Campus
Copy Goes Digital - Cuts Course Pack Cycle Time In Half
Client
Profile
CNY Printing & Copy Services, Inc. is a locally owned
two-store quick-printing chain in Syracuse, New York. The
services offered by the two Copy Centers go well beyond
black and white copies -a range of color printing solutions,
computers to rent, internet access, personalized t-shirts,
mugs and mouse pads, and the pre-semester production of
hundreds upon hundreds of personalized Course Packs for
Syracuse-area university students.
Owner
and President Chris Keevil leverages the value of his two
locations by moving work from one to the other as production
demands require. Campus Copy, the center located at Marshall
Square Mall just across the street from Syracuse University,
handles the vast majority of walk-in traffic, and is a digital
production center. Says Keevil, a forward-thinking and technically
savvy entrepreneur, "Everything in the store - which
includes DigiPath Production Scanner, DigiPath Professional
Production Software, DocuTech Production Publisher, and
a handful of other black-and-white and color copiers and
printers - is networked and accessible via nine workstations."
The
Downtown Copy Center is geared toward production and outfitted
with primarily light lens copiers with speeds between 100
cpm to 135 cpm. Of his substantial arsenal of copier and
printer resources, Keevil says, "I'm big for a little
guy."
The
Challenge
Nothing taxes Campus Copy staff like the pre-semester rite
of producing Course Packs for university students. The "Readers,"
as they're called at Campus Copy, replace or augment textbooks,
and consist of a professor's selection from - "piles
of books, documents, previous course packs, and magazine
articles," according to Keevil. Virtually all of the
source material is hard copy. "In the course of a year,
we'll produce multiple course packs - including all copyright
compliance requirements - from 30 to more than 700 pages,"
Keevil says. "Each could be produced for as few as
five or 10 students, or for as many as 400."
"Reader
Rush," as Keevil dubs it, descends in the two weeks
prior to fall and spring semesters. Mini-Rushes occur before
each of two summer sessions. "We average a million
impressions per semester. Every member of our staff did
nothing but clean up documents for course packs and copy
them. It was extremely labor-intensive. We ran mostly three
shifts, 24 hours a day," explains Keevil.
Preparation
was a painstaking process, he says. "We would literally
go through each page and clean it up, manually - with correction
fluid, cover-up tape, editing features on the copier. We
numbered the pages manually with a Bates numbering machine,
and sent it all to another person for review. For the average
Reader, we spent three to four person-hours from the second
it was dropped off to the point it was ready to run."
Copies were then run on one of several high-speed light
lens copiers.
The
Solution
Campus Copy has replaced the "clean up and copy"
process for Course Pack production with the DigiPath Professional
Production Software, the DigiPath Production Scanner and
the DocuTech Production Publisher model that's cut staff
hours devoted to preparation by almost 60 percent. The process
now begins at the DigiPath Production Scanner, where staff
scan in documents at a blazing 65 pages per minute. "I'd
been looking at a digital solution for a while," Keevil
says, "but it was the speed of the new DigiPath System
that convinced me to make the investment."
Pages
are now cleaned up in electronic form - erasing black from
around the edges, removing spots, straightening a crooked
sheet - without the hassle of correction fluid and cover-up
tape. As his staff works with the DigiPath Production Software,
Chris expects efficiency to continue to increase. Best of
all, he says, the Course Pack pages are numbered with the
press of a button. "We save huge amounts of time with
numbering. It takes a minute to number a 700-page course
pack with DigiPath; it took an hour and half with the old
Bates system."
The
"make ready" is now saved at DigiPath in its Document
Library and printed to a networked DocuTech Production Publisher
that prints 135 pages per minute. "We're touching the
document less," Keevil points out. "That's more
productive for us and allows less opportunity for error.
And reprints can be produced at the touch of a button."
The
Results
The quality of Campus Copy's course packs is now so high
- an error rate in the tenths of a percent range - that
professors don't even return to proof their Course Packs.
The assumption is that everything will be perfect, and it
is. That's a market-share and competitive advantage that
Keevil is pleased to have, so he's taking a step-by-step
approach to implementing his new digital solution for up-coming
"Reader Rushes."
"During
our first semester with the DigiPath and DocuTech, I moved
25 percent of the work to the new process," Keevil
reports. "This summer, with a lighter workload, I'm
handling 80 percent digitally. This fall, I'll shoot for
100 percent."
"Productivity
is our top benefit," he claims. "With light lens
technology, I had 30 or 35 people working at the copiers
all day, all night. This past spring, I had three or four
working at the DigiPath. Next is the overall quality. We
can do a better job cleaning up the document digitally.
We're saving digital files, rather than boxes of hard copy
"make readies," so there's less opportunity for
error, like misplacing hard copy documents or using the
wrong paper version. And my staff is a lot happier - the
work is more fun and a lot easier - and that's a big benefit.
I'd like to have more staff working with customers and fewer
working with sheets of paper."
Summary
A reputation for speed, productivity and higher quality
is only the starting point at Campus Copy. "We're beginning
to handle Course Packs for Internet courses now," Keevil
says, envisioning a time when professors across the country
call on Campus Copy to be their Course Pack supplier.
"My
goal for the future is to have professors sending us digital
files. We can all win then. It will be more productive for
us, they'll get quicker service, and the quality will improve
further."
