Faced with a dire budget crisis in Illinois, the Valley View School District in Romeoville/Bolingbrook, just minutes from Chicago, was directed to reduce its copying by 30% over two years. By thinking outside the box, Daniel Strodtman, the district's printing director, helped to launch some creative, money saving strategies that included a copy accountability website. "We tracked the copy usage of over 2,500 employees (print shop and department copiers) and posted it on the website for all to see," he explains. "The program was very successful with an initial direct savings of nearly a quarter of a million dollars and a savings of over 20 million copies annually."

Launching the Plan

They launched the reduction plan by identifying copy allotments for each of the 23 learning centers (buildings) based on data from previous years. Elementary schools were allotted 3,300 copies per student; middle schools 2,700 and high schools 2,250. The allotments were lowered 20% the first year and an additional 10% the second. Buildings surpassing their allotment were invoiced for any overages.

Administrators have the opportunity to view on-line the allotments and percentage of copies used to date for each of the 23 learning centers. Within each learning center individuals are listed along with the number of copies they have requested from the print shop. Each building was also given the ability to track individual usage through account numbers on their copiers, allowing the administrator to isolate accounts with high usage. At the end of the month the in-plant sends a detailed report to all of the building administrators.

20 Million Copies Saved

Although the number of copies has dropped dramatically, the number of jobs requested by the print shop has remained about the same. The in-plant still processes approximately 90,000 quick copy jobs per year. "We are guessing the reduction came from users rounding up in the past. If they needed 35 copies, they would order 50 copies."

Always Thinking Outside the Box

The 8-person shop with its three offset presses and nine high volume copiers views itself as ahead of the curve, based on processes rather than technology. "When it comes to procedures we are way ahead. Such is the case with web to print. We also had our copier fleet networked and our customers using mailboxes five years ago. We also pioneered day planners in our parent student handbooks, something that's common place today," notes Strodtman, who for over 30 years has worked for the district's in-plant. "Everything we do, every piece of equipment we have provides a product that our district deems to be an asset."

As early as 2000, when their email network became large enough, they implemented on-line job ticketing. "That was the beginning of our web to print. As the software developed, we purchased EFI's digital storefront." Today about 280 orders are sent to them each day with the push of a button.

Variable data and wide format printing have become routine, everyday projects for them. "We have been doing it for so long and so much that I'm hard pressed to remember when we didn't do it," he laughs. Student report cards represent about 20% of their variable data printing. The shop prints about 200,000 and mails about 70,000 report cards each year. Classrooms throughout the district proudly display thousands of wide-format printing projects created by the in-plant.

While the bulk of their volume is curriculum materials, possibly their biggest challenge is the production of 30,000, 200-page parent student handbooks each year. They also design, typeset and print course catalogs, sports programs, assignment books, concert programs, etc. The eight person print team finds the variety of work not only challenging, but fun. "We recently took over yearbook printing," explains Strodtman."The cost of producing the yearbooks externally became so high; parents were no longer purchasing them." As a solution, the shop took over the printing at a fraction of the cost. "Our administration noticed and we received a lot of kudos for the project."

The mailing arm of the operation, which manages 350,000 to 400,000 piecesannually, is equally efficient. "We keep up with the latest software to manage our databases. Without the sorting software we would lose our automated rates and would end up sending mail to a lot of undeliverable addresses."

However, the shop's greatest achievement over the years has probably been its ability to change and see outside the box. "It's a constant evolutionary process," notes Strodtman. "At the end of the day on Friday we won't be doing things the same way as we did on Monday. As managers, it's our job to focus on the operation, make it unique and make it as efficient as possible. It's important as we spend our days putting out fires that we don't lose focus of the big picture."