Jacobs Technology Inc. v. United States

100 Fed. Cl. 186, 2011 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1152, 2011 WL 3100353
United States Court of Federal Claims·Decided June 8, 2011·No. Nos. 11-180C, 11-190C·Published·Cited by 16 cases

Opinion

OPINION

DAMICH, Judge.

Before the Court in this consolidated bid protest ease is the Plaintiff Jacobs Technology Inc.’s (“Jacobs” ’) motion for judgment on the administrative record, and cross-motions for judgment on the administrative record by Defendant United States (the “Government”) and Defendant-Intervenor IBM Global Business Services (“IBM”).

For the reasons explained below, Jacobs’ motion for judgment on the administrative record is denied. The Government’s and IBM’s cross-motions for judgment on the administrative record are granted.

I. BACKGROUND

The Department of Defense United States Special Operations Command (“USSOCOM” or “agency”) established a service manage[188]*188ment and delivery framework — Special Operations Forces Information Technology Enterprise Contracts (“SITEC”) — to achieve its vision for a worldwide technology infrastructure. USSOCOM intends to migrate various information technology services from the existing Enterprise Information Technology Contract (EITC) to new service providers acquired through SITEC. AR 804. The Information Technology Service Management (“ITSM”) contract, at issue in this ease, is the first of a series of service contracts to be awarded as part of SITEC. AR 803, 805. The ITSM service area, which includes the Information Technology Management Office (“ITMO”), provides the overall management of the information technology service providers and the integration of USSOCOM’s worldwide information technology infrastructure and operations. AR 803.

A. Initial Procurement for ITSM

On May 27, 2010, USSOCOM issued a final request for proposals (“RFP”) for ITSM services. AR 700. Under the RFP, The ITSM Contractor is expected to support the ITMO (1) “in establishing and maintaining enterprise-level standardized [information technology (“IT”) ] processes and methodologies that align with the industry standard IT Service Management framework,” (2) in transitioning from the EITC to the new service providers, and (3) in the “integration, coordination, and ongoing management of the service delivery activities of the collective set of IT service providers.” AR 804.

The RFP set forth the criteria that USSO-COM would use in the evaluation of offerors’ proposals and its source selection decision. First the agency would evaluate proposals under several pass/fail qualifying criteria, and then evaluate the proposals based on technical/management, past performance, and cosi/price. AR 794-799. The teehnical/management and eost/price evaluation factors are pertinent to the instant motion before the Court.

For the Technical/Management Factor (Section M.1.4):

the Government will evaluate the Offeror’s overall approach and expressed capabilities for providing the IT service management and integration services across all IT Service Areas, as well as its ability to manage the day-to-day operations delivery and support the IT services environment for each individual IT Service Area. Evaluation of this factor shall focus on the strengths, weaknesses, and risks of the Offeror’s proposal, as well as demonstrated historical capability of engagements of similar size and complexity.

AR 795.

The RFP specified nine subfactors under the Technical/Management Factor. AR 796-97. Jacobs points to two of the nine subfac-tors as relevant to its bid protest: (1) Operational Integration and Integration Approach and (9) Transition Planning.

With respect to cost/priee, the agency would evaluate the offerors’ proposals based on Probable Cost and assess for reasonableness under Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). AR 798. The Probable Cost would be determined by USSOCOM in part based on the offerors’ proposed unit prices and the agency’s estimate of the quantity of users. Id.

Two aspects of the RFP process are particular focal points in the motions before the Court: (1) service desk support and (2) full operating capability.

The RFP indicated that offerors were required to provide per month per user prices for three different levels of service for IT service desk support — bronze, silver and gold levels. The RFP provided annual maximum quantities for each service level. USSOCOM provided historical information on the total number of users on a monthly basis and indicated that offerors were expected to “use that data along with their experience with similar efforts to develop an estimate of the effort required for the service desk effort.” AR 1038. The offerors were then only to provide unit prices for each level; the agency would evaluate offerors’ cost based on its estimate of the number of monthly users by level.

Although not stated in the RFP as such, full operating capability surfaced as an evaluation factor. USSOCOM’s Source Selection [189]*189Authority (“SSA”) evaluated the proposals2 based on a trade-off analysis and determined that Jacobs’ offer represented the best value to the government. AR 4284. In comparing the IBM and Jacobs proposals, the ratings for Jacobs for technical/management and past performance were higher than IBM. AR 4283. The SSA stated that “[ajlthough IBM’s [Most Probable Cost] is lower than Jacobs’, the Jacobs’ proposal included substantial benefits to the Government that merit the additional cost.” Id. The benefits noted by the SSA included, inter alia, Jacobs’ ability to achieve full operating capability [* * *]. AR 4283-84. Following the evaluation of the offerors and the source selection decision, USSOCOM awarded the ITSM contract to Jacobs.

IBM filed a bid protest on numerous grounds with the United States General Accountability Office (“GAO”), and the agency stayed performance of the contract. GAO sustained two grounds of IBM’s bid protest, concluding (1) that the agency evaluated proposals using an unstated evaluation factor, and (2) that the offerors did not have adequate information to compete on a relatively equal basis. GAO recommended that the agency issue an amendment to the solicitation and provide all offerors the opportunity to submit revised proposals. AR 33853. Specifically, GAO recommended that the RFP be amended to include information relating to the agency’s requirement for full operating capability and information with respect to service desk user requirements that would be used for cost evaluation purposes. Id.

USSOCOM adopted GAO’s recommendations and amended the solicitation to include, inter alia, information related to the agency’s full operating capability requirements and service desk user requirements. AR 33165.

B. Procedural History

On March 21, 2011, Jacobs filed a bid protest in this court challenging the agency’s decision to follow GAO’s recommendations.3 On April 11, 2011, Jacobs filed a motion for judgment on the administrative record. In response, the Government filed a motion to dismiss, and, in the alternative, a cross-motion for judgment on the administrative record. IBM, as defendant-intervenor, also filed a response and cross-motion for judgment on the administrative record.4

With respect to the Government’s motion to dismiss, in the May 16, 2011 Opinion and Order, the Court denied the Government’s [190]*190motion and held that (1) this Court has jurisdiction over Jacobs’ claims pursuant to the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C.

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Jacobs Technology Inc. v. United States, 100 Fed. Cl. 186, 2011 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1152, 2011 WL 3100353 (uscfc 2011).

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