More protests hit OASIS on-ramp awards

Two more protests have been filed over the General Services Administration's decisions regarding the OASIS contract's small business on-ramp process

For now there are three total, though I’d expect a few more before it is all  done.

Digiscient and Technology Automation & Management Inc.  are the latest to object to GSA's removal of them them from the competition.

GSA made on-ramp awards to 89 companies earlier this month. This is for Pool 1 of the $50 billion professional services contract. GSA also said it expects to make 61 more awards in Pool 1.

But GSA also informed some companies that they are no longer being considered for an award. That’s where these protests are coming from.

Digiscient and Technology Automation & Management join NetCentric Technology LLC in challenging that decision, particularly the way GSA evaluated their pricing.

OASIS uses a self-scoring mechanism that looks at past performance. But once you pass that hurdle, the award decision is based on a technical rating and pricing. Is the technical rating what was expected and is the price reasonable for that rating?

The protesters are arguing that GSA got the price evaluation wrong.

GSA has not said how many proposals it received, but responses to procurements of this size and scope generally generate hundreds of responses from small businesses. If GSA is planning 140 awards, then there could be possibly another 140 disappointed bidders.

Not all will protest of course, but we’ve already seen nearly 30 protest filings involving this on-ramp when you consider the pre-award challenges. Another five or 10 isn’t an unreasonable expectation.