City College Plymouth transforms print room with Konica Minolta

Print Solutions

City College Plymouth has transformed its print room following a six figure investment with Konica Minolta.

Following a competitive tender process, Konica Minolta was awarded the five year contract to supply colour and mono digital production presses, complementary finishing equipment and a sophisticated web to print solution. The win was secured on its ability to provide a high quality, future proof, cost competitive total solution that delivered tangible time and cost savings, improved efficiency, enabled the College to market its services to the commercial market, and removed the requirement for high-volume jobs to be outsourced.

The new print room solution comprising the bizhub Press C1085, bizhub Press 1052, Duplo DC-645 production colour finisher and EFI Digital StoreFront flexible e-commerce solution has transformed the way in which the print and design team work.

Head of Learning Resources Paul Scarsbrook said, ‘The new equipment has transformed the way we work. Volumes have never been so high, the throughput we are now handling is record breaking. Our productivity levels are much higher and we have been able to successfully refine and define how we work, what resources we need and where we allocate staff time.’

The new digital production print systems are reliable and robust. ‘Previously jobs in excess of 5000 copies were outsourced, but now the in-house team is processing runs up to 15,000 and we are confident leaving these large jobs running overnight,’ added Paul.

Throughput has significantly ramped up. In September, traditionally the College’s busiest month, the print room processed 607,000 mono copies compared with 460,000 the previous year and colour prints more than doubled – 65,000 as opposed to 26,000 last year.

‘Doing more in-house is saving a not insignificant amount of money, plus the added benefit is that print quality and job turnaround times are now both firmly under the control of the print room manager,’ he said.

The finishing equipment has also proven to be a massive time saver.

‘Each month, the number of jobs where the finishing had to be completed by hand was in the thousands, last month, that figure dropped to 43. The biggest advantage has been the ability to free up staff who would ordinarily be tied up with this labour intensive but essential process, to get on with other tasks,’ said Paul.

Digital StoreFront is set to support the print team in securing additional revenues, providing a professional shop window to showcase the range of services it provides to the external commercial market, as well as enabling internal clients to embrace a more efficient self service approach which will help the print and design team further enhance service delivery and improve turnaround times.

City College Plymouth’s design and print team manage the production of the college’s corporate collateral including posters, leaflets, prospectuses and other marketing materials, in addition to providing a professional service to the 720 staff who work across three sites, handling the requirement for fast turnaround, high quality printed exam papers, lecture notes and workbooks.