Centralised Multi-Function Print And Software

In Spring 2003, East Sussex County Council in the UK began a print project with the aim of centralising printing activity under the Council's ICT team.

In Spring 2003, East Sussex County Council in the UK began a print project with the aim of centralising printing activity under the Council's ICT team.

The goal of the project was to rationalise the number of print devices to deliver a faster, more reliable and cost-effective infrastructure.

With almost 700,000 prints generated every month the management of continuing costs was a priority at County Hall.

Andrew Wroblewski, the council's print services and support team leader, has been in charge of the project since its inception and will manage the transition to its completion.

He commented: "As an organisation we knew that there were savings to be made in our print strategy.

We had too many devices on-site, the majority of which were basic walk-up copiers and stand-alone printers and not many of the photocopiers offered any networking capabilities." And he continued: "We knew that rationalisation was possible but, more importantly, with the right strategy we could actually make printing a lot easier and more convenient for staff with more control over printing to cheaper and more cost effective devices." Wroblewski's team is aiming to deliver a strategy in which each council area is served by a core infrastructure, including a single large multifunctional device (MFD) and two or three back-up networked printers.

Pete Lulham, the council's ICT services infrastructure manager, said: "The project is also an example of how East Sussex County Council is responding to the requirements of the Gershon report.

Print is an often unrecognised back office function that is assumed to be a necessity, although few users fully understand the associated costs.

The introduction of Smart Device Monitor and PAS have enabled us to provide our users with information regarding their printing habits, the associated costs and to advise of alternative facilities that better meet their business needs, at a lower cost." East Sussex evaluated proposals from Ricoh, Canon and Xerox and Wroblewski added : "If truth be told, when evaluating all three manufacturers there was little between them in terms of systems functionality.

However, given the volumes of print we were looking at, Ricoh - through the proposal it was suggesting - was the most beneficial to the council over the longer term as the time and cost savings were significant." He commented: "Ricoh's software stood the company apart from other manufacturers - it hase given me the flexibility to centralise the management and control of print devices across the council buildings." Ricoh's Smart Device Monitor software has enabled individual PIN accounts to be set up for each Ricoh Aficio machine so that Wroblewski's team can monitor print volumes and the associated costs by account.

Collation of machine print volumes has also improved due to the software delivered by Ricoh.

These are administered centrally from County Hall, providing on-line meter readings and account details that reduce the time spent travelling to external sites to record such information.

It had previously taken Wroblewski's team one and a half days to visit each of the 26 machines at County Hall to transcribe data for costing, but Ricoh's software has reduced that core task to approximately 30 minutes each month.

Wroblewski explained: "Since we introduced the software, remote device monitoring has become much more straight forward.

My team can log on to the software in the morning and see what is going on across every device.

We've been able to create a more proactive working environment where we can respond to potential problems such as toner replacement before they are reported." The new machines have improved working practices across the board.

For example, users can print, scan and email information on any of the networked machines, rather than being restricted to the use of certain devices.

Moving forward, Wroblewski's team will work closely with Ricoh to extend the hardware and software functions to benefit from more secure printing opportunities and also more intelligent print routing.

Initially, Wroblewski's team installed Ricoh's Aficio 1060 and the Aficio 2060 hardware and software at County Hall before rolling the proposal out to other office buildings.

The authority's ICT team is now moving on to look at other larger council offices.

To date, three additional sites to County Hall have been rationalised - Sackville House, Lewes, as well as St Mary's and St Mark's in Eastbourne, with 26 units in place across the four locations.

Ricoh said that user acceptance has been high and staff have been able to get to grips with the devices quickly without requiring any specialist training.

They have positively embraced the equipment and the additional functions the Ricoh devices have to offer, including the booklet and hole punching options, and all personnel will benefit from continuing technical support, added the company.

Wroblewski commented: "Feedback has shown that users are really utilising the added functions of the devices, which has not only improved working practices, but document printing speeds have increased significantly, too.

The Ricoh machines have improved printing across the board, with a faster and more effective operation than we had with our previous walk up devices." He added: "In particular, the PIN number system has proved a positive move.

Due to the networking of the devices, users now have the option of using other machines in the building should the one on their floor be out of action or busy.

In addition, within the Children's Services Department, users are now storing regularly printed documents directly to the device's memory, enabling them to print additional copies directly from the machine on demand." Ricoh commented that overall the project has already had a major impact on the council's print strategy.

Based on a five-year period the new MFDs are running at around 25 per cent less expensive than their predecessors.

At a network level, cost control has improved through the use of Ricoh's software to audit printing.

Print budgets are split out at directorate level and then between individual directorate teams.

Ricoh's Print Auditor Software has enabled the council to create a system that can identify individual users and then charge back print costs to the relevant team - irrespective of whether office space and devices are shared.

Cost control is important and the new software allows the ICT print team to look beyond the basic print costs and deliver statistics and metrics on basic usage, added Ricoh.

"Individual teams can now see their print volume broken down by various relevant metrics such as the number of pages, or whether activity is double or single-sided for instance.

This enables them to consider how to improve team costs and minimise wasted print volumes," acknowledged Wroblewski.

With print volumes of almost 700,000 prints per month, machine uptime and maintenance are a crucial part of the contract and service management queries are monitored, managed and tracked by the council ICT's own support desk, said Ricoh.

Wroblewski remarked: "We have turn-around targets to hit in terms of closing service calls.

As a supplier, Ricoh is excellent at keeping us informed on the progress of maintenance and the company goes the extra mile to get devices back in service as quickly as possible.

Overall, our partnership with Ricoh is very strong.

No request or query is too small, things are dealt with quickly and we are always kept in the loop.

This makes us feel confident in the long-term relationship that we have." He added that since choosing Ricoh, the council has made giant steps in terms of delivering on its plans to create a much more streamlined print operation and strategy.

"We are rolling-out a system that is offering a faster and more flexible solution to our users, as well as delivering a more effective management system to monitor and reduce costs in the long term," concluded Wroblewski.

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