U.K. School System Opens Second In-plant
After starting up a new in-plant in December, a U.K. school system has decided to set up a second print hub for its southern schools.
According to an article in Printweek, Astrea Academy Trust, which runs secondary and primary schools, opened its first in-plant in Doncaster, two hours east of Manchester, just before Christmas with a Ricoh Pro8310s black-and-white production printer and two C8000 MFPs. Finished documents have been delivered to schools by courier.
The resulting efficiency and cost savings have motivated the trust to open a second in-plant for its Cambridgeshire schools.
“A lot of schools are outsourcing their print – so this is saving [our network] thousands of pounds because it’s internal,” said David Smiles, who heads up the hub system, in an interview with Printweek. “I’m very happy with how it’s going – like anything, once people start to know we’re here, the schools will use us. We’re getting the message out.”
Richard Wordsworth, HR and business director at Astrea Academy Trust, told Printweek that the in-house print model had helped the trust improve students’ learning experience.
“Our teachers adapt the booklets, using them as one resource among many, using their creativity and craft in each lesson. Printing the booklets centrally also reduces workload and panic printing on a Monday morning,” he noted. “We can also build in dyslexia friendly font, good line spacing, line numbers all which will help to ensure that our most vulnerable learners are supported.
“Developing a centralized print hub whose sole purpose is to facilitate this removes the printing burden from schools will help improve the educational experience of students within our family of schools,” he said, adding that he hopes to add a wide-format printer to the operation as well.
Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.
