Government Contracts Monitor

If the Agency Tells You How You Can Improve Your Proposal, Listen

July 10, 2014

In the recent case of Crystal Clear Technologies, Inc., B-409266.2, (Comp. Gen. May 28, 2014), the protester challenged the agency’s rejection of its offer for failure to sufficiently describe the product and pricing being offered. The protester, Crystal Clear Technologies, Inc. (Crystal Clear) essentially lost because it ignored the agency’s guidance concerning what Crystal Clear needed to do to make its proposal compliant with the solicitation requirements.

The solicitation contemplated the award of multiple 5-year fixed-price, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts for medical headwalls or patient service columns (which provide medical gasses and electrical power for bedside patient care in hospitals) under the General Services Administration’s Multiple Award Schedule 71, Special Item Number (SIN) 71-318 Patient Service Systems. The solicitation required that proposals include “[a] technical description of the items being offered in sufficient detail to evaluate compliance with the requirements of the solicitation.” The solicitation also required offerors to provide “descriptive catalogs and/or price lists” with the SIN written next to each offered item in the catalog or price list.

Crystal Clear initially submitted a proposal that included general price lists and a product brochure from the manufacturer showing pictures of the headwalls, but Crystal Clear failed to provide any technical or detailed description of the headwalls or their hardware, and also failed to identify how the headwalls depicted in the brochure corresponded to the price list. Not surprisingly, the CO rejected that initial proposal. Crystal Clear filed, but then withdrew, a protest, presumably because it was reinstated to the competition. After the withdrawal, Crystal Clear submitted questions and documents to the CO for review.

Upon review of the documents, the CO again expressed concern that the product Crystal Clear was offering did not fit within the scope of SIN 71-318 and asked Crystal Clear to explain how the headwalls fully complied with the SIN 71-318 items described in the solicitation.

Crystal Clear responded to these concerns by submitting the same brochure and price list it had previously submitted, modified only by adding a column entitled “SIN” with the required SIN number next to each product. Despite additional communications with the CO and the submission of several proposal revisions, Crystal Clear’s final proposal revision still contained the original, slightly modified brochure and price list and failed to provide any additional detail explaining how the products being offered fully complied with the specific solicitation requirements. The CO again rejected Crystal Clear’s proposal on the ground that it again failed to provide a technical description of the items being offered in sufficient detail to allow the agency to determine whether the headwalls complied with the requirements of the solicitation.

Crystal Clear then filed a second protest, arguing in part that the agency had improperly rejected its proposal for failure to provide a sufficient product description. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) rejected the contention outright, finding that the record supported the agency’s evaluation of Crystal Clear’s proposal as unacceptable.

More particularly, the GAO held that Crystal Clear submitted a proposal for a “rail kit” that did not appear to fully address all the requirements of SIN 71-318 because, rather than showing how the rail kit complied with the SIN 71-318 requirements, Crystal Clear “simply stated that its product was an extension of a medical head-wall that allowed the items referenced in SIN 71-318 to be mounted on the wall.” Further, other than brochure pictures, Crystal Clear’s proposal offered little discussion of “which items it proposed or how the products in the brochure satisfied all of the specified requirements.” Finally, even though it submitted a general price list, Crystal Clear failed to “identify which products pictured in the brochure corresponded with those in the price list.” Under these circumstances, the GAO had no trouble denying the protest.

It remains puzzling why Crystal Clear consistently refused to provide the information repeatedly sought by the solicitation and the CO. But it is “crystal clear” that ignoring such direction from the CO is not a winning strategy. Instead, offerors should be especially mindful of input from the procuring agency during the procurement and take advantage of any advice from the Government concerning how their proposal can be improved.

Heather Joyce is the attorney responsible for the content of this article.