The Red and Black is the local University of Georgia campus newspaper that is organized by students and is intended primarily for students, faculty, and employees of the school. The Red and Black tries to represent the students and community in the newspaper and distributes it five days a week to 51 locations across campus, downtown, and other University buildings. However, the distributing process is not adequately efficient and areas of high demand on campus frequently go through the day with no available papers. A team of six students (the "Brat Pack") from Tony Polito's MAN320 class set out to improve this problem.

First, a root cause analysis was performed to determine exactly what the reasons were for the problem. The locations of the newspaper bins, the number of papers delivered to these bins and the lack of delivery appeared to be the main causes. It was brought to our attention toward the end of our study that moving or adding a bin requires University verification, which, as one might expect, can take excessive amounts of time. In an effort to avoid time problems we focused only on the number of papers delivered to existing bins.

The Red and Black provided us with information about the delivery numbers for each of the 51 locations. Between 3am and 5am, 15,750 newspapers, in packets of 25, are divided up and placed in the bins. Also at this time the old papers from the previous day are to be removed. Two hundred fifty other papers are distributed to people who individually subscribe. The Red and Black only prints 16,000 copies because they rely on the theory that people will share papers. Roommates, for example, are expected to share a single paper instead of getting a copy each. The Red and Black believes that people will share their paper with their friends or leave them in class rooms for others to read. This concept appears to be overly idealistic and results in erroneous forecasting.

As a team, we gathered data to see which bins were empty or full. We also took note if they were filled in the morning and observed the location for accessibility. One of the first problems we noticed was that high frequency areas like the Chemistry bus stop, Caldwell Hall, and some dormitories would be empty by 10:00am. More remote areas like the Veterinary School and McWhorter Hall would have an excess of papers at the end of the day. Surprisingly, the Main Library and the Tate Students Center would also have newspapers at the end of the day. This shows that some bins do not need as many papers as forecasted by the Red and Black while other areas suffer from under-forecasting.

Some other noticeable problems are that the papers were not delivered on time and some bins were not filled at all during the week we were acquiring data. In fact, the bin at the Driftmier building had papers dating three days before instead of having new papers. At the Athletic Building and the Continuing Education building, any extra papers left by the end of the day are thrown away by employees of these buildings which discouraged an accurate count.

The location of the bins in a given building were a problem as well. Bins are placed so that only a frequent visitor to the building would be able to locate them. We found that many students did not know the location of the bins at these buildings. For instance, student employees of the music library did not know where the Performing Arts Building bin might be found. The fact that some students do not know where to pick up a paper does not allow us to judge if an area is truly high traffic or not by looking at the end of day excess.

Despite the problems discussed above, we were able to obtain reasonably accurate data. We observed that the Main Library, Tate Center, Veterinary School, McWhorter Hall, and the Chicopee Building consistently has a large amount of newspapers left at the en of the day. Since the papers are already in stacks of 25, we decided that any newspaper bin that exceeded 25 newspapers at the end of the day should have the delivery number changed. For example, the newspaper bin at McWhorter Hall has an average of 42 extra papers. If 25 were removed and placed at another site, he average decreases to 17 extra papers per day.

We contacted the Red and Black to see if they could change the delivery numbers for certain bins. We discussed removing excess papers from the bins located at the locations listed above and placing them in under-stocked bins located at Caldwel Hall, Chemistry Building, Ramsey Student Center, Park Hall, and some dormitories. The Red and Black instead wants to use the excess to start two new bins: one at Myers Hall and the other at Memorial Hall. In addition, they wants to change the locations of several bins to areas with more "walk-by" traffic such as the Performing Arts Building, the Ramsey Center, and Brooks Hall. Unfortunately, the University has not yet approved the addition of the new bins or the change of locations. The Red and Black has realized that their distribution process is problematic and has adopted a continuous improvement plan to amend the situation.

Send comments, questions, etc to Adam Pye