This study focuses on productivity and cost-control issues. Since these departments represent a major portion of the overall budget, any improvement in operations should have an immediate and direct impact on the "bottom-line".

Three major areas were considered in the study:

 •Department and employee efficiency
 •Project, equipment, repair parts and inventory management
 •Improving cost-effectiveness.

This report was developed using survey responses from across the country. The survey attempted to achieve as broad a sampling as possible to account for locality differences.

This report is divided into four main sections:

 •A discussion of the problem.
 •Survey statistics.
 •Analysis of survey findings.
 •Action plan to improve operations.