Azusa Pacific University: Course Work, Made Simple

THE BEGINNING of the college semester is always a bustling time for the employees at Azusa Pacific University Duplicating and Graphics. Located in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles, the in-plant serving this private Southern California Christian university is usually busy producing course packs and other materials prior to students arriving on campus.

But thanks to a new acquisition in the bindery, the shop's two full-time employees and 19 student workers were able to streamline the course pack production process the past two semesters, turning course packs around faster and making them look much more professional. That new equipment was a Gateway Bookbinding Systems PBS 3000 automatic coil inserter, which the in-plant installed in May 2009.

"We found that we were doing a lot of hand binding, and that was costing us a lot of time and labor," recalls Donna Rutherford, Duplicating Services and Graphics Center manager. "We had a small tabletop spiral binder, and it just wasn't working for us."

Prior to the Spring 2010 term, the shop produced 1,250 course packs using the new coil inserter. Another 450 that required coil larger than 20 mm were done by hand. Rutherford notes that the in-plant just purchased an accessory kit from Gateway that will give the shop the ability to coil books larger than 20 mm.

Customers like the clean look of work coming off of the new bindery equipment, Rutherford points out.

"When we did the binding by hand and clamped it off, it often was too large or it wasn't sticking properly," the in-plant manager says. "This machine is so precise and accurate that when it clamps it off, it looks professional."

Now 85-90 percent of the university's course packs are being spiral bound, to the delight of the school's bookstore and students. The machine is also being used to handle jobs from outside the university. Rutherford estimates that 3-5 percent of the shop's work comes from insourcing.

"We try to partner as much as we can with the community," Rutherford says. "We are able to produce work for them at a reasonable price."

The addition of the Gateway equipment has allowed Azusa Pacific University's in-plant to offer faster turnaround times and more binding options to local schools, churches and businesses.

The all-Xerox shop depends on a Xerox DocuTech 6115, Xerox 4110, and a brand new 70-ppm Xerox 700 digital color press to produce jobs for its internal and external clients. The 700 replaced a Xerox DocuColor 5252, which Rutherford says "just wasn't producing the quality we needed." Art and design students rely on the in-plant to print their class projects, she says.

"We were looking for higher quality, and the 700 gives us 2,400x2,400 dpi," she notes.

Success With Student Employees

The shop's student employees quickly got up to speed with the new bindery equipment, says Rutherford, which was important, since they are such a big part of the operation. Using student workers, she says, not only helps the in-plant but benefits those students as well. It teaches them a trade, she says, and they leave with the ability to operate various pieces of equipment.

"When they are out of college, they are actually able to apply what they learned here in the workplace," Rutherford contends. "I have students come back years later saying that what they learned here really paid off because there were able to handle a lot of different tasks in the office environment."

The students walk away from the in-plant with a background in customer service, graphic design, printing and finishing. Since not every graduate immediately finds a job in his or her field, some former Azusa Pacific University in-plant employees are working in printing facilities and copy centers, she says.

Teaching students the graphic arts game also has paid off for the in-plant.

"A former student employee recently came in to have invitations printed up," Rutherford says. "He told me that he wouldn't think of any place else to go. He knew he would get a quality job."

Lately, Rutherford has been busy working on a proposal to move the in-plant to a new, larger facility. And since there is a community college nearby, Rutherford foresees an opportunity to market and advertise her in-plant's printing capabilities to a larger group of potential customers.

"Our graphics center customer base is going to grow quite a bit," Rutherford concludes. "We'll have additional hours, and we'll be open on Saturdays."

The in-plant plans on purchasing a Gateway coil maker this summer to produce coil on demand for the shop's own jobs, as well as to sell to local companies. This will eliminate the need to store coils on-site.

"We won't have to house boxes and boxes of coils," she points out.