Web-to-print Simplifies Ordering in Contra Costa County

The print and mail operation for California’s Contra Costa County is making it easier for county employees to order their printing. The 23-employee in-plant recently acquired Presstek’s PathWay Web-to-print solution. Though still officially in pilot mode, the system is already available to more than 1,000 county employees.

“Every day we get new employees registering with the system so they can order new business cards and letterhead,” remarks David Gould, the shop’s manager. Standard forms are available on the site, he says, and the in-plant is now setting up the pricing structure and adding new templates for custom print jobs.

“Our objective is to cement our position as the one-stop print shop for all county printing activities, whether we actually produce the work here or outsource it,” he says, though he thinks about 95 percent of the work will be done in-house on the shop’s Xerox, Sharp and Konica Minolta digital printers, as well as its Heidelberg and Hamada two-color presses.

The Presstek PathWay platform provides a library of templates for items like forms and business cards, but can also accept ad-hoc work, Gould says.

Though PathWay is available in stand-alone and multi-site configurations, the in-plant chose the hosted model.

“By acquiring the subscription (ASP) model of PathWay, we didn’t have to invest in servers or other IT infrastructure,” Gould notes. “It made the transition very easy for us.”

Once PathWay is fully deployed, some 3,000 county employees are likely to become users.

“Not only is the system easy to use, but by taking advantage of it for all their printing needs, they can sole-source procurement through us and eliminate the need to create and manage bids,” Gould says.