Productivity Monitoring and Analysis in the Publications Office: Techniques for the Nonstatistician

摘要

Increases in the cost of providing publication services have caused much concern for publications personnel who must carefully assess the effectiveness of their operation to remain within a fixed budget and to offer high-quality service to the user community at an acceptable price. The consequent emphasis on production accountability can be very frustrating for those who have little or no training in the methods of formal statistical analysis and for whom support from professional statisticians or sophisticated computer systems is too expensive or unavailable. In this presentation, several analytical methods are described that are based on common mathematical functions and, depending on the size of the organization, normally do not require computer support. Examples of the uses of time, cost, and volume data for assessing the operating effectiveness of various publications-related functions are presented and explained, and inherent limitations of the statistical approach are identified. (ERA citation 07:010088)