No more queues at the secretariat with Kiosk!

The University of Bologna in September 2019 decided to revolutionize the university card issuing system, outsourcing the service to be implemented with self-service stations.
The Alma Mater Studiorum the oldest university in the western world founded in 1088 wanted to mark another record and be the most avant-garde university with an innovative solution that would allow students of all Campuses - Bologna, Cesena, Forlì , Ravenna and Rimini, to collect the university badge on their campus as well as any one, during the University opening hours, freeing themselves from the times of the faculty secretariats.

Targets

The objectives that the University wanted to achieve were manifold and concerning different aspects:

- Relieve the secretariats of an activity which is challenging for them

- Enhance the student experience

- Eliminate post-sales costs

But without losing control of card issues and continuing to use their software.

How does it work

The student enrolls either through the UNIBO website or at the secretariat and makes the payment of the fee. He receives a confirmation email and a QR code to be used at the kiosk to collect the badge. He goes to the faculty at one of the kiosks in the faculties of Bologna, Ravenna, Rimini, Cesena and Forlì.
He follows the directions of the kiosk, reads the QR code received from the reader, the software asks him to confirm his identity and always following the instructions on the display, prints and withdraws his university badge!

The flow that leads to the production of the badge

To print the university badge, the kiosk is equipped with a management and control software capable of providing timely information on the status of all the workstations and interfacing with the University software to find all the student information needed to produce the badge, to be sent to the print module
The printing module chosen was Evolis KM500B for its 500-card loading drawer and a color ribbon for customizing the same number of prints. This high production capacity makes it possible to reduce the number of personnel interventions for changing the belt or filling the loading drawers with prestamapte cards.
The real innovation of the project is a module that allows you to control the printer remotely and to let the software, the Ermes Smart Printer (ESP) module communicate with it.
The Ermes Smart Printer is based on an ARM microprocessor with Linux on board, it is preconfigured at the factory, the only prerequisite is an Ethernet line with internet access via DHCP (dynamic IP configuration protocol).
It is able to check the operating states of the printer such as: card presence, ribbon presence, cover opening, ribbon capacity, cards missing for cleaning, total printed cards and firmware update.

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