BNUMBER: B-271492.2
DATE: November 27, 1996
TITLE: Department of the Army--Reconsideration
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Matter of:Department of the Army--Reconsideration
File: B-271492.2
Date:November 27, 1996
Donald E. Goodroe for the protester.
Maj. Michael J. O'Farrell, Jr., Department of the Army, for the
agency.
Adam Vodraska, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.
DIGEST
Request for reconsideration by an agency is denied where the factual
errors it identified and the new information it provided do not
warrant reversal or modification of the decision sustaining the
protest.
DECISION
The Department of the Army requests reconsideration of our decision
S.D.M. Supply, Inc., B-271492, June 26, 1996, 96-1 CPD para. 288, which
sustained the protest of S.D.M Supply, Inc. against the issuance of
purchase order No. DABT01-96-V-0248 to New Pig Corporation under
request for quotations (RFQ) No. DABT01-96-T-0112 by the U.S. Army
Aviation Center, Fort Rucker, Alabama, for a quantity of aerosol can
puncturing systems.
We deny the reconsideration request.
This small purchase RFQ was issued and responses were invited to be
submitted through the Federal Acquisition Computer Network (FACNET).
S.D.M. protested that the agency failed to consider its low-priced
quote to the agency submitted through FACNET. The agency did not
consider S.D.M.'s quote because it was unaware it had received it due
to a computer system problem. We sustained the protest because the
record evidenced that the agency failed to satisfy its obligation
under the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984, 10 U.S.C. sec.
2304(g)(3) (1994), to promote competition to the maximum extent
practicable, inasmuch as the agency did not have adequate procedures
in place to ensure that quotations received through FACNET would be
considered. See East West Research Inc., B-239565; B-239566, Aug. 21,
1990, 90-2 CPD para. 147, aff'd, Defense Logistics Agency--Recon.,
B-239565.2; B-239566.2, Mar. 19, 1991, 91-1 CPD para. 298. Specifically,
we found that the agency's loss of the protester's quotation was due
to a systemic failure that resulted in the loss of all other
quotations submitted for this RFQ through FACNET and that similar
systemic failures have occurred for other RFQs issued by
Ft. Rucker.
The Army first asserts that the following statements made on pages 2
and 3 of the decision contain factual errors and these errors may have
caused our Office to erroneously sustain the protest. The contested
statements are:
"[a]ll transactions conducted over FACNET, except the issuance of
RFQs, are acknowledged automatically by the end of the business
day following the arrival of the transmission at its destination
to notify the sender as to whether a transaction has been
received, e.g., to notify a trading partner that its quotation
has been received by the contracting agency."
"quotations . . . were received by the Standard Army Automated
Contracting System (SAACONS) government computer gateway located
at Fort Lee, Virginia, and relayed to Fort Rucker."
"the acknowledgment received by S.D.M. was generated by the
SAACONS government gateway. . . ."
The Army states that there is no true end-to-end confirmation of the
receipt of quotations over FACNET from the contracting office to the
quoting trading partner, as it thinks was implied by the first of
these statements.[1] Rather, according to the Army, once a government
gateway computer receives a quotation from a trading partner such as
S.D.M., the gateway computer sends an acknowledgment back to the
trading partner through the trading partner's Value Added Network
(VAN) to confirm that the quotation has been received at the gateway
and that the quotation has been retransmitted to its intended
destination; in other words, this notice from the gateway computer
does not verify that the contracting activity has actually received
the quotation submitted over FACNET.
The Army also explains that the government computer gateway which
processes the Army's FACNET transactions, and which acknowledged
S.D.M.'s quote, is the Standard Automated Contracting System (SACONS)
operated by the Defense Information Systems Agency, not SAACONS, as
identified in the decision.[2] In this regard, the Army points out
that it does not control the entire FACNET infrastructure and that
problems can occur at the SACONS government computer gateway which
might affect the receipt of quotations at an Army contracting
activity, such as Ft. Rucker, despite the gateway's acknowledgment of
the receipt of a trading partner's quotation. Specifically, according
to the Army, if a "corrupted" data file is received by the SACONS
gateway from a VAN and is passed on by the gateway to the contracting
activity, or if data is "corrupted" during the "translation" of the
data file by the gateway into a "flat file" for transmission and is
then passed on to the contracting activity, the contracting activity
may not know that the "corrupted" data or any subsequent quotations
have been received in its system where the corrupted data caused a
system "logjam,"[3] as the Army asserts happened in this case.[4]
First, our mistaken use of the acronym SAACONS instead of the acronym
SACONS in referring to the government computer gateway does not
warrant changing our decision. Although SACONS is operated by an
agency other than the Army, our point was that the acknowledgment
received by S.D.M. was generated by the government gateway computer,
which evidenced that S.D.M.'s quote had been received by the
government in FACNET, and not the protester's VAN, as had been earlier
asserted by the agency when it denied there was any evidence
supporting the government's receipt of S.D.M.'s quote.
Moreover, while, as recognized in our prior decision, the technical
problem which prevented the electronic quotations from being
considered by Ft. Rucker was with the FACNET system itself, not Ft.
