第三輯? TEST 2
PART ONE
A: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Factories of the Year award. My name is Jonathoan Hargreaves, and I'm Cheif Executive of the Institute of Production Research, which organized these awards, in association with Barrington Business School. I'm delighted to introduce to you the school's professor of manufacturing science, Jacqueline Allen, who again chaired the panel of judges, Jacqueline.
B: Thank you, Jonathan, and good morning, everyone. This year's search for the Factories of the Year has produced a bumper crop（大豐收）of outstanding winners, which is very welcome proof that the old economy isn't dead, but is emerging revitalized from its recent problems. As ever, we initiated our search for the best by sending each participating foctory a questionnaire. This consisted of fourteen pages and probably more questions than the recipients (接收者，受訪者) would have liked.?

From their answers, each factory was assessed on a basket of perfromance criteria. Some of these were immediately measurable, like handover times, which of course can have a big impact on productivity, and which are showing a healthy tendency towards being shortened. Another was delivery reliability, a high score in which is essential for any customer led organization. Other criteria which we considered were less tangible, but no less important for that. We took staff morale very seriously, because if it's poor it can have measurable results such as high staff turnover and high accident rate. And if a business can't easily handle change, it may create more problems than it solves, and its future is unlikely to be secure.?

The next step was for the panel of judges to assess the results and devise a shortlist（制定入圍名單你）. We then visited these factories. I must say I found it fascinating to see so many factories in action. As a result of these visits, we came up with the three winners in each caregory. The factories that emerged from this process shared some familiar characteristics. Impressive people management practices, for a start.? A determination among the factory's management team not to be second best, for another. And acting on the realization that clever initiatives don't count if they don't further a factory's mission. No successful factory can, for a moment, forget its customers, whether they're internal to the company or external.?

As ever, new trends emerged: an outstanding level of competence in supply chain management, as well as in manufacturing is increasingly important. The links between a factory, its suppliers and its customers can make or break an operation. This year's winners also demonstrate the importance of optimising the movement of goods and people around the factory. Confused, muddled liiking factories underperform, while successful one use signs to help staff and visitors find the best route to their destination. And allowing goods or materials to get lost in some dusty corner of the warehouse is unacceptable: the problem of tracking components as they move through production has led a number of develpments, of which electronic tagging is one of the most exciting. Now I'd like to turn to the individual categories...

a bumper crop

The benign weather brought North America a bumper crop. ? ?

溫和的氣候給北美帶來大豐收。

PART TWO
1. Well, there seem to be more and more fairs, don't there? And all apparently quite unmissable, which is fine, except I do actually have an office, and do need to get things done. So I try to be a bit selective. I try to make sure I've got my own agenda clear about what I want from a fair. With this one, for example, I wanted to see how our goods match up against our main rivals, by looking at theirs as if I were an ordinary customer...noting the specifications and so on... basic market research, really.?

And it was interesting, gave me some ideas to take back to the office. Some of the brochures and other literature that I picked up at this one were quite striking, very high quality, and that alone made it worthwhile.

2. For me, fairs are a vital part of business life... where else you get manufaturers, suppliers, agents, everyone all milling around（move about in a confused manner）together? It's certainly a great audience for the sort of talk I was there to do, and it meant I was able to communicate our values and commitment to service. Those are things our suppliers need to understand, so that we can get a full circle of quality from components to delivery and after sales.?

And of course, I also had plenty of time to look around, do some networking. I realized there are places we haven't considered as markets that we should be looking into. The currency situation means our prices could be very attractive outside our domestic markets and get us good sales. So, all very worthwhile...

3. These fairs are getting so big... it's frustrating because you waste a lof of time just nevigating your way around. I actually wonder how useful they really in terms of achieving sales（促進銷售）. Still, I have to say that it gave me an idea for a couple of features（性能） we could incorporate into（加入）our main model, which would make it more attractive, I think.?

So that was a bonus, and to some extent made up for my disappointment about not securing（弄到手，獲得）a new representative, which had been my aim. I did talk to a couple of promising people who cover the Pacific Rim, but there were a lot of complications, different expectations... I realize it's going to take a while before we can reach a concrete agreement and build a solid marketing strategy there.

