Delivering Copybook Olympic Performance

Edited by the Printingtalk editorial team Sep 1, 2004

As the Athens 2004 Olympic Games drew to a close, Xerox could reflect on the success of its assembled force of over 230 engineers from 19 countries across Europe.

As the Athens 2004 Olympic Games drew to a close, Xerox could reflect on the success of its assembled force of over 230 engineers from 19 countries across Europe who handled the printing and publishing needs of the event.

In order to fulfil demanding service levels, the engineers ensured that event results were recorded, tabulated and reported in hard copy to press, broadcasters, judges, Olympic officials, athletes, sponsors and Olympic staff - within only five minutes of the completion of every event.

Setting aside the estimated ticketed attendance of 5.3 million, the Games were broadcast to billions of homes around the world which, combined with the live environment, left no margin for error.

In order to maintain the high level of service, Xerox had a technician on site within only 10 minutes when a fault was reported, wherever it occurred in 35 competition venues and 26 non-competition venues.

"The service levels in place, amount of equipment provided, and the engineers' abilities to handle all the document needs for the Games was a recognition of how critical the behind-the-scenes processes were to making the event run smoothly," said Vince Schaeffer, director of worldwide Olympic Operations for Xerox.

"The bottom line at events like this is that customers want to know that their systems will work when needed and that there are systems in place to ensure near 100 per cent availability.

That is what we achieved for the full 17 days of the Games." To help fulfil this pledge, the technical operations centre (TOC), was manned around the clock during the event.

The TOC allowed Xerox technicians to monitor all networked devices that enabled Xerox to anticipate any issues that might have arisen.

Xerox was able to monitor all 6,000 pieces of equipment through its Centreware Network Services, which provided current information about all devices available on network servers and the jobs printed to those devices, including the device name, location, status of print and fax jobs in the queue.