Most of you have probably figured out that I’m a workflow geek. I love reading about people’s workflow and how they optimize their daily tasks. Popular Mechanics has a great article on The New York Times workflow. Many people in many different jobs collaborate, often under rigorous time constraints, to get each day’s paper into the hands of its readers.
The article starts out at 1:35 AM at the Times printing plant. Just getting the rolls of newsprint loaded for use by the presses is a major undertaking. They have a control room that the director of plant operations describes as an indoor traffic control tower. The facility is so large that the crew uses adult size tricycles and golf carts to get around.
The story moves on to 6:20 AM when one of the editors opens her eyes and starts checking on what happened overnight. The story continues through the day covering editorial meetings, dropping by the NYT R&D lab (yes really) and finally ends with the paper route couriers picking up and assembling the papers before delivering them to readers.
It’s a machine with a huge number of moving parts. Not all of those parts are covered with glory but every one is a necessary cog needed to get the readers’ daily papers to their doorsteps. Most people don’t think about what it takes to deliver their everyday amenities so articles like this serve to remind us that even quotidian articles can require a complicated and sophisticated operation for their production.
If you like knowing how things work, you’ll enjoy this article. It’s a look at something most of us don’t often think about.