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University of the Sunshine Coast uses Canon technology to improve efficiency and customer service
At a glance
Smarter, easier printing
Download PDF of case study
At a glance
University of the Sunshine Coast
Industry
Education
Geographies
Sunshine Coast, Queensland
Canon Products Used
1 x CLC1150, 2 x iR105+, 1 x iR8500, 1 x iRC3200, 2 x iR2270, 1 x iR2016,3 x iR2870
"We receive a lot of our work now as hardcopy, but we're trying to take our environment from 80 percent hardcopy and 20 percent electronic to 80 percent electronic and 20 percent hardcopy. Our investment in Canon technology is helping us deliver better service to meet the needs of a growing university, and putting this in place now is a lot easier than it will be in ten years' time."
Kim Luck, Manager, Reprographics, University of the Sunshine Coast
Founded in 1996, the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) has grown beyond expectations. Approximately 500 students began their studies in the University's first year. Today, the Sippy Downs campus serves more than 5000 students and 500 staff with around 140 degrees available in the faculties of Arts and Social Sciences; Business; and Science, Health and Education.
As at all universities, USC's Reprographics department is a heavy consumer of paper, with around 4.5 million pages printed per year within the Reprographics department and a further 2 million pages printed throughout campus on convenient MFD's. High-volume copy services produce a broad range of materials, most notably the multiple copies of course readers, course outlines and promotional publications.
These materials have previously been produced using a variety of analogue photocopiers and conventional printing devices .
Given the high volume of materials involved, however, Reprographics has recently turned its attention to increasing the automation of the whole document production process. Faced with renewing its installed base of devices, USC began sourcing newer technology that would allow it to streamline its processes, improve convenience for its customers, and reduce the overall use of paper in the document production process.
"We already receive a lot of our work as hard copies, which our customers print out and walk over to our department," said Kim Luck, Manager, Reprographics, USC. "We're trying to provide a service where they can send their documents to Reprographics for printing, without having to leave their office. Electronic job ticketing will give them a quotation then and there, with costing and approval of jobs all handled automatically."
Smarter, easier printing
It was clear to USC that delivering on its vision would require a range of advanced technologies that combined cost-effective printing with a range of back-end workflow and document management technologies.
USC evaluated potential offerings in the market but soon settled on a solution built around Canon hardware and software technologies. The choice, said Kim, was made both based on hardware features such as easy scanning capabilities, 100-page stapler capacity and high quality as well as the advanced software capabilities that Canon was able to demonstrate.
"Canon's knowledge of their product was one of the things that swayed us," she explained. "They understand their products, can answer questions, and respond quickly when we require additional information."
The first step in USC's printing revolution was to install Canon multi-function devices (MFDs) including the CLC1150 and imageRUNNER iR105+, iR2870, iR2270, iR2016, iRC3200, and iR8500. With support from Canon partner Berwicks, the new devices have smoothly taken up the high-volume printing tasks of the Reprographics department, giving USC the confidence to take the next steps towards its increasingly digital workflow.
Implementation of Canon partner EFI's Balance software has provided one major element of the overall solution, allowing incoming jobs to be split between the appropriate high volume MFDs as usage requirements demand. For example, rather than being printed entirely on a more expensive colour printer, a combined colour and black & white printing job can be split between colour and black & white printers, then automatically collated and stapled. Balance can also intelligently allocate jobs based on their size, preventing print queue build-ups where numerous smaller jobs are stuck behind one large job.
"Balance has decreased our turnaround times," said Kim. "Because it has the smarts to help us create booklets, do colour splits, and collate them, it has basically taken away the manual work that we previously had in doing these tasks."
Balance requires documents to be submitted in the standard PDF format, but software to create such documents is currently only available on a number of desktops across the university. The solution to this problem-and the second major component to fulfilling the Reprographics reduced-paper vision-has been the implementation of Digital StoreFront (DSF), a Web-based solution that provides automatic conversion of documents to PDF format.
DSF has been implemented on USC's intranet, initially allowing staff to submit their documents for printing using a standard Web browser client. Print jobs are instantly costed, with charging approvals routed via email to the appropriate staff and submitted document files automatically converted into PDF format for processing and printing using Balance. Documents are then made available for pickup or delivery, all without the customer needing to visit Reprographics.
DSF will also be made available to students, delivering significant efficiencies to a printing process that has remained burdensome for those involved because of its dependence on manual handling. With Balance and DSF in place, Reprographics now has the tools to deliver the long-term efficiencies it was looking for-and to handle the increasing printing needs of an expanding university.
"People always want a better service," said Kim, "and we're working hard to meet the needs of a growing university. Our investment in Canon technology is helping us deliver, and putting this in place now is a lot easier than it will be in ten years' time. Automated document workflow and printing is the way of the future, and our adoption of Canon technologies has enabled us to deliver on our vision for that future."
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