Toledo Public Schools

Challenge

Toledo Public Schools (TPS) operates 49 elementary and high schools as well as 30 satellite locations, such as the transportation and food service facilities. Recently, the school system has reorganized and reinvested in new facilities and programs to prepare for a technology-oriented future.

One area that needed attention was the school system’s printers and output devices, which were 15-years old and in serious need of upgrading. With device breakdowns growing, administrators began investigating ways to modernize the district’s devices. As they looked into updating the equipment, administrators also uncovered an opportunity to automate how teachers requested copy jobs—and how the print shop fulfilled them.

The TPS central print shop runs around the clock during the school year and produces approximately 40 million pages each year. The challenge for the print shop was dealing with incoming requests—each request contained a hardcopy of the original document and instructions on how many copies the teacher needed. The instruction sheet was a pre-printed multi-part form. Some jobs were just one page, needing a handful of copies, while others were dozens of pages, requiring hundreds of copies with hole punching or stapling. Couriers ran routes to dozens of school buildings throughout the day, picking up requests and delivering completed jobs.

Mailroom personnel sorted incoming requests from over-flowing mail tubs into bins according to the project deadline. The manual sorting process took several hours each day, and longer during peak times.

Approximately 98% of copy jobs were completed using this manual process and school administrators, working with Lexmark, wanted to devise a more efficient and cost-effective solution that would shave hours off the process and give teachers and administrators more time to focus on student achievement instead of paperwork.

Solution

The school district started by purchasing modern Lexmark multifunction products (MFP), models Lexmark X792dtfe and X658dte. Then, after a successful pilot, the school system implemented an innovative Lexmark document-management solution that automated the manual copy-request process. Now, teachers can go online to fill out copy-job request forms—either from their classroom computer or using the Lexmark MFP in the teachers’ workroom. The multi-part form for instructions is now obsolete.

The request is electronically routed to the print shop, and teachers receive an automated message letting them know the job has been received. “Our teachers have embraced the solution since it is helping them work more efficiently and giving them back time that can be better spent with students,” said Cathy Giles, supervisor, duplicating and mail room services, Toledo Public Schools.

For everyday printing, TPS deployed Lexmark Print Release, a solution that allows employees to print to any device on the network. Print jobs are released and printed once the employee authenticates at the actual device. Now teachers can print their documents at any time, and pick them up at any printer. Principals manage print volumes from reports printed on the devices themselves.

Results

Since deploying the Lexmark solution, Toledo Public Schools has seen a number of efficiency improvements to its output operations. Whereas before almost all copy jobs were requested via paper forms through interoffice mail, now 98% of jobs are requested electronically. Today print shop operators download requests and documents from a specific network folder instead of sorting through bins of interoffice mail, a change that has improved productivity and job satisfaction.

“The automated process has also saved TPS money on courier costs, since it has eliminated nearly all of the copy job pick-ups,” said Giles. “And the print shop staff spends less time sorting hard copies and more time on strategic projects.”

Back at the schools, teachers save time because now it’s easier to submit copy requests through their desktop computers or at Lexmark MFPs. Not surprisingly, teachers and staff have embraced the automated process. “With the Lexmark solution, teachers don’t have to leave their classroom,” said Giles. “They can submit the request online or from the device in the teachers’ workroom. It’s a lot easier. They don’t have to fill out the form, take it down to the office and put it in the interoffice envelope.”

Teachers and administrators got up to speed quickly with the new printing platform. “We distributed a packet of instructions to everybody and created posters with quick tips next to each MFP,” Giles said. “Overall,” she says, “the Lexmark solution has been a driver of print management control, visibility and cost savings. It has turned out to be a really big success for the district.”