Some 160 members of the community--present team members or those whose work has been completed--gathered in mid-October to hear progress reports on reengineering at MIT. Highlights included:
- Professors Jonathan Allen, director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and Rosalind H. Williams, dean for undergraduate education and student affairs, have been appointed to the Reengineering Steering Committee.
- The student services reengineering effort has begun with two teams working intensively on assessment and redesign (Tech Talk, October 25, 1995).
- About one-third of the campus is now getting mail via Distributed Mail Centers; some cost savings have been realized on aggregated outgoing mail, and a new central mail facility is expected to be in operation next spring.
- Conversion of custodial services into zoned teams is continuing at about one area per month and should be completed by the end of the year.
- The repair and maintenance pilot in the East Zone is working well with members of the team reporting satisfaction with "job ownership" and being able to solve building problems early, or in one case, before the problem had even been noticed.
More extensive reports were presented on the Electronic Catalog/Procurement Card and on Training and Development which will be covered in future articles.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on November 1, 1995.
