In-plant 
Audits Help Improve 
Performance

Keeping Track

For each of these six critical areas, the new white paper details specific action items in-plant analysts should include in their evaluation. In the Financial Performance section, for example, one of the action items is "Keep Track of What Gets Done."

"One of the problems of overseeing a busy in-plant operation is that you are so busy pushing out one job after another that you seldom have time to step back and look at the totality of what you are producing," explains Fenton. "But you cannot reasonably assess your productivity, cost-effectiveness or competitiveness if you don't know what your organization's in-plant investment has achieved for your customers and your parent company. A key evaluation step, therefore, is to pull together a realistic assessment of what you have done over the last one to three, or even one to five years." (See sidebar for a list of what you should measure.)