Printing - Anyone gone fully managed?

[robjduk]

Looking to hear from schools with a fully managed, 3rd party printer solution in place (i.e you get someone like Cannon or Ricoh to sort it all out).

I guess I have a typical setup of various networked printers (about 40) along side a dedicated reprographics room where someone does the copying for teaching staff but would love to hear from schools who have gone down the fully managed route as we spend a crazy fortune on printing. I hear some places have removed basically all their printers and installed fancy printing rooms which only release jobs when someone turns up and keys in their personal number which I think would vastly reduce .

To me that sounds like it will save me a fortune but could do with some experiences or company recommendations. My school is starting to tighten up its belt a little and wonder if I can not only save them some money but also offload all printers to a 3rd party in one swoop.

 

Open to all suggestions.

Thanks all

Edited May 17, 2014 by Dos_Box

[mdench]

Just to say we aren't fully managed but just to give an idea

 

 

We have 34 printers 11 of which are Ricoh Photocopiers 2 x Aficio MP C7501 the rest are variations on the Aficio MP C4502.

 

We have PaperCut installed on our print server for print tracking / management with the photocopiers having the embedded version of papercut installed so you can track photocopying and do follow me printing. PaperCut is also linked with our exisiting BioStore solution to provide biometric access to our copiers so that staff do not have to remember a pin code.

 

We have found the biggest money saver in this has been the follow me printing allowing for staff to print jobs but not have them released until they arrive at what ever copier they turn up to, has reduced a large portion of the paper that we used to throw from people printing a class set of work sheets then and then forgetting they had printed them.

 

We also spent a long time looking at where best to locate the copiers and the areas with the high useage of paper / toner. So we currently have 1 in the library, 1 in an area surrounded by 4 ICT suites and 1 in our business studies area which covers 4 -5 class rooms. Then usual places like our main office, finance dept and the staff room. Also take the time to try and see what it is people are printing and then set the printers up accordingly. So in our ICT suites its mainly coursework so it defaults to colour in duplex mode whereas in our library its normally homework / exam papers so we can get away forcing B&W, economy printing and duplex mode.

 

I believe all ours was organised by Ricoh when we renewed our contract and then sub contracted our PaperCut install and Support work to a company called ITS LTD

[Meldrew]

We have implemented the same as @mdench, almost exactly, same Richoh printers, papercut, Biostore and ITS. We have only 7 copiers around College with very few odd individuals around College (finance, principals PA, etc) down from about 70+ printers before. Works an absolute treat. We reckon that we save around £15,000 a year on printing costs.

 

Meldrew

[tmcd35]

We have literatly just started a 3yr contract with Konica Minolta. 3x A3 MFD's, 6x A4 MFD's and 20x A4 Printers. Early days but fag paper calculations and tender specs going into this suggest we should at worst break even with our previous self-managed print solution but have greater flexibility, better reporting and monitoring, and KM have to service all the printer faults.

 

Hardware is more expensive, monitory software is alot more expensive, print cost per page is soo much cheaper it atleast eleminates the extra hardware/software costs encured!

[hardtailstar]

We aren't fully managed but we do have two ricohs as the main printers,

 

They are set up by everyone having a code and this is used on the laptop/computer within the printing settings. Each member of staff when they print/photocopy/scan has to enter the code on the printer and it will give them access to their prints and nobody else's.

 

When they scan it can be set up to email or stored in boxes on our server.

 

Since we got these in its been more cost effective to have these then about 10 printers.

[GeekyPete]

In the middle of a move to fully managed solution from Apogee. Seems OK. 3 MFD, and around 20 laser printers, mainly mono to encourage use of the MFDs. It's a special school so we try to keep people in classroom as much as possible. All ricoh devices. Some driver issues at first with the Mono printers. Ended up ditching the drivers and going for generic ones. The support was not fantastic. On site guys are all on stop watch and telephone support involves a lot of leg work for me. Paper cut is getting installed soon. Interestingly these guys took all the old printer stock as a trade in and bought the school out of their old photocopier contract.

[DrPerceptron]

We're fully managed (except for some people who are too... lazy to walk 30 feet - literally!) Ricoh copiers.

 

Staff are by default, only mapped to secure printers which can be released anywhere on site there is a copier. Students have a choice of 4 printers - IT, Art, Library and Sixth Form.

 

In an ideal world, I would rock a secure release site for everyone. Quality wise, the Ricoh copiers we have are basically bomb proof compared to the Canon copiers we used to have under a service contract from iKon. We also have ourselves an @Remote gateway (probably Ricoh specific) but it will book toner deliveries itself by polling the copiers.

