HCC - University Business magazine’s “Model of Efficiency”
Jul 31, 2014
Houston Community College is one of nine colleges and universities honored by University Business magazine as a “Model of Efficiency” in its summer 2014 national recognition program. By centralizing copier and printer services across all six HCC colleges and 27 education sites, HCC has drastically improved services to HCC’s 70,000 students and more than 5,000 faculty and staff members with a single, common, secure interface that allows easy cost management, as well as print and copy tracking.
Prior to HCC’s Information Technology solution “EaglePrint,” copying and printing was done differently at each of the district’s colleges – different hardware, different tracking and different payment systems. HCC officials found it difficult to monitor the funds collected from faculty and students, who themselves were hamstrung by having to deal with a different system at each college where they taught and studied. Multiple maintenance contracts with various vendors made analyzing and tracking supply budgets, revenues and performance equally frustrating.
The HCC IT department was able to use existing systems to centralize the operation under a single vendor contract covering copying and printing services at all of the school’s colleges and campuses. Those services are now integrated with HCC’s identity management, email and network systems, allowing for a variety of more efficient operational benefits.
For example, users can print from their smartphones and tablets. They have access to a single, secure interface to manage their print cards funds, their print and copy control options, and their individual print queues–finally, they can initiate printing from one site and pick up their work at another. Better reporting gives administrators a clearer idea of printer/copier usage as well as timely notifications of supply shortages. Training is more streamlined as well.
“The goal was to make everything more effective,” said Dr. William Carter, Vice Chancellor for Information Services. “It gave us all the functionality we needed to allow our students to bring-your-own-everything, do-anything-anywhere-type concept.”
The new system generated $191,000 in revenues its first year; paying for itself in about 10 months. The revenues contribute to offsetting supply costs.
Sponsored by Higher One, a leader in providing financial services and data analytics to more than 1,900 college and university campuses across the U.S., the Models of Efficiency program recognizes innovative approaches for streamlining higher education operations through technology and/or business process improvements.