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As co-chair of the College Media Advisors Technology Committee for several years, I wrote a bimonthly column in the group's newsletter. This column appeared in March 1990. It focuses on management instead of technology - but that was an issue for most student-run newspapers. I include it now because the underlying principles are timeless. I liked the column logo.

One of the ongoing challenges of any production department is to get the paper out on deadline. Sometimes the problems lie with the editorial department, sometimes with production -- and sometimes, it's difficult to tell just where the problem is on any give night.

At The Minnesota Daily one of the emphases in production (which is totally student-managed at night - I'm home in bed) is training students to manage the graphic arts process.

We define management as more than bossing people around and fixing equipment when it breaks. Among other things, a manager allocates resources available in a manner that will achieve the desired goal most efficiently.

The three main resources in production are, people, time and tools. The night supervisor must know when to put a specific person using specific tools at a specific task.

For instance, we often get backed up in the camera room when there are still halftones to shoot, as well as pages ready for negatives.

The supervisor must decide when to open up the second camera room and take a person off page makeup to shoot page negatives instead.

If pages are allowed to pile up at the end of the night we might miss deadline because each page negative takes about two minutes of camera room time, and 10 pages at deadline can suddenly add more than 20 minutes to lock up. (For those of you who never played with hot lead, 'lock up' refers to the time the last chase of lead type is done, or 'locked up' in the steel chase.)

Time Log

One of the techniques we use to help train managers and spot problems is a time log, which is then mapped out and color coded on a worksheet that displays the entire evening. Removed from the hustle of the night, a management trainee can study what happened, see where the problems are and plot strategy for avoiding similar problems in the future.

These charts also have been helpful in working with the editorial staff. In one instance, we met with photographers and demonstrated for them why it is important to send a cutline with a photo, rather than writing cutlines when all photos are done.

The chart illustrated that, EXCEPT for cutlines, numerous pages were complete, sometimes for a number of hours.

Putting together the chart involves recording the basic information as to when any page element is received in production and when each assembled step is completed. The computer time-stamps all text when it is received from the newsroom and we record most other times in a corner of the page layout order, or the paste up sheet.

I sit down the next morning and map the information. It is time consuming, especially when there are more than two dozen pages with editorial content, but it has been very worthwhile.

No Witch-Hunt

In implementing this program I emphasized it is not a witch-hunt but a training device. I do not ask individuals to identify their work because I am looking for systems problems, not individual performance failure. The staff has been very cooperative and eagerly comes in the next day to see how they did.

Supervisors have learned the importance of taking time to do regular status checks of their pages, even if there is other work to do. When a staff person is promoted to supervisory responsibilities it takes the person a while to really learn that their first job is to be sure everyone else is working EFFECTIVELY before sitting down at a terminal and doing any work.

To determine if staff are being used effectively, one must first know what is available to be done, the order in which work has to be done, and the skill levels of the available staff.

At Minnesota, the early evening usually is devoted to training, as the work load is light. When the crunch occurs, around 10:30 or 11 p.m., staff usually are moved to the assignments (pagination, camera room, paste up) at which they are the most experienced.

Working with the student managers and the editorial department we are seeing significant improvement as people not only learn the critical tasks of their jobs but also understand how the work of others interrelates with their own.

A sample Process Analysis page