United States International Trade Commission 500 ''E'' Street, S.W., Room 214 Washington, D.C. 20436

70 -- SOURCES SOUGHT FOR INFORMATION REGARDING AVAILABILITY OF ''QUESTIONNAIRE PROCESSING SOFTWARE'' SOL ITC-RFI-95-0002 DUE 052495 POC Lois T. Waterhouse, Contracting Officer (202) 205-2730. The Office of Investigations of the United States International Trade Commission requests information on the availability of commercial off-the-shelf or custom modified PC software to process questionnaire data and produce tables depicting such data. The questionnaires containing detailed information on the operations of firms producing, importing, and purchasing merchandise subject to trade investigations, including for example, capacity to produce, production, shipments, inventories, employment, profit-and-loss experience, imports, and selling or purchase prices. Except for pricing, this information is normally collected for the last three full years and any partial-year periods to date; pricing is normally collected on a quarterly basis for at least the most recent 12 quarters. For the non-price data, a typical producer questionnaire for an investigation covering one product would contain approximately 500 entries and typical importer and purchaser questionnaires for an investigation involving one foreign country would contain approximately 150 entries. For the price data, typical producer, importer, and purchaser questionnaires for an investigation covering one product and one foreign country would contain approximately 400 entries. Investigations often involve more than one product and more than one foreign country. The number of questionnaires used in an investigation varies considerably, ranging from less than 10 to more than 500. Processing time is always of the essence inasmuch as all investigations are conducted under tight statutory limits. Typical processing time would not exceed one week. ''Processing'' requirements are not complex, but flexibility and many data checks are required to be built into the software. Data are normally totalled, averaged, and related to one another (for example, capacity and production to calculate capacity utilization; quantity and value of shipments to calculated average unit values; one period to another to calculate percentage changes; and, after calculating consumption from domestic and import shipment, those data and consumption to calculate market shares). Flexibility is necessary to aggregate data in various ways depending on issues raised in particular investigations (for example, subsets of data for different combinations of firms and/or products or exclusions of specific firms from totals). Typical data-check requirements include ensuring that all calculations are made from appropriate base numbers (for example, that all responding firms reported both capacity and production before the capacity utilization calculation is made) and flagging data that should reconcile but do not (for example, sales and costs data that should sum to profits but do not). Irrespective of the software used to process the data, tables must be generated in word processing compatible format so they can be incorporated into reports. A graphic capability, and/or ability to be exportable to popular spreadsheet, graphic, and other PC packages for further manipulation and analysis is also extremely desirable. The agency's computer facility is a Banyan VINES LAN with 10 Compaq Proliant servers. The ''standard'' workstation is a PC with Intel 486/33 processor, running Windows, and having 8 Megs Ram and a 210 Meg hard-drive. We also have a HP9000 running HP-UX, VINES ENS, and Oracle 7.0 that is accessible to all PCs. Multiple ongoing investigations, with multiple users needing simultaneous access will be the standard operating situation. System administrator should be able to oversee data security, selectively providing and limiting access and other user capabilities. Current questionnaire processing is done by manual entry, using complex SAS programs that can be run only by programmers. We want to move from this system to one that allows non-programmers to handle all aspects of the data processing (program development/tailoring, data entry, processing, and table generation). Any replacement system should not require a skill set beyond that necessary for basic spreadsheets. Staff in the office, as well as the existing SAS programs, sample questionnaires, and sample tables are available for guidance/reference as desired. There is no guarantee that the USITC will issue a contract as a result of responses received in conjunction with this Request for Information. Interested parties should submit information relative to their capabilities and experience. No solicitation document exists, and this is not a request for proposals. This synopsis is a request for information only, and responses shall be submitted to the attention of Eldee Whitehead at the address listed above by 3:00 p.m., Eastern Standard Time (E.S.T.), May 24, 1995. Only written responses will be accepted. Hearing impaired individuals are advised that information on this matter can be obtained by contacting our TDD terminal at (202) 205-2648. (0125)

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