Rucker's computer system, this does not change the fact that the
quotations, including the protester's, were actually received by the
Army in the Ft. Rucker computer system, as stated in the decision, but
had not been retrieved from that system. Contrary to the agency's
argument, the decision did not imply that Ft. Rucker itself had
acknowledged receipt of S.D.M.'s quotation, but correctly stated that
S.D.M.'s quotation was acknowledged by the government computer gateway
and re-transmitted to Ft. Rucker, and that the Ft. Rucker contracting
office was unaware that the quotations were in its computer system
because of the above-described technical problem.
Thus, the misstatements in our prior decision did not affect our
disposition of S.D.M.'s protest.
The Army also asserts that our basis for sustaining the protest--that
the agency did not have adequate procedures in place to ensure the
consideration of quotations received through FACNET--was based on
inaccurately reported statements attributed to agency personnel during
the unrecorded telephonic hearing conducted by our Office.[5] The
Army has provided affidavits from the Ft. Rucker contracting personnel
who participated in the hearing disputing the statements on page 4 of
the decision that they had previously experienced the occurrence of
the identical problem and that they "were inexperienced with the
computer system, [and] failed to check available computer system
status reports, which would have indicated the existence of the
problem." These affidavits evidence that the contracting personnel at
Ft. Rucker checked for the receipt of electronic quotations for this
RFQ both before the placement of the purchase order when they realized
that had received none, and again when they became aware that
quotations that had been submitted had not been received. An
affidavit of the computer systems administrator for the purchasing
office shows that despite her search of the Ft. Rucker computer system
for FACNET quotations at the request of contracting officials both
before and after the issuance of the purchase order, and her
subsequent discovery of the "backlog" of quotations, she was unable to
retrieve the quotations because of the above-described technical
problem, and that she asked for assistance from SAACONS personnel.
The affidavits finally assert that "this particular problem was the
first of its kind for Ft. Rucker," although it "has experienced
technical problems before with" FACNET.
While this may have been the first time the source of the problem
preventing the receipt of quotations at Ft. Rucker was specifically
identified to the Ft. Rucker contracting personnel by SAACONS
personnel, the Ft. Rucker contracting personnel do not deny in their
affidavits that they reported at the hearing that Ft. Rucker had
previously experienced problems with the receipt of quotations over
FACNET, including the loss of quotations, as was stated in our
decision. Moreover, in his affidavit, the SAACONS technician who
participated in the hearing admits that the same problem has occurred
at other installations--this supports our conclusion that the agency's
failure to consider the protester's quotation was due to a previously
identified systemic problem. In any case, we find nothing in the
affidavits from the agency personnel that is inconsistent with our
attorney's recollection, as confirmed by the protester, that the
SAACONS technician stated at the hearing that the quotations were
actually in the Ft. Rucker computer, but that Ft. Rucker's computer
systems administrator was unfamiliar or inexperienced with the
computer functions necessary to retrieve the data. In this regard,
the SAACONS technician indicated that available computer system status
reports would have alerted contracting personnel to the technical
problem preventing the receipt of quotations.
Despite the apparent availability of preventive measures and the
problems it has experienced with FACNET, the Army had not implemented
procedures designed to notify contracting personnel of technical
problems that might prevent the timely consideration of quotations
submitted through FACNET. Indeed, the supervisor of the Ft. Rucker
purchasing office states in her affidavit that no guidance or training
had been provided to her office in this regard. The Army informs us
that it has now implemented procedures to prevent the same problem
from recurring, which include sending a computer message if an error
occurs, printing reports automatically to alert users to the
processing status, and advising users to check these reports.
Nonetheless, the evidence presented here by the Army supports our
basis for sustaining the protest, namely that the Army did not have
adequate procedures in place to ensure that quotations received
through FACNET would be fairly considered, and thus failed to promote
competition to the maximum extent practicable.
To prevail on a request for reconsideration, the requesting party must
show that our prior decision contains either errors of fact or law or
present information not previously considered that warrants reversal
or modification of our decision. 4 C.F.R. sec. 21.14 (1996). Since
neither the new information provided by the Army nor the factual
errors it identified warrant reversal or modification of our decision,
the request for reconsideration is denied.
Comptroller General
of the United States
1. Our statement was based on information contained in the Federal
Electronic Commerce Acquisition Instructions supplied by the
protester, which it had obtained from the Department of Defense
Electronic Commerce Information Center. The Instructions stated that
"[i]t is a function of the automated process that an [acknowledgment]
will be transmitted by the end of the business day following the
arrival of the transmission in the recipient's mailbox to notify the
sender that [a] transaction has been accepted or rejected." This
statement clearly refers to acknowledgments generated by the
government, which is what was at issue in this case. In addition, we
note that trading partners are instructed to send acknowledgments for
all transactions, except RFQs, at the time they are received.
2. The Army states that SAACONS is not a government computer gateway,
but is the Army's automated contracting software and hardware business
system, which, along with other government business systems, is
supported by the SACONS gateway. The SACONS government computer
gateway is located in Columbus, Ohio, and not at Fort Lee, Virginia,
as stated in the decision; Fort Lee is where the Army office
responsible for maintenance, testing, distribution and customer
support for SAACONS is located.
3. Such a "logjam" apparently permits no FACNET quotes to be
retrievable from the local activity's computer system until the
"logjam" is cleared.
4. Because the Army failed to provide such factual background in its
report submitted for the protest, our office conducted a telephonic
hearing with the protester and agency personnel to gather information
on how the quotations transmitted over FACNET were "lost" in this
case.
5. Our hearings are generally recorded.