In its unsuccessful bid protest of the Air Force’s B-21 award to Northrop Grumman, Boeing argued the service failed to give proper effect to the solicitation’s technical acceptability, according to a redacted bid protest decision released Tuesday.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) in February denied Boeing’s argument to the solicitation’s technical acceptability, saying the Air Force’s evaluation of Northrop Grumman’s proposal under the technical capability factor was reasonable and consistent with the request for proposals (RFP). GAO said the record shows that the evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation’s terms.
Boeing also challenged the cost realism analysis. GAO, again, denied this, saying the Air Force performed an evaluation of major cost categories utilizing well-established realism methodologies and relevant historical cost information available to the service. Finally, GAO said with respect to the cost/price evaluation, it saw no support for Boeing’s argument that the Air Force failed to reasonably account for Northrop Grumman’s technical risks in the cost realism analysis and cannot conclude that that the Air Force’s realism evaluation of Boeing’s was flawed.
In its decision, GAO said the record demonstrates that the Air Force reasonably interpreted the RFP evaluation criteria, including the role of the system requirements document (SRD), statement of work (SOW) requirements and definition of acceptable in the technical capability evaluation.
GAO said significant structural advantages in Northrop Grumman’s proposal, specifically its labor rate advantage and decision to absorb significant company investment, also strongly impacted the outcome of this essentially low-price, technically acceptable (LPTA) procurement. GAO also said Northrop Grumman’s significantly lower proposed prices for the low rate initial production (LRIP) phase created a near insurmountable obstacle to Boeing’s proposal achieving best value, or to Boeing’s protest demonstrating prejudice in the cost realism evaluation.
