The Catholic University of East Africa is streamlining the process for issuing all its cards and badges
The Catholic University of East Africa is streamlining the process for issuing all its cards and badges.
The Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) has invested in several Evolis identification solutions: Primacy 2 and Zenius.
The Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA) has invested in several Evolis identification solutions: Primacy 2 and Zenius. While the institution was experiencing difficulties in producing cards efficiently for its students, employees and visitors, the Evolis printers now enable cards to be issued internally, immediately.
Challenge: centralize the production of all badges and cards to optimize the instant issue process
The Catholic University of East Africa in Kenya was founded in 1985. Today, the institution offers courses from undergraduate to doctorate level to more than 18,000 students each year. The courses are taught by 400 lecturers, and 300 employees are involved in the day-to-day running of the university. The university therefore receives every day a large number of people, which led it to consider an access control system. Initially, the university called on various external suppliers to produce student, employee and visitor cards. However, this system had several limitations: it was not common to the school’s various campuses (process not streamlined) and production time was not optimal.
The aim was therefore to find a solution for instant issue that could produce different types of cards and badges (multiservice student cards, teacher, employee and visitor badges) and that could be easily deployed in the various establishments.
Solution: Zenius and Primacy 2, the complementarity of solutions for mass production at lower cost
After discovering Evolis at a trade fair and through conferences organised by a reseller in Kenya, the CUEA chose the French manufacturer for its identification solutions. To purchase solutions tailored to their needs, the institution acquired a Zenius printer and two Primacy 2 printers. The wide range of features offered by the Primacy 2 ensures high quality production for a large number of cards. Zenius is the compact, cost-effective solution for short-run production. The combination of these two solutions makes it possible to personalise and print all the badges and cards a university needs:
- Student cards: these are personalized with the surname, first name, registration number (written and in a bar code), biometric data in a QR code, the study program followed, the student’s faculty and contain a contactless chip. They are printed on blank, double-sided, four-color cards. These cards can be used to make payments in the cafeteria and to control the borrowing and return of books from the library.
- Employee and teacher badges: these are personalized with first and last name, job title, color photograph, ID or passport number, registration number in a barcode, biometric data in a QR code and contain a contactless chip. They are printed on blank, double-sided, four-color cards. These cards can also be used to make payments in the cafeteria and to access photocopying services.
- Visitor badges: these are personalised with the visitor’s contact details, a unique entry number and the visitor’s biometric data on a QR code. They are printed on blank, single-sided, four-colour cards.
Each badge and card is used to identify individuals and control their access to the CUEA campuses. IT department employees have been trained to use the printers to personalize them. The Primacy 2 printer is used to issue student cards and employee and teacher badges, while the Zenius printer is used to issue visitor badges.
Result: more than 60,000 cards issued per year and easier identification of individuals
The solutions now enable to issue all the cards and badges for the university’s various campuses. 200 to 250 cards are personalized and printed every day, for a total of 60,000 to 70,000 cards per year. Thanks to the Zenius and Primacy 2 printers, the university benefits from a number of advantages, as confirmed by the head of information and communication technologies at the CUEA:
- Instant internal transmission
- Fast printing
- Card print quality
- Mass printing
- A practical solution
- Reliability
