Army to rethink awards for $800M engineering contract

It appears that a group of small businesses may have had a point in their complaint that the Army reneged on a pledge to include small business winners on the $800 million TEIS IV contract.

The solicitation included clear indications of the Army’s desire to pick at least two small businesses as primes on the Total Engineering and Integration Services contract. But the service only made awards to the three incumbents from TEIS III -- General Dynamics IT, NCI Information Systems and Science Applications International Corp.

MC Dean, TekSynap Corp. and IAP Worldwide Services then filed protests with the Government Accountability Office. A fourth company apparently filed an agency-level protest as well.

Something in those protests led the Army to rethink its decision.

The Army has agreed to re-evaluate each bidder’s small business participation plans, establish a new competitive range and enter into discussions with bidders in the competitive range. It will then conduct a new trade-off evaluation and make new award decisions.

GDIT, NCI and SAIC still technically have their TEIS IV awards. But if Army picks any new winners during this re-evaluation process, one or more of them will have their contract cancelled.

So for now, small businesses are back in the running.

It is interesting that the Army’s corrective action includes discussions because the solicitation specifically said that TEIS IV would not be a negotiated procurement. Awards would be made without discussions. Apparently the Army has changed its mind.

It also looks like they are changing their minds about small business as well.