The purpose of the Quarterly Survey of Plant Capacity Utilization (QPC) is to provide quarterly statistics on the rates of capacity utilization for the U.S. manufacturing and publishing sectors.

In order to conserve taxpayer time and money, the Census Bureau is moving from paper- based data collection to online-based collection. To report online, you will need the authentication code provided to your company by the Census Bureau.

Title 13 United States Code (U.S.C.), Section 8(b); Title 50 U.S.C. Section 98, et.seq; and Title 12 U.S.C. Section 244 authorizes the Census Bureau to conduct this collection.  The U.S. Census Bureau is required by Section 9 of the same law to keep your information confidential and can use your responses only to produce statistics. The Census Bureau is not permitted to publicly release your responses in a way that could identify your business, organization, or institution.  Per the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, your data are protected from cybersecurity risks through screening of the systems that transmit your data.

This collection has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  The eight-digit OMB approval number is 0607-0175.   Without this approval, we could not conduct this survey.

Below are a few common items you can use to verify the legitimacy of this survey:

1. Ensure the Web address provided in the letter is a "census.gov" domain.
2. Reporting information is provided in the letter.
3. On the log-in screen, a warning message should be present stating the respondent is accessing a U.S. Government computer.
4. Once logged in, the upper right corner of the page should display the OMB eight-digit number and expiration date. This number indicates that the OMB has approved the survey and has confirmed there is a need to collect the information.
5. The bottom of the log-in screen should have a link for the “Burden Statement” which also contains the OMB eight-digit number.