The Anatomy of an In-plant Closing

摘要

Several years ago I was retained by a large public university to do an assessment of its printing department. A long-time director had retired, and her replacement passed away unexpectedly. The director's duties were divided between two acting co-directors-what could possibly go wrong there?-but service levels declined and financial performance became problematic. My task was to analyze the situation and make recommendations on how to proceed. The previous two or three years had been a nightmare for print users on campus, and administration wanted it fixed. The vice president responsible for the unit was optimistic, but he lacked the information to make an informed decision. On the last day of my site visit, I met with the VP. He explained the pressure he was under and how he really didn't want to close the shop. Then he hit me with the bomb. He said, "I get these reports that tell me all sorts of things: the number of jobs processed, and the number of impressions, or the sales volume-but I don't know what they mean! How do I tell that the print shop is doing a good job? And more importantly, how do I tell other administrators?"