Frisco Independent School District (ISD)
WebCRD helps print center capabilities grow as fast as their district
“We looked at other web to print solutions but WebCRD’s features were by far the most useful in our educational environment. And of course the price was right.”
Sherri Broderick Print/Mail/Sign Services Supervisor, Frisco ISD
Customer Background/Solution Overview
Frisco Independent School District (FISD) in Frisco, Texas is growing rapidly. In fact, the student population is expected to continue to grow by 3,000 students each year for the next 10 years. The district’s Career and Technical Education Center and its FISD Print/Mail/Sign Services were charged with preparing for this increase by maximizing production capabilities while controlling costs. After extensive research they purchased new production equipment and chose RSA’s WebCRDTM web to print software as a key component of their solution.
The department name, FISD Print/Mail/Sign Services, speaks for itself. Their 13 employees help the district use their time more efficiently and decrease their expenses by providing print, mail and sign services on site. “Our staff is highly trained and knowledgeable. We are able to assist customers with printing services to achieve education goals and stretch their budgets,” explains Sherri Broderick, FISD Print/Mail/Sign Services Supervisor. “We are always looking for additional ways to save the district dollars. Whether our customers need print orders for whole grade levels, school wide announcements, curricula or large print orders, we can help them determine what to send to our Print Center or assist them with outsourcing to approved district printers. All the while ensuring they receive the best quality and cost.”
The FISD print center had two key objectives when they first met with RSA: increase the volume of work to keep pace with population growth and their success at bringing more jobs in house and decrease manual workflow processes to eliminate work hours and improve order accuracy. The key to achieving both objectives was completing the elimination of their manual order entry that had already begun. As recently as 2008, the print center would supply each of the districts campuses with 500 3-part NCR forms at the beginning of each school year as Print Job Tickets. Each ticket had to be filled out by a customer and then hand-entered by a print center employee. By 2011 they had already reduced the quantity of paper tickets to 250 per campus, but users would still order additional NCR forms when they ran out and hand written, incomplete and inaccurate job tickets were still bogging down their workflow.
WebCRD was installed in 2011. Today the print shop receives all print orders electronically—eliminating 40 hours per month of labor, accelerating turnaround on jobs by two days, and allowing them to grow their volume from 1.7 million impressions per month in January of 2012 to 8 million by May of 2014.
Knowledge and power is better for everyone.
“When our customers know the status of their orders they get peace of mind,” says Broderick. “It also eliminates the need for the print center to field calls about status or execute reprinting of work that has already been completed.” WebCRD allows Frisco ISD to track jobs in two ways. Print/Mail/Sign Services now prints a job tracking sheet that goes in the delivery tub to every campus every time. Users just scan the QR code on the sheet and see the entire contents of the tub on one easy-to-read page. The report shows each campus’ print orders and completion time so they have a record of all print orders submitted each day from the Print Center. Users can also log into WebCRD at any time and track jobs in real time. They can easily determine if a job is being held up because of a needed approval or additional information. The system also sends email notifications throughout the production process to keep customers up to date.
WebCRD doesn’t just offer more information, it provides more
powerful functionality. The software gives team leaders at the
campus level the ability to place orders for teams of teachers utilizing customizable distribution lists. At the same time, Print/Mail/Sign Services employees can easily send jobs to the correct printer without having to re-ticket and “file to print” each job.
Doing more with less.
By eliminating manual job entry, decreasing order errors, and automating tracking and reporting, Frisco ISD has been able to focus available resources to provide far greater capabilities. “We’re ready to increase the volume of work in the coming year by 45% as each campus turns to us for greater convenience, quality, cost savings and additional finishing options,” explains Broderick. “We have also been able to increase our repository of files archived in our catalog for global use including master tests; spelling lists; and Science, Math, and Spelling materials. All this while being able to reduce the rates we charge campuses and departments for printing services.” WebCRD can also automatically route jobs to Frisco ISD’s new production equipment they leased to offer additional media sizes, colors and weights and more finishing options.
It’s all about being ready for every teacher and every student every year.
Many school districts have had to react to and prepare for growth, but few on the scale of Frisco. In fact, Frisco ISD is one of the fastest growing school districts in Texas and the nation. While the district grows their campuses, from two to six per year, FISD Print/Mail/Sign Services knows they need to be prepared. They have projected the need to expand their volume from 8 million impressions per month today to 13.8 million in 2014-15. Using WebCRD for submission and automated workflow management was a crucial step in their plan. The next step is using the coming year as a benchmark to see how well the staff and digital presses are prepared to achieve the increased volume and decreased turn around.
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