ED PUBS
One-stop shopping at the U.S. Department of Education's Education Publications Center 
(ED Pubs) 
Delivers exceptional customer service, quality assurance, and a performance-based operation.
Award Winning Project
? May 26, 1998, the Department of ED and Aspen Systems Corporation established ED Pubs.
? Centralizing customer service, mailing list maintenance, storage and dissemination of information products for 18 ED principal offices, NIFL, and NAGB. 
Customer Service Initiatives
? Centralized Call Center Representatives answer 5 toll-free telephone numbers Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. for ordering products and referrals to appropriate ED offices.
? After-hours and fax-back ordering available.
? On-line Ordering System lists ED informational products. 
? Web users may order up to 5 product titles or customers may link to full-text electronic copies saving printing and shipping costs.
Customer Service Initiatives, cont.
? Bulk Publication Ordering System (BPOS) allows schools, colleges, and other organizations to order student financial aid materials.

? Customers are automatically notified via e-mail when their orders are placed, shipped, and received.
? Orders are shipped within 1-3 business days.
Customer Service Initiatives, cont.
? Centralized Inventory Management System with tracking and barcode technology creates seamless shipping system.
? Processes over 450 expedited orders monthly to agency-wide usage for seminars and conferences.
? These orders are shipped same or next day.
More Customer Service Initiatives - Surveys
? Measures customer satisfaction.
? Enclosed with 10/% of orders, selected at random and tracked for delivery.
? Feedback is used to improve customer service and satisfaction.
More Customer Service
? ED Pubs Call & Order Transaction System maintains a database of more than 713,000 customer profiles from 17 different databases.
? Saves shipping time, analyzes customer base and product needs.
? Spanish speaking operators.
? TTY/TTD to order materials in Braille and audiotape formats.
? Provides outreach.
? Centralized mailing list database prevents duplicate mailings.

Cost Control Initiatives
? Produces monthly computer-generated reports used for tracking publication distribution among POCs.
? Allows planning future publication needs.
? Conducts multi-level cost comparisons for mailing and shipping.
? A cost savings of $1,293,281.55 for mailing and shipping has been realized since May 1998 through February 2000.
Inventory Management Initiatives
? Department-wide centralized inventory maintenance system.
? Reliable inventory distribution statistics for each POC, NIFL, and NAGB.
? Credit for recycling products. 
? Monthly computer-generated reports reflecting accurate product inventory.
? Barcode technology to identify all products.
? Threshold Reports automatically generated. 
Exemplified Performance
? Received Vice President Gore's Hammer Award for putting customers first.
? Reputation as model site for federal government.

? President's Management Council rated ED Pubs 7 points above private sector companies such as Coca Cola and FedEx in customer satisfaction.
	Transporation and 		 
	Distribution Award
? Aspen was awarded the Excellence in Logistics Award by the Transportation & Distribution magazine for work on ED Pubs.
? Recognized for outstanding logistics practices resulting in significant improvements in customer service, supplier relationships and cost reduction.