Anyone who enters the mailing centre in the main building at ETH Zurich these days will immediately notice that the facility has undergone some organisational and personnel changes. Previously customers used to walk straight into the production space, where stocks of envelopes and machines for folding and packaging were kept, but as of this summer things are different. A new reception area has been set up in room E 38.1, where Rita Chalabi and Qendrim Ramadani are on hand to offer advice to ETH Zurich members who want to produce, print or post their dissertations, lecture notes or business stationery.

ETH Zurich’s printing and mailing centres, formerly headed by Antoanella Märchy, were previously run as separate organisational units. Now they form a single entity, with the printing centre providing mailing services as well. Rita Chalabi was appointed head of this new Graphics, Printing and Mailing department in July 2013. This is the latest step in a process that began back in the summer of 2012, when the VPP (Versatile Printing and Plotting) printing facilities and reprographics centres were merged to form a central printing unit for ETH Zurich.

Customer-friendly

The incorporation of mailing services into the graphics and printing centre makes it possible to offer internal customers on ETH Zurich’s Campus Zentrum a comprehensive package of services. This includes advice, design services, printing, addressing and the packaging and mailing of printed material. “Now we can process printing and mailing orders from start to finish all in one place,” says Rita Chalabi.

In autumn 2013, Rita Chalabi will be joined by three assistant advisors – Christos Tziskas, Markus Riedl and Qendrim Ramadani – who will be on hand to help customers with their orders. “Thanks to their wide-ranging expertise in logistics, mailing and printing, they will be able to provide internal customers with professional advice,” says the head of the new unit.

Rita Chalabi’s team consists of nine people overall, of whom five work in the printing section, two deal with graphics and two take care of mailing tasks. They have upgraded equipment at their disposal to help them achieve their aim of processing more printing and mailing orders at ETH Zurich internally: a new folding and packaging machine has been purchased, as well as two envelope printers and a badge printer. They also work with highly skilled external partners to deal with large-scale print runs or special bookbinding requests. ETH Zurich’s internal postal team, led by Matilde Bonzanigo, takes care of packages. The printing centre at the HIL site on the Hönggerberg campus will continue to be run by Markus Hany.

New website and badges

To ensure that orders can be processed even more efficiently, the websites for the printing centre and the mailing centre have now been linked together. As well as offering an overview of services, prices and opening hours, these websites provide order forms for customers with a description of the order and a sample. There is an innovative addition to the product range too: badges featuring the new corporate design will soon be available as an alternative to the name tags currently used for conventions, conferences and symposia.

“The modernised equipment and optimised processes enable us to offer internal printing and mailing services at competitive prices and marketable quality standards,” says Urs Nussbaum, Head of the Services department, which covers the ETH Zurich postal service, office supplies, telephone switchboard and the vehicle management, transport and parking unit as well as the two printing centres.