 

They also function as scanners and copiers for staff and generally are very well used - the printer in IT usually goes through a ream of A3 and 5 A4 reams a week.

 

All printing runs through an Equitrac Express server for billing etc, staff are assigned to department billing codes which comes directly out of their budget and the heads get emailed a breakdown of their billing every few weeks. Students get upto £5 free credit at the start of the year or when they join and anything above that either needs to be a transfer from a department billing code or put on by themselves.

[itgeek2008]

Hi, we are partly managed. Currently have 4 Konica Minolta photocopiers, Samsung printers in IT Rooms and using pcounter, This is all managed by a company called Danwood. In the next few weeks are looking at moving across of papercut and see where else we can save money as at the moment we have lots of little laserjet and inkjet printers on peoples desk's that I would like to remove and use pull printing

[Sagima]

Since September we've been set up in much the same way as mdench. We have noted quite a large increase in the volume of stuff printed/photocopied (we tracked printer usage for 2 years prior) but as the costs are cheaper we are spending about the same on printing as we were. Quality is better though.

[Disease]

You never go full managed!

[robjduk]

thank you all for the replies. some good options there.

[StormTrooper59]

We use ISL who we lease our printers off. Printers are all Sharp and we have about 14 with a papercut system. ISL are very good with support and customer service. Very quick with sending out new toner also

[mrbios]

My only bit of advice for this thread is to avoid a company called EBC like the plague! Not a bad word to speak about their engineers, but as for the rest......

[nadeem]

I can highly recommend Paul from Sharp UK (the company was originally IOT, so we still have a reasonable amount of Ricoh kit)

 

Drop me a PM and I'll let you know his details

 

We went from about 100 printers / 2 copiers to 14 printers / 5 copiers (MFDs) / 1 repro machine using Equitrac and Mifare cards, we also have scan to-me and wireless printing - we saved a lot of money (though as it turns out not so many trees!)

[Oaktech]

Well,

 

we've looked at this, and decided against at the moment as we have a copier and printer contract with danwood which we are stuck with for another 18months. Once that is up we will decide whether we go for fully managed, or not.

 

We have however done a printer rationalisation and with a few (5) ex NHS printers that we got for free we have got rid of over 20 desktop printers. We no longer run many printers (6 in total) capable of less than 10,000 sheets per cartridge.

 

This rationalisation has not been pain free and there are people who, six months on, still aren't speaking to me because I took away 'their' printer and made them walk next door for a print.

 

However I have the backing of SLT on this, as we have seen roughly a halving of the monthly toner bill. This means that we will be seeing a saving of over £20k in 12 months!

[rob_coles]

We've gone from 100 or so printers to 26 contacted MFP.

 

We're using pcounter at the minute but moving to Papercut in the summer. We are cutting back further in the summer to just 16, which includes 3 larger photocopiers. We've reduced printers/costs and admin time significantly. We only have a single printer that isn't under contact but that's for printing cheques.

[andyturpie]

Yes we've gone from 60+ laser and inkjets down to 30 devices and includes the reprographic copiers (could have shrunk it by a further 50% if we could have encouraged SMT and others to give up their MFPs). Over the last 4 years I have managed to completely save what we spend on our old consumables budget. Papercut keeps a tight reign on those who are printing. So all is good here now.

[D0liver]

+1 for papercut. Works flawless and saves a lot of money. We deploy one printer as a 'virtual' printer which staff all print to. Staff can then release their printing at whichever photocopier they arrive at. Cuts down on alot of wasted paper and wax!

We currently use 6..soon to be 7 xerox wax photocopiers.

All managed by euro digital.

[ozydave]

Another one for papercut. Fully print managed by Riso. They have been great

[HPlum78]

Paper cut here, built a print release station out of a Pi, £20 MiFare card reader and a 10" usb touch screen works a dream.

[Haptic]

If anyone would like more info on our managed print drop us a PM, the benefits of using us are:

 

Full or partial roll-out, it's up to you what you have managed

Full range of vendors supported Canon, Ricoh etc

All management platforms (papercut etc) are included

Low cost per copy (CPC)

The online management platform is easy to use and will undoubtedly save you a huge amount of time.

 

We'll gladly pop along/host a webinar to show you what we do

 

Joe

[mooney3019]

choose very carefully !!

 

Schools stunned by 'hidden' copy costs which ''deprive children of books'' - Andrew Penman - Mirror Online