More Related Content Similar to 170 sspcc1 d_davis (20) More from Society for Scholarly Publishing (20) 170 sspcc1 d_davis2. Case Study 2: Why BMJ Group Decided to
Outsource Specialist Journals
Background to BMJPG
Ø Commercial arm of the British Medical
Association (BMA)
Ø Flagship journal - Weekly BMJ (bmj.com)
Ø 23 specialist titles (BMJJs)
Ø Evidence based products
• Clinical Evidence (CE) (>2,500pp)
Ø Significant online presence (most with
Highwire)
Ø New initiatives
• BMJ Learning
• Best Treatments
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3. Background to Case Study
Ø Typesetting brought in-house mid-1996
• Interleaf
Ø Interleaf contract cancelled end of 1996
• In favour of Xyvision
• Traditional typesetting system
• Powerful batch pagination
Ø 26 staff
• Pre-editing
• Typesetting
• File delivery / conversion / archiving
• Web administrators
Ø High salaries / benefits; Central London;
‘recharges’
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4. The Pressures in 2002
Ø High cost of typesetting (per page)
• Backed up by comparisons with other publishers
Ø Core business?
Ø Turnaround times erratic
Ø Xyvision wasn’t “XML aware”
Ø Small development team in-house
• We could not progress quickly
Ø Capital investment
Ø Publishers using offshore alternatives
Ø Efficiency Review
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5. The Good Stuff
(What we did well in-house)
Ø Quality
Ø Dedicated team
Ø Respected
Ø Workflows
Ø Autoproofing
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6. Efficiency Review
Ø Activity Based Costing by another name!
Ø Most departments
Ø Consultant led
Ø Mapping all jobs
• Tasks
• Time taken
Ø Actual cost of tasks derived
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7. Efficiency Review (continued)
Ø Brainstorms (all staff)
• Analysing tasks and roles
• What could be done better?
• Duplication of effort?
• Move tasks to another team?
• Outsource tasks?
Ø Develop ideas; cost solutions
Ø Approve and implement
Ø Strive for 20% savings; expect 6%
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8. Cost review project
Ø Team set up to analyse costs and potential
changes
Ø Included:
• typesetting team managers
• typesetters
• Operations Director
Ø Some process analysis
• Looking at handovers, workflows (galleys)
• Considered technologies, systems etc
Ø Overlapped with (and superceded by)
Efficiency Review
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9. Outsourcing Review
Ø Started in 2002; formal project
Ø Project manager from Print Production
Ø Operations Director was sponsor
Ø Team included Editorial staff
• Expertise and buy-in
Ø Considered all products
• BMJ
• BMJJs
• CE
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10. Outsourcing Review: Objectives
Ø To reduce cost
Ø To maintain or improve quality
Ø To improve turnaround time
• Resilience
Ø To reduce time to publication
Ø To refine and improve workflows
Ø To replicate autoproofing facility (more later)
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11. Outsourcing Review: Process
Ø Formal structure:
• Invitation to Tender
• Request for Proposal
– Detailed Specification
– Supplied pricing matrix for ease of comparison
• Review and Shortlist
– Scoring system weighted objectives
– Cost; quality; proposal quality; systems; size; customer base;
risk, training and development; business continuity
arrangements
• Visits
– UK (BMJ)
– China (BMJJs)
– India (BMJJs and CE)
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12. Process (continued)
• Financial Reports / Trade references
• Further discussions with shortlisted suppliers
– Clarification of service / costs
– Teasing out startup and any hidden costs
• Consideration of remaining in-house operation
– Size (for resilience / cost effectiveness)
– Structure
– Redundancies and costs
• Decision and recommendation to the Executive
– Via formal business case
– Including staff redundancy costs
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13. The decision
Ø To retain BMJ in-house
• Not comfortable with any other supplier
• Weekly journal leaves no room for error
• Editorial liked the close proximity
Ø To retain CE in-house
• Slick in-house solution
• Used Xyvision’s batch pagination to great effect
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14. The decision (continued)
Ø To outsource BMJ Journals
• To The Charlesworth Group
– UK company with Beijing typesetting operation
– UK Point of Contact deemed very important
• Looked like best ‘organisational fit’
• Recommended phased handover
• Loss of eight staff through redundancy
• Page price reduced by at least two thirds
• Savings helped some failing journals
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15. Implementation Phase
Ø Following Exec approval
• New project – ‘Implementation’
• Same sponsor
• New project manager (me)
Ø New team
• BMJ Journals specific
• Kept Editorial presence
- Key stakeholder
- Expertise and buy-in
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16. Objectives
Ø New objectives:
• Implement transition of BMJ Journals
typesetting
– On time
– Within budget
– While achieving original objectives
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17. Methods
Ø Project management techniques
• Regular (structured) meetings
• Clear actions and dates
• Project plan
• Risk register
Ø Used Charlesworth’s implementation
experience
Ø Phased transition over 4 months
• Avoid big bang
• Sensible phasing (journal frequencies; printers)
• Resource still available in-house
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18. Considerations
Ø Managing the fear of change
• Regular communication
• Use project team to disseminate news
• Training; support; documentation
Ø Don’t forget third parties
• Keep them informed
– New workflows
– New delivery methods
– Timescales
– TEST!
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19. The detail
Ø Major tasks included:
• Creating more than 30 unique templates in
Charlesworth’s system (Advent 3B2)
– Helped by detailed documentation (2002 Redesign)
– Enormous effort to build and test / QA
• Creating new Word templates for copy editors
– With simple installation
• Migrating covers to Charlesworth’s Quark
system
• Imparting knowledge to Beijing via UK office
– Chinese whispers?!
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20. The detail (continued)
Ø Charlesworth dedicated project manager
and senior software developer
• Very professional
• Eased the transition
• Helped solve the mysteries of XML
• Despite all this, there were setbacks, errors,
wrong assumptions, miscommunications …
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21. Developing ‘The Good Stuff’
Ø Autoproofing
• Copy editors create typeset pages …
• … and deliver to authors within minutes
• Already developed in-house
– but on a small scale
• Charlesworth helped us to:
– Refine
– Develop
– Integrate
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23. Key Successes
Ø Project was on time
Ø … and on budget
• No hidden / unexpected costs
Ø Our journals are now XML based
Ø Overall process more integrated and
seamless
Ø Have continued to develop the workflows
and systems
Ø Additional revenue stream realised (Online
First)
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24. Lessons
… From both typesetting review 2002 and
copy editing review 2006
Ø Visiting was the right thing to do
• Helped manage people’s perceptions of
working conditions, moral implications etc
Ø Don’t underestimate the size of the task
• Moving work is a big deal
• Ongoing management of outsourced work
• Schedule (and cost) regular visits / reviews
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25. Lessons? (continued)
Ø Refer back to Objectives
Ø Lots of Quality Assurance
Ø Test as much as you can
• Deliveries to third parties …
Ø Consider parallel working
• Cost can be prohibitive
Ø Documentation and detail essential
• Be specific about requirements
• Document workflows and methods for users
Ø Relationship can drive both organisations
forward
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26. Lessons? (continued)
Ø Local point of contact priceless
Ø Budget realistically – problems happen
Ø Allow time for contract approval
Ø Risk analysis (pros and cons at least)
Ø Communicate!!
Ø Sense check resources; don’t be afraid to stop
and take stock
Ø Schedule and cost visits (remember how much
you’re saving…)
Ø Take the opportunity to review processes and
workflows
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