by Christopher L. Grachanen
Volume 13:2, Jul-Sep 2006
In today’s ever aggressive bottom-line protection, cost-cutting environment there are no sacred cows. This is especially true for internal support services. These services are enablers in the development and building of products but are not considered direct contributors as are engineering and manufacturing departments. Internal support services are often viewed as generic commodities that may be easily replaced by another comparable commodity in cookie cutter fashion. Cursory assessments of internal support services generally show them as being unsophisticated in mission and complexity. As a result of first tier evaluations, internal support services are often categorized as low hanging fruit, ripe for outsourcing with the potential to reduce both headcount and cost to an organization. Metrology support services are frequently lumped in with other internal support services, i.e. janitorial, grounds maintenance, payroll accounting, etc., and as such are vulnerable to the mindset associated with previous outsourcing successes for these types of services.
