challenge - American River College

print to win case study
American River College Relies on EFI Digital StoreFront and
MicroPress to Meet Deadlines and Guarantee Quality.
Print to Win
EFI (www.efi.com) is a world leader in color digital print servers,
superwide format printers and inks, industrial inkjet printing systems and
print management, Web-to-print and proofing solutions. EFI is dedicated
to giving customers a competitive edge with award-winning, scalable
solutions from creation to print that maximize productivity and increase
profits. EFI maintains 23 offices worldwide.
Formed in 1955, American River College
in Sacramento, Calif. is a leading
community college. The school serves
40,000 students, with 1,800 faculty and
staff, placing it in the top five in size in
the state of California.
CHALLENGE:
“Because of a decade of record enrollment, “the college faculty was
becoming more and more unhappy with the slow turn-around times
and missed deadlines of the Printing Services Department. We had
outgrown our home-made grown job submission system and it was
time to upgrade to a professional solution.”
– Don Reid, Supervisor of Printing Services,
American River College
The Printing Services Department at American River College (ARC) serves a large
customer base, handling between 1-2 million impressions per month. Together with
another staff member, supervisor Don Reid developed an online job submission tool
that served their needs well for several years. But as ARC and its staff grew, the homegrown system couldn’t keep up.
Reid conducted a six-month review of Web-to-Print solutions, looking closely at six
different vendors.
EFI Pittsburgh
40 24th Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
www.efi.com/products/APPS/
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Electronics for Imaging, Inc. in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and/or certain other foreign jurisdictions. Bestcolor is a registered trademark of Electronics For Imaging GmbH in the U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office.
AutoCal, Balance, BioVu, BioWare, Build, ColorCal, Digital StoreFront, Estimate, Fiery Link, Fiery Prints, Fiery Spark, FreeForm, Hagen, Jetion, Logic, MicroPress, PhotoXposure, Printcafe,
PrintSmith, PSI, PSI Flexo, Remoteproof, RIPChips, Scan, Screenproof, SendMe, Splash, Spot-On, UltraTex, UV Series 50, VisualCal, WebTools, the EFI logo, the Fiery Prints logo and Essential to
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110508CSComart
RESULTS:
“MicroPress gives us the
ability to easily process a
mountain of work. With DSF
and MicroPress working
together, this is the first
semester that mountain
didn’t bury us!”
SOLUTION:
“EFI Digital StoreFront was
the best solution to meet
our demanding needs,
and the addition of EFI
MicroPress gave us a JDF
workflow which has made
a huge difference to our
productivity. These solutions
make our lives a lot easier.”
– Don Reid
After close review, Reid selected EFI
Digital StoreFront® (DSF) for its intuitive
commands, visual user interface, and
ease of use. Because the Fall semester
was starting soon, Reid completed a fast
6-week implementation before going
live.
venient then sending jobs hardcopy or
bringing them to the print center, and
especially like the ease of re-ordering
jobs. The system has ensured better
quality and faster output than the
previous solution, while giving users the
ability to easily track jobs 24/7.
Soon after, Reid was introduced to EFI
MicroPress®, a scalable production
workflow solution that streamlines
prepress work, automates manual
processes, and optimizes engine speed
to efficiently produce color and black
and white documents. ARC decided to
purchase MicroPress, and implemented
the solution about a year after going
live with Digital StoreFront. Today, the
systems are working together in a
seamless JDF workflow through Printing
Services’ EFI Fiery-driven devices.
ARC also uses DSF for variable data print
jobs, including business cards, note
pads, envelopes, department forms,
schedules and calendars.
For Reid and his operators, Digital
StoreFront has made their jobs easier,
removing guesswork and streamlining
the shop’s workflow. For the faculty and
staff that use DSF, they find it more con-
Reid estimates that almost half of the
staff use DSF today, and he’s working
hard to ensure that number keeps
growing. To help educate everyone on
how to use the system, Reid conducts
classes several times a year on campus
and has even posted “how to” videos on
the department’s YouTube channel. “It’s
great to see peoples’ ‘ah-ha’ moments
with DSF, especially the professors and
staff members who have been hesitant
to use it. Once they feel comfortable
with how it works and how easy it is,
they prefer it hands-down,” said Reid.
The addition of MicroPress has meant
huge improvements in productivity.
“With MicroPress, we’re able to push
more jobs through in a day,” Reid notes.
“Before MicroPress, we’d process about
100 jobs per day. Now, we can process
those same 100 jobs in about 90 minutes! The turn-around time is so much
faster that we’re getting lots of positive
feedback from faculty and staff.”
“With the help of EFI, we’re much closer
to meeting our goal of having all jobs
done on-time and error-free, which is
leaps and bounds ahead of where we
were 18 months ago,” concludes Reid.
– Don Reid