4. To be honest, I relish（享受）opportunities to get out of the office from time to time. It refreshes the mind, and you can get insights into what you've really doing. I'm pleased this time, because I've come back with the realization that we can save quite a bit on packaging, our new range of products are selling well, and in fact we're getting bigger orders than we forecast, and the agents are very optimistic, which all means we do not need to package up units individually, and that's be quite a saving. It's important, because it's getting increasingly competitive all the time, with new products coming out alomst every month.?

The other thing I've been trying for is better components, and that's why my plan for the fair was to identify new manufacturers of processors, because I'm not happy with our present source.

5. It's amazing the way the industry is developing. I was walking around remembering such fairs just, say, five years ago, and thinking of how many of the products simply did not exist then. One of the effects of all this constant innovation is that to stay competitive you have to keep finding different marketing angles. That's what I was looking for, some kind of fresh approach to expanding our customer base. In the office, I tend to become absorbed in staffing issues, so I need to get out among customers and competitors.?

Anyway, while I was there I spotted a way of getting value out of our databese. There's software available now which would enable us to analyse customer preferences and provide 'pinpoint offers'（精準(zhǔn)定價） for them.

trade fair? 展銷會，交易會

PART THREE
A: These days, more and more people are employed by a company, but work from home. They're sometimes called remote workers（遠(yuǎn)程工作者）. Carserve is a vehicle breakdown company（汽車保險公司）whose phone operators（接線員) are all based at home. Steve Marriott, an internal business consultant（內(nèi)部業(yè)務(wù)顧問）with Carserve, is in the studio today. Steve, do people really enjoy working from home?

B:If you measure enjoyment by staff retention (員工留崗率) and improved productivity, the answer is definitely yes. But this doesn't happen by itself. In Carserve, we like the fact that our staff keep in touch with each other, through personal phone calls and emails. We also use email for company communications, instead of using office noticeboards（布告欄）, though of course we can't guarantee that everyone reads them all. But the absence of a sharp division（沒有明顯界限）between work and home sometimes creates a definite sense of insecurity, which we can't always remove.

A: Wasn't there a risk in introducing remote working??

B: Before it was started, the greatest fear was that, with the change in the support provided, people would be less productive. As it's turned out, staff have to be actively encouraged to take short breaks. You see, they tend to feel they have to answer the phone at the first ring, in case their manager thinks they're sitting around watching TV, even though they know we don't do that kind of checking up (查崗).?

A: When you joined Carserve you weren't happy with the ways things were being run, were you? What was the problem??

B: The management focused on what could be put down on paper, like an organogram (組織圖) showing reporting lines（匯報關(guān)系）. But they tended to avoid the less concrete issuses, like how to ensure the workers knew what they were expected to achieve. So despite detalied planning and plenty of memos, in reality people were working in a bit of vacuum.?

A: How did you turn that around??

B: Communication is important, but regular meetings are no substitute for a change of attitude. Managers have to start from the assumption that the remote workers are doing their job properly, even though they aren't being supervised. So that's what I focused on. A: You do teamwork, don't you, even though the teams aren't physically working in the same place. How does that work??

B: Surprisingly perhaps, it makes them more effective. Because they know they're only coming into the office for a team meeting, they plan that meeting much more carefully than perhaps they would do otherwise. And between meetings they communicate by email or phone, and that tends to take the pressure off reaching a decision before thinking it right through.?

A: Earlier, you mentioned the use of electronic communication internally, like the phone, and computers for emails. How these replaced face-to-face contact??

B: Not entirely. In facgt, managers often work from home too, and staff are sometimes afraid, wrongly in fact, that a phone call will disturb them, or that an email won't be read on time. So, we make sure staff can regularly talk to their managers face-to-face.?

A: Doesn't remote working make it difficult for managers to carry out their work??

B: It certainly changes its nature. As part of our performance management process, managers visit staff at home twice a month. When everyone works in one office, you get on with some, and have less rapport with others, and usually that doesn't matter. But when you travel around visiting staff in their own homes, you have to develop relationships with them that are based on their needs, which may mean helping them with aspects of their non-working lives that are affecting their work.?

A: So, have you organized training for managers, to deal with this new way of working??

B: Yes, a great deal of thought goes into finding out waht would most benefit staff. Many people would focus on how to use the technology, but in our experience that isn't a priority. We've already run workshops on managing remote teams, but many managers find it hard to let go of their traditional control, and feel that remote working is a recipe for chaos. We're trying to tackle this. Steve Marriott, thank you very much. Thank you.