Océ KelloggCommunity Collegecase study

Kellogg Community College

College print shop upgrades to Océ digital technologyIt’s 11:00 AM on a bright sunny morning in Battle Creek, Michigan, and a class of nursing students opens up a new, freshly minted course pack to start a new semester. Across campus, a political science student stops to read a bright, color poster supporting a fundraising drive for a local non-profit. In town, a supporter of the arts opens up an invitation to a choral performance by the local community music school. What do these seemingly unrelated slices of life have in common? All of the documents were produced by the Kellogg Community College Duplication/Distribution Center.

Founded in 1956, Kellogg Community

College is a two-year, community college

that provides academic, occupational, general

and lifelong learning opportunities for

some 9,000 students on the main campus

in Battle Creek Michigan and three satellite

campus locations. The college also runs a

regional manufacturing technology center

in Ft. Custer Industrial Park, recognized

throughout the state for the specialized

training programs it offers area businesses.

As a recognized technology innovator, it’s

not surprising that Kellogg Community

College is also an innovator in its print

shop, leveraging advanced digital technology

to improve performance and customer

satisfaction.

The challenge: upgrading performance, containing costs June Lapland joined Kellogg Community

College in 2003 as the operator of the

in-house duplication/distribution center.

Her first order of business was to research

and implement a plan to streamline

processes, improve productivity, and better

serve the needs of the college and on-campus

non-profit organizations. Specifically, she

wanted a digital output management system,

a color system and a high speed black &

white duplex printer that would help her

accelerate turnaround, power through

higher volumes and grow her business.

The print center supports all of the college’s

print, binding, mail and distribution

requirements, along with services like CDs

and DVD burning. Customers include

college staff, faculty and grant-funded,

non-profit programs. Print jobs range from

course packs, exams and weekly handouts to

color posters, booklets, brochures and short-

run invitations.

However, the print shop was struggling to

keep pace with growing volumes using aging

technology. When the college implemented a

mandatory two-sided printing policy as part

of a campus-wide sustainability initiative,

Lapland knew she needed a better way

to handle duplex jobs. At the same time,

demand for color work was exploding.

“When I first came here, we bought a small

color printer, because I anticipated doing

about 2,000 color impressions per month.

Before we knew it, we were doing 5,000,”

Lapland recalls, “The machine just couldn’t

keep up and we had to send out jobs when

we had to match PMS colors because our

existing device couldn’t handle them.”

Lapland knew exactly where she wanted to

take the print shop. “I wanted technology

that would serve our needs for the next five

years. I went around and surveyed all the

departments to understand exactly what

we needed. The short list included a digital

workflow, a digital color press that would

support PMS colors and give us better

quality and inline finishing, and a black &

white machine with the speed and capacity

to produce duplex work with excellent

quality.”

The solution: Océ Doc Works Pro™ software, an Océ VarioPrint® 6160 printer and an Océ CS620 color printerThe print team evaluated several devices and

then decided on Océ technology. “I looked

at speed, quality, reliability, service and price.

I went through everything with a fine tooth

comb, listing pros and cons and just couldn’t

find many cons with the Océ equipment,”

Lapland recalls.

She adds, “We have limited space in our

print area, so the size of the Océ VarioPrint

6160 printer was perfect. I could get all the

features and finishing equipment I wanted,

and still fit everything in the space I had.

The other devices I looked at that had the

features I wanted were all too big. The other

huge thing was the environmental aspect

of the Océ VarioPrint 6160 system. The

machine creates no toner waste and has

much lower emissions. That was definitely a

deciding factor.”

As for color requirements, Lapland liked

the speed and quality of the 65 ppm Océ

CS620 color system, along with its ability to

do PMS matching. Given the combination

of speed, quality, productivity, performance

and a compact footprint, the Kellogg

Community College Duplicating and

Distribution Center opted to become an Océ

shop for both its color and black & white

work and its workflow.

BenefitsAlready, the Kellogg Community College

Duplication and Distribution Center is

realizing important benefits. The print

shop can now turn around large volumes of

black & white duplex work in shorter print

windows, with exceptional quality.

“We’re definitely seeing productivity

improvements. For example, we print 80

to 100 course packs that used to take a

full eight-hour shift on the old equipment.

With the Océ VarioPrint 6160 printer,

it only takes three or four hours. Now

the bottleneck is no longer printing - it’s

scanning the hard copy jobs that come in

fast enough to keep up with the printer.”

The print shop is turning short-run color

jobs around faster too with better quality

and lower costs. Lapland comments, “The

new color machine is ten times better than

the one we had before, yet the cost is lower

and the click savings are huge. And because

we can set up color profiles and match PMS

colors, we will be bringing many of the

outsourced color jobs back in-house.”

The print operation todayToday the print center handles from 350,000

to 400,000 impressions per month, just in

black & white. Of those volumes, 80 percent

are duplex. Color volumes, which previously

clocked in at 5,000 a month, are already on

the rise. “I expect the color volumes to rise

exponentially now as people realize that we

have the new machine and can match color

profiles,” Lapland projects.

The print center works one shift daily from

8:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday. “We

have three peak periods,” says Lapland,

“at the end of August and beginning of

September for fall semester, at the end of

December and the beginning of January for

winter semester and then in May at the end

of spring semester and the beginning of the

summer session. That’s when our volumes

ramp up and we really need the robust

performance the Océ systems deliver.”

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In fact, the print center is generating cost

savings across the board. Lapland states, “I

replaced our old color system and black &

white printer with two new Océ machines.

Now we’re getting better productivity,

quality and performance and I’m saving

the college a couple hundred dollars every

month on the lease cost and click charges.

It’s amazing.”

The print shop has also discovered another

unexpected source of savings. “Because

the Océ VarioPrint 6160 system is so

environmentally friendly, we can turn in

paperwork to the state and receive financial

rewards for implementing a low-emission,

energy-efficient device. It’s a win-win all

around.”