Digital color printing, online ordering have improved University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston's in-plant.

Rebranding, Online Ordering Helps Secure Stationery Business

A rebranding initiative by its two main customers, coupled with the installation of a new online ordering system, allowed UTHealth Auxiliary Enterprises Printing and Media Services to become the sole supplier of stationery items for these two key clients.

It all began in 2010, when the MD Anderson Cancer Center, part of The University of Texas System, decided to launch its new logo. The in-plant had just installed Xerox Freeflow Web Services, which provides a Web-based ordering platform, and Director Donna Cooper Horbelt saw an opportunity.

“We built all the MD Anderson templates for all their letterheads, envelopes, business cards, fold-over cards, notepads...in the online system,” she says, “and then we trained the customer on how to use the online system.” MD Anderson put the in-plant’s ordering site on its intranet, making it convenient for customers.

But just as important for MD Anderson as convenience was graphic consistency. Having its staff order all stationery from the in-plant stopped designers from altering the new logo to fit their creative purposes, as had been done in the past. Now all clients must use the prescribed graphic standards.

When UTHealth rebranded in August of 2010, the in-plant had stationery templates ready to go. Using this automated system has greatly improved productivity over the days when the in-plant had to typeset business cards, wait for customers to approve a proof, and then gang them up on a plate before printing them, Horbelt says.

“The customers were getting their cards in three or four weeks,” she recalls. “It was embarrassing. Now a business card usually is out of my shop in three days.”

Once an order is placed online, the file either goes to a folder in prepress, where it is used to make a polyester plate or it is sent to a digital press to be printed on demand. Cards are cut using a new Morgana CardXtra business card slitter. The shop averages 800 business card orders a month, Horbelt says. And production costs on business cards have decreased by 55 percent, she adds, which increased profits 35 percent.

An EFI Hagen OA interface between Freeflow Web Services and the in-plant’s EFI Monarch system automatically populates data fields for all jobs. The customer, shipping information, billing, cost and the name of the person placing the order are logged automatically to allow minimal job processing.

“We don’t even touch the jobs that come through Web Services any more,” Horbelt says. “They just happen.”

Thanks to the success of the online ordering system, the Auxiliary Enterprises Printing and Media Services team is now building online order templates for two other divisions of MD Anderson Cancer Center—and is in discussions to do the same for two other UTHealth groups.

Before adding a digital color press in 2010, Donna Cooper Horbelt says her in-plant at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) was not nearly as busy as she wanted it to be.

"I was losing color copy business to everybody in town," recalls the director of Auxiliary Enterprises, Printing and Media Services. "Our quality just wasn't good enough."

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Digital Makeover Boosts Business for UTHealth

Digital Makeover Boosts  Business for UTHealth