March 3, 2004 -- ABC Advisors, consultants for 30 years to printers seeking Federal Government work through the Government Printing Office, is reminding printers interest in succeeding in that market of the importance in understanding GPO's quality program. Known as the Quality Assurance Through Attributes Program, or QATAP, ABC says it is essential that a printer who is new or contemplating entry into the GPO market take the time to understand the objective, rather than subjective, quality standards used by GPO. New GPO printers can establish a quality rating through submission of samples of their work to the GPO's Quality Assurance Section in Washington, D.C. That Section's review will decide the highest level of work in which a GPO Contracting Officer can award work to a competitive bidder. QATAP actually lists three general categories of quality, printing, finishing, and paper, with a number of measurable attributes under each. 33-year GPO veteran Norman Campbell, a Printing Specialist in the Quality Assurance Division, says many printers are certainly good enough to do quality work for Federal Agencies through GPO, but are unfamiliar with the QATAP program. "In some cases, printers have overrated the quality they can produce for Federal Agencies," Campbell says. "But, in all fairness, they have never had their work looked at in the objective manner that we do at GPO, but instead are just provided the commercially-accepted subjectivity rating that basically grades a job as passing or failing." Doug Parks, a long time consultant with ABC Advisors says learning and adhering to QATAP is not only essential in being successful in the GPO market, but has paid significant dividends to many printers he has worked with over the years. "Printers who have entered the GPO market and learned to apply QATAP to work produced for the Federal Government have, some times for the first time, placed a quality control system in their facility that is consistent and can be applied to all work, " Parks explains. "This has helped many commercial printers do a better job with the quality of all of their work and, in the end, further improve business." ABC says new GPO Contractors submitting samples for the first time should include: - Their latest equipment list - The single page GPO Form 2689 known as the Evaluation Sample Certificate - 10 samples that have been produced within the last six months, clearly marked on what equipment each piece was produced and representing a cross section of the type of work that the contractor would like to produce.