Explaining Value Added -- Dickeson

That's mostly true—except for the part about not being able to do much about it. There are things you can, and should, do. Let's think for a moment about it.

First of all, we know that the materials—primarily paper—are about the same for all 800 printers reporting to PIA, don't we? That's the thing we do know about jobs—the dollar cost of materials for the job. It's the breaking point before we shove off into that unknown thicket of "processing" costs that we really can't identify with specific jobs.