A flood destroyed Pueblo City School District's in-plant equipment, but showed how crucial the shop i

Controlling Copier Costs

One of the responsibilities of Pueblo City School District’s Document Services Center is to oversee the district-wide copier program. Last year DSC deployed 113 Canon MFDs throughout the district—all of them tied into an enterprise management console server that the in-plant monitors. Software controls all users’ codes, so copy limits can be set. The software also collects the meter reads from the devices.

“We then send a billing to the department heads and principals showing the copies and cost produced per individual in the school district,” explains Document Services Supervisor Gary Shaufler. “This makes it easy to explain all the cost associated with print management throughout the district.”

Over the years the in-plant has tried to steer printing volume away from the on-site copiers and into the in-plant. It has worked. In 1993, DSC produced 12 million copies annually compared to 20 million on site copiers. By 2005, DSC was producing 33 million copies, while site copiers were down to producing 10 million.

MARY BOCCHIETTI’S heart sank when she arrived at the Pueblo City School District’s in-plant one July morning in 2009 and saw three feet of muddy water filling the entire shop. A water main had burst during the night, flooding the lower level of the district’s administration building, where the nine-employee Document Services Center (DSC) resided.

“We lost pretty much absolutely everything,” recalls Bocchietti, support coordinator for the Pueblo, Colo.-based in-plant. Thoughts of doom pervaded the minds of the staff as they wondered if the district would simply pull the plug on their in-plant and send them adrift.

But DSC had a few things going for it, namely a stellar record of quick turnaround times and cost savings. This was reenforced over the next few months as the in-plant staff took control and started outsourcing the district’s many print jobs to FedEx Kinko’s (now FedEx Office). Jobs were spread around to FedEx locations all over the region, and offset work went to local commercial printers. Despite all this help, though, the service paled in comparison to what the in-plant had been able to provide.

“They still weren’t keeping up with our customers’ demands,” Bocchietti declares.

And they charged more too. This experience proved that DSC produced work at 25-30 percent less cost than outside sources.

“It made everyone say, ‘wow, how do you do what you do?’ ” Bocchietti says.

In the end, the school superintendent concluded that DSC was “invaluable” to the school district. When the insurance money for the ruined equipment came in, the district used it to fund replacement equipment, and the in-plant was back in action.

Award-winning In-plant

With an average of nearly 25 million impressions per year, Pueblo City School District’s Document Services Center uses a mix of offset and digital printing devices to satisfy the printing needs of two school districts. Following a recent merger with the Pueblo County District 70, DSC now serves 60 different schools with 1,500 teachers and a total of 2,000 customers.

The in-plant recently captured two prestigious awards for outstanding education publications. The National School Public Relations Association recognized DSC in two categories: Annual Report and Special Purpose Publication.

Led by Document Services Supervisor Gary Shaufler, the in-plant produces a variety of materials, like diplomas, certificates, report cards, newsletters, sporting event programs, calendars and even cookbooks. But a full 65 percent of its volume is made up of direct instructional materials, such as student workbooks, writing journals, practice sheets and tests.

“We’re here to support the teachers and the students,” proclaims Shaufler.

Text Book Printing Saves Big Money

Recently, DSC printed more than 10,000 district science books at a fraction of the cost of outsourcing. Covers were printed via offset while Xerox DocuTechs were used to print the inside pages, which were bound using a GBC DigiCoil inserter, all at a cost of $3.00 per book—much cheaper than the $40-per-book cost of buying them outside.

“We printed the covers on no-tear synthetic stock,” adds Bocchietti.

In addition, the print shop has been able to help the district save on student/parent communications such as postcards and newsletters. Streamlining the order process and printing names and addresses inline with mail merge saves a significant amount of time and labor, which translates to budget dollars.

“Even when local printers gave us their bottom line, near-zero profit price, we were still lower,” Bocchietti says. And DSC also provides higher quality. Thanks to its familiarity with customers and applications, the in-plant produces jobs that are more complete, with drastically lower error rates.

To provide all this work, the in-plant relies on five Xerox digital printers, operating with Xerox FreeFlow Makeready Software:

• A Xerox 700 digital color press
• Xerox DocuTech 6135 and 6155 printers
• A Xerox Nuvera 100 EA system
• A Xerox DocuColor 255

The shop also uses a two-color Ryobi 3302 and a one-color Ryobi 3200, in addition to a bevy of binding, folding, inserting and cutting equipment from GBC, Pitney Bowes, Challenge, Baum, Duplo, C.P. Bourg and Xerox.

The robust capabilities of the Xerox 700, Bocchietti says, have helped DSC boost its in-house color production volumes while reducing costs.

“I love it,” she enthuses. “The 700 is just perfect. The quality is outstanding, and it’s rarely ever down. We’re extremely happy with the return we’re getting on our investment.”

Yearbook Printing A Hit

The in-plant’s digital color capabilities have allowed it to bring yearbook production back in-house. It started in 2006 when a school asked the in-plant to look into printing its yearbook. After successfully doing it, Bocchietti created a template to allow other elementary schools to set up, design and customize their own yearbooks.

“She’ll work with the teachers in the classroom,” relates Shaufler. “The students actively participate with their yearbook.”

As a result, schools are able to offer students a high-quality yearbook at a low cost—which is important since more than half of district schools serve low-income families. In 2010, DSC produced 11 yearbooks, with an average sale price of $3.00 to $5.50 for black and white, and $10.00 to $11.50 for full color. In addition to saving money, producing yearbooks has helped cement the shop’s strategic relevance in the organization.

“It’s an added plus at the end of the year when they get their yearbooks,” Shaufler says. “The kids are just ecstatic because they’ve had participation.”

Building on this success, DSC has applied the same format to help schools produce sports photo books.

Balancing the Workload

The in-plant works closely with teachers to get their instructional materials printed in a timely manner, without overwhelming the shop. Previously, teachers ordered the instructional materials for the entire year all at once, creating a crushing workload over the summer months. Once DSC proved it could deliver critical materials on time, DSC was able to convince teachers to order only what they needed for the first six weeks, and to do so by a specified date in June. This evened out the workload, while assuring that teachers received the materials that they really needed—when they needed them.

“The best part is that we have mutual trust. We work together now,” Bocchietti says.

The in-plant always keeps an eye out for new services it can offer. When Shaufler saw that a lot of trophies and awards were being ordered on the outside, he brought in an Epilog laser engraver so the shop could take on this work.

“It’s another form of printing,” he reasons.

DSC recently launched EDU Business Solutions’ Print Shop Pro online ordering system to allow customers to place orders, track job status and monitor costs in real time.

“We used to do everything on three-part NCR [forms],” Bocchietti says. Now those hand-written work orders are a thing of the past. “For the most part, people love it, because they have up-to-date [job] status at their fingertips.”

Long since recovered from last year’s flood, DSC looks forward to a bright future of providing high-quality, low-cost educational and support materials for students, staff and teachers at Pueblo’s city and county school districts.

“Customers know that we can meet their deadlines, even exceed their expectations,” Bocchietti says.