Tag Archives: government RFP

When Should You Convert Microfiche?

Okay, so you either work with microfiche in your office OR you have come across a project which requires microfiche conversion. What are the signs saying you should invest in microfiche scanning?

You Have Too Many Microfiche

It may be hard to organize and work with thousands of microfiche cards on a daily basis or even to deal with the occasional microfiche request. On one end of the coin, you may have gotten used to dealing with so many microfiche- and perhaps it is even job security- but if you want to make your life easier and save your organization money, you might as well bite the bullet now. In fact, you may be surprised how inexpensive a microfiche conversion is compared to the labor already invested.

Your Microfiche is Decaying

Microfiche will get damaged from overuse, light, poor humidity, chemicals, water, cockroaches, and poor storage. If the microfiche starts to smell badly (like vinegar) you need to scan that microfiche as soon as possible or risk catastrophic loss. If you are not currently using standard microfiche preservation techniques, you are in trouble.

How to Perform Microfiche Scanning

If you or your organization has COM fiche, 35mm or 16mm microfiche jackets, step and repeat microfiche, or other types of microfiche, I’m sure you have wondered about how to digitize microfiche to PDF. The simplest way is to simply e-mail or call a scanning company like Generation Imaging to get a microfiche scanning quote.

Microfiche scanning requires specialized machinery called microfiche scanners, manufactured by such companies as Mekel, Sunrise, NextScan, and others. Microfiche scanners are not easy to set up and require microfiche scanner maintenance plans, experienced labor, and a whole network configuration. They also cost a ton of money.

Converting microfiche to digital images makes your life easier. Many microfilm government RFP bids require microfiche conversions as well, so if you come across a microfiche conversion job, feel free to contact this scanning company and see how you’d like to partner up. CONTACT US

Microfiche RFP Government Bids

July 20, 2009

Damian Hospital

Microfiche scanning No Comments

What is a Microfiche RFP?

RFP is an abbreviation of “Request for Proposals”, or in layman’s terms: a bid for a contract. Government entities, such as cities, counties, states, and federal, in addition to education institutions seek proposals from qualified firms to provide services for microfiche conversion in accordance with the terms, conditions, and specifications contained within the bid document.

Microfiche is a analogue media which contains tiny documents. RFPs usually need the microfiche to be converted to digital image, such as TIFF or PDF. Many times they also require indexing by title bar or the fields within the actual documents. Other times, OCR searchable PDF images or text files are required. Some government offices have an existing database with the data already there, but it needs to be merged with the digital output. Images can be stored on hard drives, CDs, DVD, USB flash drives, transferred via FTP, or hosted.

Microfiche RFPs are rare compared to the larger universe of government RFPs, which have every category you could imagine, from healthcare to building walls. Sometimes they are only a small part of a government bid which has document scanning, cameras, data entry, microfilm scanning, or cloud server solutions. In addition to microfiche conversion bids, there are actually microfiche creation, microfiche duplication, and microfiche equipment and supplies RFPs.

Many RFPs have insurance, logistics, company standards,and experience requirements. Although much of it may seem like boiler plate legal templates, the government will hold you accountable for everything contained within your submitted, signed RFP document.

Major website with government RFPs are Bidsync.com, FBO.gov, RFPMart.com, and governmentbids.com.

Thousands of organizations or individuals keep track of RFPs. If you are one of them but do not have microfiche scanning capabilities (since they are rare skills), consider outsourcing to a microfiche subcontractor such as Generation Imaging. Subcontractors are not frowned up, and are even permitted in most RFPs nowadays. Generation Imaging’s microfiche scanning work is performed in the United States. Generation Imaging has the RFP experience and microfiche scanners to partner with you for a government bid contract. CONTACT US

BidSync Review, Is RFPMart Real?

July 6, 2009

Damian Hospital

Microfiche scanning No Comments

BidSync Review

Periscope has bought over BidSync which had bought over RFP Depot and probably other government bidding opportunity websites since the early 2000s. So with Periscope buying up the big government RFP websites, how is is doing in 2017 and is it worth the price?

As much as Periscope wants to take over the name BidSync, most people who search for RFP use the term BidSync. So here is my BidSync review. I typed in “microfilm” and used all their default non-filtering search settings. Here are my results:

As you could see, I received four hits. BidSync has different software packages and 6-month to yearly commitments, starting at $499 for 6 months and topping off at $2,799 a year.

RFP Mart Review

Using RFP Mart, which only charges $9 with no commitment for individual RFP downloads, I received five active hits (their default setting which includes inactive listings 450 microfilm RFP opportunities). These leads were of better quality than BidSync’s. RFPMart offers monthly to annual packages based on category if you want unlimited downloads, similar to BidSync, ranging from around $25 a month to $950 a year (I did not view all their categories).

RFPMart.com vs BidSync.com

BidSync has better member services, videos, tutorials on how to write perfect bids, and has partnered exclusively with many government agencies. They give the impression that they are a large company with customer service representatives ready to assist you in any way.

RFP Mart gives the impression that it is an aggregate website which crawls government websites for their RFP info with no added on services. With two addresses- one in the US and one in India- it could be that they data mine these RFPs from public sources and sell this finding service to you cheaply.

Could You Find RFPs Without a Third Party?

If you have search engine kung fu, you could certainly attempt to backtrack these public bids by finding the government websites which offer them. But not only is it time consuming (with no guarantee of finding it due to poorly designed government websites) but without a third party, you will not be automatically alerted to new opportunities.

Keep in mind, some government entities will only allow you to respond to them via BidSync. BidSync has also caused some controversy.

Teaming Up For Microfiche Conversion

If you subscribe to RFP services like BidSync, RFP Mart, Onvia, FedBizOpps.gov and others, or you work with counties, cities, state governments, you may come across microfiche scanning portions of a bid.

If you do not have the capability to digitize microfiche (COM fiche, 16mm jackets fiche, 35mm microfiche, and other types), you should contact a microfiche scanning company that does. This scanning company can help any organizations who can’t handle the details of scanning microfiche for government entities.

Here is an example of what a basic microfiche solicitation looks like on RFP websites:

Product (RFP/RFQ/RFI/Solicitation/Tender/Bid Etc.) ID: DE-2292

Government Authority located in Missouri; USA based organization looking for expert vendor for microfilm rolls to digital image scanning and indexing services.

[A] Budget: Looking for proposal

[B] Scope of Service:

(1) Vendor needs to provide microfiche to digital image scanning and indexing services using minimum scanning resolution at 300 dpi into pdf format.
(2) Approximately work volume containing an estimate of 1.5 million Images.
(3) All questions must be submitted no later than a deadine.
(4) A contract term should be for one year.

[C] Eligibility:

Onshore (USA Only)

[D] Work Performance:

Performance of the work will be Offsite. Vendor needs to carry work in their office premises.

Expiry Date : [Deadline]

Category : Data Entry, Scanning, Records and Document Related Services

Country : USA

State : [insert state] CONTACT US