Summary: GAO discussed: (1) the Government Printing Office's (GPO) role in providing printing services to the government; and (2) certain operational problems at GPO. GAO found that in-house production costs were generally double the costs of procuring printing services outside of GPO because: (1) of the scheduling of weekend overtime; (2) major press and bindery machines were idle an average of 53 percent of the time they were scheduled to operate; (3) GPO wasted or spoiled 28 percent of its total paper; and (4) almost 50 percent of the production equipment was at least 15 years old. GAO also found that: (1) efficiency goals were not generally met and were, in some cases, lower than private standards; (2) GPO had no system to identify and implement quality improvements; (3) GPO relied on post-production inspections to identify printing and binding errors; (4) GPO did not effectively sanction contractors or validate whether contractors delivered work on time; and (5) GPO did not know the extent of customer dissatisfaction because its records did not adequately count the complaints filed for 1989.
