Whitman Hanson Regional School District Centralizes Printing and Streamlines Workflow with Konica Minolta and Collegiate Press
INDUSTRY: Education
CUSTOMER GOAL: Simplify workflow and establish centralized print facility to manage district-wide printing.
PRODUCTS & SOLUTIONS:
- EFI Digital Storefront
- 6 bizhub® 654 Monochrome MFPs and 6 bizhub C353 Color MFPs
- bizhub PRO 1052 and bizhub PRO 1050 Production Print Systems
BACKGROUND: Whitman Hanson Regional School District in Whitman, MA relied primarily on desktop printers across its seven area schools when it was determined in early 2008 that the printing process needed to be revamped. The school district sought to not only reduce costs and streamline productivity, but also eliminate lost time spent by educators and staff preparing printed materials for teaching. Whitman Hanson wanted to eliminate the use of desktop printers and develop a consolidated solution in the form of a centralized print facility, to manage and handle print jobs for all seven schools.
[Tweet “6 bizhub 654 MFPs and 6 C353’s from #KonicaMinolta get the job done”]
Having had a successful trial period with some Konica Minolta bizhub MFPs at Whitman Hanson schools, Konica Minolta had become one of the district’s preferred vendors. In response to the school district’s search for a new print solution, Collegiate Press, a facilities management vendor that specializes in education, delivered a proposal involving a partnership with Konica Minolta. The proposed partnership and solution would establish a central print facility to be fully managed by Collegiate Press, and outfitted with solutions from Konica Minolta for improved workflow across the district.
SOLUTION: Whitman Hanson began working with Konica Minolta and Collegiate Press in August 2009 to build the “SmartCentre,” the school district’s central print facility that would handle print volume from all seven schools. Collegiate Press equipped the SmartCentre with Konica Minolta monochrome print production systems and EFI Digital Storefront Software to improve output speeds and overall output quality. In addition, Collegiate Press set up 12 Konica Minolta color and monochrome bizhub MFPs throughout the schools for immediate access and smaller print job handling.
Driving the operation and success of the new solution is EFI Digital StoreFront from Konica Minolta. Delivering streamlined job management, the solution enables educators and staff to create customized user profiles and send print jobs to the SmartCentre for same-day turnaround. A district-wide, web-to-print solution, Digital Storefront accepts print job submission from any desktop computer within the district, and also supports automatic PDF conversion, a library of pre-defined job formats, complex job submissions, and on-screen proofing. The SmartCentre quickly turns around all submitted jobs from the Digital Storefront within four hours, with deliveries twice a day to all seven schools.
[Tweet “#DigitalStorefront from #EFI accepts print jobs from any computer within the district”]
In addition, the Konica Minolta production print systems permit a host of new output capabilities including: high-end finishing, folding, stapling and cover insertion. With a dedicated operator at the SmartCentre, the machines are continuously operating at peak performance for consistency, reliability, and reduced downtime. Whitman Hanson schools have eliminated reliance on outsourced print vendors with the new capabilities, including the color printing on the bizhub MFPs. Schools can print program brochures, booklets for performances held in performing arts center, and commencement documents with professional quality.
Converting users to the Digital Storefront model was a challenge given the longstanding manual print processes, but Collegiate Press and Konica Minolta offered extensive training and support to Whitman Hanson users throughout the adoption to alleviate any downtime. Collegiate Press and Konica Minolta also ensured that a highly trained user was established at each school, to offer on-site support to users as needed.
RESULTS
- Simplified and standardized print job submission for educators and staff across seven schools
- Reduced wasted hours spent at printers (teachers and staff)
- Increased in-house print volume and eliminated reliance on outside vendors
- Enabled user tracking and monitoring for all print jobs
- Enhanced finishing and output capabilities with production print technology
- Realized thousands of dollars in savings annually
- Improved turnaround time to four hours, with two daily deliveries to the schools
- Reduced downtime to less than 2.5 percent of total hours
BUSINESS IMPACT: Partnering with Konica Minolta and Collegiate Press has allowed Whitman Hanson to realize a culture change across the entire district. In addition to delivering cost savings and providing a technology solution that meets the districts commitment to preserving the environment, there were substantial efficiencies that contributed to additional teaching time. By consolidating several administrative functions and overhauling the document management practices, the school district has freed up valuable amounts of time previously used by educators and staff on copying for lesson and materials preparation; hours that can now be put back into teaching. The EFI Digital Storefront solution and SmartCentre have streamlined job submission, and drastically improved turnaround time, overall quality and completion on all print jobs. The reduction of desktop printers helps the District save on electricity, costly operating supplies, printer maintenance costs, and will reduce the carbon emissions within the buildings.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “Collegiate Press proposed a solution with Konica Minolta technologies that not only improved our workflow, but essentially created an entire culture change across all our schools with regard to technology. Our integrated Konica Minolta document management solution allows teachers and staff to spend more time focusing on educating, and less time on printing and materials prep.”
Craig Finley, Whitman Hanson Regional School District
Click here to download this Konica Minolta case study
