Flood Opens Door to Redesign for Queens College Shop

It's a five-letter word that strikes terror into the heart of every in-plant manager: flood.

That's what Michael White faced on a December morning in 2009 when he walked into his basement in-plant at Queens College, in New York City, to find that a pipe malfunction had filled his shop with two inches of water overnight.

"It was like doomsday. It was pretty bad," recalls White, print shop coordinator. The shop's Ricoh and Océ printers were destroyed and much of its paper was ruined. The equipment loss wasn't all that worried him, though.

"It looked like we could be shut down as a department because of it," he says.

It was a week before finals, and the four-employee in-plant had a mountain of printing to do. So, putting their worries aside, White and his crew got to work, using the only printer that hadn't gone down, a Xerox DocuTech 135.

"We were at least able to run exams for finals week," he says.

That perseverance in the face of disaster may have saved the in-plant.

"They had proven, from an operational perspective, the need for the shop," remarks Jeff Barnes, deputy chief information officer, Office of Converging Technologies. The in-plant had gotten the critical work completed on time, despite a major handicap, clearly demonstrating the shop's value to Queens College.

Despite high-level discussions about whether to close down the in-plant and outsource printing, Barnes was able to convince administration that it was more cost effective to replace the equipment and rebuild the shop than it would be to outsource.

"And it was because I really believe in these guys," Barnes says.

Retooling for Success

The in-plant took bids, and in March of 2010 installed an arsenal of new equipment:

• Two Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6501 color printers, one with inline booklet making, one with perfect binding.

• Two Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 1200 black-and-white printers, one with inline booklet making, one with perfect binding.

• One Xerox 8254E wide-format printer.

• One Duplo DB280 perfect binder.

• One Sircle Corp. laminator.

Since then, the new equipment has allowed the in-plant to print a wider variety of jobs, reduce the amount of work being outsourced and grow its business. Its new name, the Speedy Q Print Shop, reflects this new focus on speed and service.

Located just a couple of miles from Flushing Meadows-Corona Park—where the iconic 12-story Unisphere steel globe still stands, a remnant from the 1964 New York World's Fair—Queens College is part of the City University of New York (CUNY) network. It boasts an enrollment of more than 20,000 students. Using both offset and digital equipment, the in-plant serves the printing needs of the college's academic, athletics, continuing education and administration departments. White oversees the digital side of the in-plant, while his counterpart William Najarro is the print shop coordinator for the offset press area.

Though White wouldn't want to relive the experience of the 2009 flood, he acknowledges that it provided the in-plant with an opportunity to redesign its facility for optimal workflow. This consequently improved the shop's efficiency, turnaround time and, ultimately, its customer service.

"Before the flood, our department was kind of stagnant," he admits. The staff had reservations about trying new things and making changes, he says.

"The flood took away all those roadblocks and all those reservations," he notes, allowing the in-plant to make a fresh start. With the help of some "invaluable advice" from the in-plant's Konica Minolta representatives, Barnes says, the in-plant completely redesigned its operation, turning what had been a paper storage area full of outdated stock into its main production facility. Now, all the digital machines are together in one area, along with the monthly supply of paper they will need. This has eliminated lengthy trips to the paper warehouse and greatly increased productivity.

"Our turnaround time has been cut tremendously," White declares.

Barnes lauds the in-plant's Konica Minolta representatives for their help with this redesign. Instead of just being concerned with leasing them equipment, he says the reps tried to educate the in-plant about workflow improvements and better paper management to help transition the shop into a revenue-generating operation.

"With Konica Minolta support, technology and solutions we have designed a world-class in-plant department that allows us to offer the Queens College community the best printing quality and services available," Barnes says. "College departments now rely on us for more of their printing needs, saving 25 percent compared to the outsourced printers. We could not have achieved this success without Konica Minolta's valuable insight during our redesign process."

Digital StoreFront Furthers Efficiency

Assisting the in-plant with that journey to better business success was the EFI Digital StoreFront software implemented in November 2011. It provides a Web interface for the intake of documents and streamlines the workflow process from submission through print production, to finishing and delivery. With Digital StoreFront, customers upload or scan new print jobs online and can easily see when their jobs will be completed. The system allows the in-plant to have more information about each job request and interact with customers more productively.

"The job tickets are more clear," remarks White, so the print shop does not have to call the end user to clarify job information, thus streamlining the process. "It's quicker; it's more efficient," he adds.

Digital StoreFront creates PDF files on users' desktops so the in-plant doesn't have to worry about missing fonts.

"You get better quality jobs because people are sending you PDFs," notes White.

Digital StoreFront has also enhanced customer communication.

"It kicks back e-mails indicating job status to the customer," he says. "It's greatly improved communication between us and the customer."

It also provides the print shop with reporting capabilities to better track print jobs and performance.

"It gives us the ability to use data to make our case as to how effective we are and whether or not we're serving the community the way we should be," notes Barnes.

The combination of the Konica Minolta digital presses and Digital StoreFront have allowed the in-plant to become more efficient, expand its business, reduce its outsourced printing costs and improve its overall customer service. The print department has seen its monthly color impressions increase from 24,000 to over 64,000 and its black-and-white monthly impressions grow from 100,000 to over 400,000. The print shop is now printing more high-volume color materials such as brochures, mailers and event materials, in addition to traditional departmental materials and course guides.

The Best Deal in Town

The Queens College print shop has been such a success that its annual budget no longer covers the growing demand for its services. As a result, it has started charging non-academic departments like athletics and theater a reduced rate for printing. This benefits those departments as well as the college.

"We can do it for about 20 to 25 percent less, so they save money and they get a good quality product, and the school saves money," says Barnes. Plus, this work is no longer getting outsourced, he adds—which is one of the in-plant's major goals.

"We're trying to take in as much work as possible and cut off outsourcing as much as possible so that we're…saving money for the college," says White.

To that end, the in-plant recently placed an order for some new equipment.

"We're trying to capture more of the marketing that goes off campus, so we just ordered a UV coater," says Barnes—a Duplo Ultra 200.

By redesigning and retooling its operation the Speedy Q Print Shop is showing its customers it is ready to provide almost anything they need—from letterhead to posters to perfect-bound books. And with a prepress employee on staff to quickly fix small file problems (so they don't have to be returned to the college's designers for correction), the in-plant has made itself very easy for customers to work with.

The next phase in the in-plant's transition, Barnes says, is moving into variable data printing and creating custom products for the college's marketing group. The shop also plans to create a business card template within Digital StoreFront so business cards can be ordered this way.

"It will save them a lot of work, and it will also increase our service levels," he says.

He would also like to use EFI's MIS system to track paper inventory more effectively and move to just-in-time paper delivery.

For the moment, though, Barnes couldn't be more happy with how the in-plant has turned itself around. He gives all the credit to the in-plant's staff.

"They're doing a phenomenal job," he praises.IPG