance services for uninterrupted power systems and power distribution units associated with EPA's information technology infrastructure. SEI challenges the evaluation of its quotation and the selection of a higher-priced quotation for the order.
Here, the contemporaneous record lacks documentation of an adequate tradeoff analysis and consideration of lower-priced, but acceptable, quotations. In this regard, the agency performed a price/technical tradeoff between only the two quotations with the highest ratings under the non-price factors. Specifically, the agency did not consider any of the satisfactory-rated quotations or SEI's marginal-rated quotation in its tradeoff analysis, even though at least three of those quotations (including SEI's) were lower in price than the awardee's quotation.
Based on this record, we find that the agency failed to conduct an adequate price/technical tradeoff and that this failure prejudiced SEI, given that its quotation was the lowest in price and might have been viewed as the best value quotation on that basis even with a marginal rating
