May 2013 – Gunnison awarded project to convert and migrate NADA data warehouses

Under contract to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), Gunnison will assist in converting several key databases from Oracle to SQL Server technologies. The goal is to reduce dramatically the license fees incurred for the database management software components.

Gunnison and NADA will jointly analyze the requirements for confidentiality, integrity and availability. NADA will implement new SQL Server hardware and software environments, with consulting assistance from Gunnison. Gunnison will then design the new databases and develop scripts and custom code to move all data and all database processes (i.e. stored procedures, functions, triggers, etc.) to the new environment.

The initial effort will attempt to duplicate current rules and results, so that we can use automated parallel testing to identify quickly any differences in the old and new systems. Follow-on efforts will involve refactoring and optimizing key features of the data warehouses.

For more information contact Paul Clemm at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

May 2013 – Gunnison Completes Assessment of 2012 Economic Census Direct Internet Reporting (DIR) System

Gunnison has supported the Census Bureau for several years in developing an Internet response system for small businesses to respond to economic censuses and surveys. Gunnison’s primary roles have been in the areas of planning; requirements development; testing and validation; training; and assessment. Gunnison has supported the Product Owner in maintaining the requirements backlog and negotiating the requirements to be included in each sprint release. We then have tested each release and maintained a defect repository for the project.

The assessment covers both the system used for the 2012 Economic Census and the project that created it. We evaluated the response rates for Internet and paper modes, including responses by trade/industry, response lag times, and the effect of reminder notices on the response modes and rates. We also evaluated the duplication rate, including paper duplicates, Internet duplicates, and cross-mode duplicates. We also assessed the effectiveness of the help desk and other support structures, with a detailed analysis of the types and volumes of requests for assistance.

Our assessment of the DIR project covered the project structure, organization and processes. We also performed a detailed analysis of change request (CR) volumes, types and dispositions, and defect report volumes, types and dispositions.

Gunnison will next support the DIR efforts for the 2013 industry classification forms and the 2013 Annual Survey of Manufacturers.

For more information contact Vilinda McCann at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Spring 2013 – Gunnison presents at National Children’s Study conferences

One of Gunnison’s key roles on the National Children’s Study has been to design, develop, implement and maintain the Master Data Element Specification (MDES). The MDES is both a metadata repository and a set of tools for updating, retrieving and reporting on the metadata. The MDES is a foundational component that helps integrate the many NCS Study Centers, contractors and scientists.

Gunnison presented an overview of the MDES at the NCS Data User’s Workshop. We also presented the latest MDES process improvement initiatives at the NCS Expanded Steering Committee Meetings held at the NIH Natcher Conference Center in Bethesda.

March 2013 – Gunnison awarded task to assist with rollout of agile development methods at the Census Bureau

Gunnison is a sub to Agilex on a new project to help the Census Bureau develop an enterprise-wide methodology for agile software development, and to support the adoption of agile approaches throughout the divisions. Our team will develop a variety of artifacts, from documentation of the full life cycle methodology to brief summaries and training materials. We will integrate agile options into the Bureau’s standard waterfall methodology, and we will assist early adopters of the new practices with project-specific consulting services.

For more information, contact Jonathan Krentel at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

January 2013 - Gunnison delivers Market Values iPhone application for the National Automobile Dealers Association

The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) has provided a subscription-based service for used car market values for many years. In the past this data was provided in printed handbooks exclusively. Under contract to NADA, Gunnison has just designed, developed and implemented a new mobile application that provides the latest available information on used vehicle market values on demand.

Gunnison and NADA jointly designed the user interface and the service that synchronizes data between NADA servers and the subscribers’ mobile devices. Gunnison adhered to all Apple design and release requirements, and successfully gained approval for delivering the software via the Apple Store.

The Market Values iPhone application allows the user to scan a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) bar code, whereupon the software decodes the VIN and retrieves the make, model, year and factory-installed options from the database. The user can enter the mileage and condition, and the software displays estimated wholesale and retail pricing as well as recent auction sales of comparable vehicles. Integration with AutoCheck allows the user to retrieve the AutoCheck score and the vehicle history report.

Market price data is updated monthly and auction sales data is updated weekly. All data is downloaded to the mobile device while synching, so that the application works seamlessly in remote areas without Internet or cell services.

Development tools included objective C, 7zip for compression, and Open Device Identification (ODI). The server database is SQL Server, with SQLite on the mobile devices. The back end is a restful web service written in C# and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

For more information, please contact Paul Clemm at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

December 2012 - Gunnison launches first agile development project for the American Community Survey (ACS)

The American Community Survey (ACS) is the Census Bureau’s flagship national survey of demographic, economic, employment and other data on persons in the U.S. It is a continuous survey that replaced the old long-form portion of the decennial Census.

Gunnison is partnering with the ACS program not only to design and develop new software components, but also to transform the way software is produced for the program. For the first ACS agile project, we are designing and developing a new rules engine to control the receipt, editing, cleaning, integration, and delivery of ACS data coming from multiple data capture modes. The new rules engine is an outgrowth of the effort to launch a new Internet response option, which Gunnison also supported. The rules engine is implemented primarily in Oracle 10g, with extensive stored procedures written in PL/SQL.

Gunnison provides a Certified Scrum Master (CSM), as well as requirements analysts, software architects, software engineers and testers. We are using Pivotal Tracker to document the high-level requirements, the sprint contents, the burn-down rates, and other agile artifacts. Census Bureau staff are integrated into the team as the Product Owners and the Subject Matter Experts.

For more information, please contact Lee Goldberg at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

September 2012 - Gunnison completes updates to the Census Bureau’s record linkage systems

The Person Identification and Validation System is the Census Bureau’s flagship system for uniquely identifying persons found in federal files, survey files, and commercial files. The system, developed over fifteen years, is used for matching everything from IRS and Medicare data to the data sold by commercial marketing firms. Gunnison evaluated the existing capabilities and designed and implemented many enhancements that improved the linkage rates and the link quality. Gunnison pioneered the transition from a record-by-record matching approach to an approach that better uses groups of records, such as full households, to make more and better links. Gunnison also enhanced the system’s reference files, the matching parameters, and the tools used to review and evaluate the link quality. For a sample survey data set, Gunnison’s enhancements resulted in linking over 30% of the records the system was previously unable to link.

For more information, please contact Norm Asher at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

July 2012 - Gunnison selected for $50 billion NIH CIO-SP3 program

 Gunnison has been selected as a prime contractor under the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Chief Information Officer (CIO) Solutions and Partners Three (SP3) program. CIO-SP3 is one of the largest Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWAC) for IT services. Although it is administered by NIH, it is open to use by all federal agencies, as well as state and local governments. The contract ceiling is $50 billion.

Through the bidding and evaluation process, contractors were challenged to demonstrate outstanding proficiency in each technical area they wished to be considered under. Gunnison made proposals for eight of the ten technical areas delineated in the Statement of Work, and we were awarded a contract authorizing us to work in seven of the areas. These areas are:

Task Area 1 – IT Services for Biomedical Research, Health Sciences, and Healthcare
Task Area 2 – Chief Information Officer (CIO) Support
Task Area 3 – Imaging
Task Area 6 – Integration Services
Task Area 7 – Critical Infrastructure Protection and Information Assurance
Task Area 8 – Digital Government
Task Area 10 – Software Development

CIO-SP3 is a task order contract, and tasks can be awarded anytime within ten years of the original contract award.

For more information, please contact Norm Asher at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .