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Abstract

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is one of those rare public agencies that produces not a service but a physical product: in this case, currency and postage stamps. In the early 1990s, demand for the bureau''s product was by no means slackening, but the technology available to produce them was changing rapidly. A new currency press held the promise of a highly-automated printing technology that would both meet increased demand and achieve unparalleled efficiency. However, the bureau, like old- style newspapers, had long been organized around a series of hands-on, labor-intensive, compartmentalized tasks performed by skilled, unionized workers. This organizational change case frames the problem of an agency which believes it must adapt its structure and human resource practices to a new production process but must do so in what is likely to be a climate of resistance.

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Abstract

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is one of those rare public agencies that produces not a service but a physical product: in this case, currency and postage stamps. In the early 1990s, demand for the bureau''s product was by no means slackening, but the technology available to produce them was changing rapidly. A new currency press held the promise of a highly-automated printing technology that would both meet increased demand and achieve unparalleled efficiency. However, the bureau, like old- style newspapers, had long been organized around a series of hands-on, labor-intensive, compartmentalized tasks performed by skilled, unionized workers. This organizational change case frames the problem of an agency which believes it must adapt its structure and human resource practices to a new production process but must do so in what is likely to be a climate of resistance.

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