Index

Information Management

Printing and Reproduction

Introduction/Background

Date of last assessment:  October 1999

Departmental Overview

Laboratory Mission

The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) is dedicated to experimental and theoretical research in elementary particle physics and in those fields that make use of its synchrotron radiation facilities, including biology, chemistry, geology, material science and electrical engineering. This includes the development of new techniques in particle acceleration and detection, and of synchrotron radiation sources and associated instrumentation. The Center is operated as a national user facility for the Department of Energy by Stanford University.

The Printing and Reproduction functional area self-assessment is based on, and measured against, performance objectives and standards as reflected in Performance Based Management measures that were jointly defined by SLAC managers and their DOE/OAK counterparts in order to address customer satisfaction, cost efficiency, and contract compliance.

Bill Johnson, IRM Computing Manager, BSD

Larry Fisher, Buyer, Purchasing Department, BSD

Dianne Morris, Acting Manager of the Reproduction Facility, Mechanical Design

1. Develop more meaningful measures for double side copying.

The Duplicating Facility is the only copying activity at the Laboratory where records are kept of the number and nature of copies produced; however the Facility handles less than 20% of the copies generated at SLAC—the other 80% are generated by convenience copiers.  No automated process exists for capturing information from the convenience copiers, and manual methods are too labor intensive and intimidating to be practical.  It would appear there is a better measure available than the Duplicating Facility measurement. 

2. Continue to expand the use of the web as a test for document distribution.

Performance Objective/Measure: The Laboratory manages information as a corporate resource to improve the quality of its products, to add value to scientific programs and customer services, and as a tool to improve its work processes. Information will be made available rapidly and cost effectively and will be distributed to the public, industrial partners and stakeholders, as appropriate.

Assumptions: For purposes of this performance objective, the "information management" elements include Printing and Reproduction.

Process used to meet objective/measure: Three representative measures have been chosen that reflect the performance of the SLAC Reproduction facility, an area where measurements are readily available.

Details of these measures are summarized in Appendix A

1. The percentage of double-sided copying in the Reproduction Facility has dropped to 53.6%. There appears to be a continuing downward trend during the past three years.  Last year’s value might have been explainable as a fluctuation, but the value this year is more than three standard deviations below the 67% nominal goal.  This clearly does not meet expectations, but may reflect the needs of a research facility where personal efficiency and specialized applications take precedent over absolute efficiency.
2. Cost per copy has decreased over the figure for FY99: Our costs are now $0.0608 per copy, up substantially from previous years.

3. Customer satisfaction remains very high as indicated in the on-going customer satisfaction survey. This far exceeds expectations.

Discussion: As noted above, gradients for the percentage of double-sided copying are based on Duplicating Facility records that comprise slightly less than 20% of the copying done at SLAC.  The sample handled by the Duplicating Facility probably differs substantially from the 80% generated by convenience copiers and probably is composed of large volume jobs and may contain large numbers of single sided “poster” jobs.  Although modern convenience copiers produce double-sided copies more reliably than in former times, it is unlikely that the 67% goal could have been achieved with convenience copiers either.  People would probably prefer double sided copies in order to reduce paper volume but have been conditioned by paper jams and other malfunctions of copying equipment to accept single sided copies as a more efficient use of time.

The cost-per-copy figure for the Duplicating Facility has returned a value similar to those seen in previous years. Since the Duplicating Facility has essentially a fixed operating costs, cost-per-copy depends almost entirely on required volume.  The Laboratory simply doesn’t seem to need such high volume duplication. This is not necessarily a bad thing and perhaps indicates simply a cost threshold phenomenon that the Laboratory must maintain in order to provide volume duplication facilities.

Customer satisfaction is extremely high and we intend to continue to maintain that high satisfaction.

Treating each of the divisional components of this functional area independently:

1. In the area of convenience copying, customer satisfaction appears to be satisfactory. No complaints have been reported by Purchasing; new copiers seem to be performing adequately.
2. Customers of the SLAC Reproduction facility indicated very high satisfaction in their satisfaction survey.
3. The Technical Publications department has received many complements regarding their progress in Web availability of SLAC publications.

Again treating divisional components separately:

1. For convenience copiers, costs and efficiency are still well served with the current mix of vendors (predominately Kodak and Konica with one Xerox copier added).
2. For the Reproduction Facility costs, efficiency, and customer satisfaction remain excellent as indicated in the performance measures. There appears to be very little room for improvement in this area.
3. As indicated, Technical Publications now makes SLAC publications available almost exclusively via the Web. This is an efficient distribution system for both Laboratory staff and the entire High Energy Physics community, and especially for SLAC collaborators at other institutions. It also puts the burden of printing costs (i.e., paper and printer maintenance) directly onto the user requesting documents.

SLAC is in compliance with all DOE Orders dealing with Printing and Reproduction.