Managed Print Service

[eyetea]

Hi All,

 

Currently looking around at replacing our current printer fleet as they are all 7+ y/o and a lot of them are starting to have little niggles. We have always had our own printers, all managed in house.

 

What is your lot's setup? We're a ~800 Student Secondary, each classroom currently has at a minimum 1 desktop mono a4 laserjet, some have a4 colour laserjets, some have a3 colour laserjets. All offices pretty much the same.

 

One solution would be to replace on a like for like basis. However I would like to explore the solution of cutting down the number of printers dramatically - we have study areas in all departments that could house MFPs for all teaching rooms, departmental staffrooms and staff offices could also print from these if we had follow me printing. The bursar has said they would push for anything to reduce costs so getting senior management backing to do this shouldn't be too much of an issue.

 

If any of you lot have a managed print solution, are you happy with it? Do you feel it is more cost effective than owning/managing your own fleet?

 

Any recommendations of companies / experiences / opinions would be greatly appreciated!

 

J

[MYK-IT]

We moved over to a managed print solution a year ago now, dramatically reducing the amount of printers (and various makes, models) too.

 

We used, and highly recommend Arena Group - Welcome (Contact Michael Wallington). This was a big project for us; we had (crucially) Senior Management on-board/in-agreement as well as involving staff through the whole information awareness process etc. All the time, the emphasis was ensuring we had the best solution for us, and not what the company wanted to sell us!

 

We ended up with strategically located Colour MFDs; combined with Mono-Laser printers within our ICT Suites with PaperCut MF monitoring, and auditing all usage. Amount of printers reduced by ~75%. Automated Toner replacement ordering too, so no more manually stock checking/ordering of numerous and varied toners / ink cartridges!

 

Arena were fantastic every step of the way; arranging meetings was never an issue and they installed, configured and setup everything (including PaperCut MF software w/rules etc). Combined with quarterly, annual review updates.

 

PaperCut software is fantastic. Users have full acknowledgement of what each and every print job costs; Heads of Department are emailed, automatically of who has printed what within their Department (Cost Code) and Finance receive comprehensive reports to help with charging budgets etc.

 

The introduction of PaperCut alone, combined with the configured print rules dramatically reduced (wasted) unwanted print jobs; as well as introducing accountability which in times of frozen, or reduced budgets is proving very effective too. In turn, the MFD are many times more efficient than our previous (laser / inkjet) printers!

Edited February 16, 2016 by MYK-IT

[mthomas08]

Been MFDs here a while but only really used it effectively in the last 18 months.

 

Papercut > Toshiba Printers (supported by them but purchased by us) all linked with Biometrics cashless catering system.

 

We also have two big reception printers that can do "a lot" and are cheaper. We've tightened the limits and now with the HT willing to hammer down the costs, we are doing a lot of "mentality" changes.

[Haptic]

Hi all

 

We offer a full managed print solution, utilising all major manufacturers. Our offering can also utilise machines already in place or those owned by you.

Papercut and other print management software is all included, contract options also flexible betwixt 3-5 year periods.

 

Have PM'd.

 

 

Joe

[Sylv3r]

We've just installed a managed print system directly with Canon using UniFlow as the auditing software.

 

We've replaced the three large copiers in our print room with one Mono and Colour machine plus an A0 Plotter. We've also gone for an electronic guillotine as the A3 click charge is the same as A4. So we are copying a lot more on A3 and cutting.

 

We've installed 7 smaller mono satellite MFD's across the school for staff and sixth form student use.

 

With the rest of the school utilising either a Mono or Colour (depending on the room) desktop printer in an ICT Suite etc.

 

The facility for dialling for toner replenishment, service repairs etc is also in place. Sixth Form and staff utilise the Follow-Me-Print via a MiFare card system. It's only been installed for a couple of weeks, but it's working well.

[manc_techie]

+1 for Arena, found them a pleasure to deal with and savings were amazing at my previous employer > 40%

[mthomas08]

For those using Papercut, have you managed to turn off Student Photocopying so they can't use this facility?

[Edu-IT]

For those using Papercut, have you managed to turn off Student Photocopying so they can't use this facility?

That doesn't seem to be an option, from what I can see.

[MatthewL]

Within the device you need to go and restrict who can login to the machine to stop students logging in if you don't want them to use the machine for copying.

[rich_tech]

We are a similar sized school and have a managed system with 6 Konica Minolta MFD devices (it was 10 when I started here, but we have gradually reduced it down over the years because some of them were in areas for convenience not usage and didn't cover their internal costs).

 

We have it set up so all departments get billed for their printing and students get a pre-determined amount of credit each month, its controlled by pCounter here, though I see also that in some schools the IT department cover all the costs from what I read here and don't bill like this.

 

If the supplier has signed up and is on the local government procurement framework as ours are, the price per copy is incredibly cheap and also the toners and servicing are included, any faults are also fixed within four hour windows or next business day.

 

Don't be afraid to make staff walk small distances where needed for them, most if they had their own way would have a printer next to their machines for convenience and this isn't just schools, its also a case from the companies I have worked and I have even been one of them myself

 

It prints securely for staff also because of the pull queue setup we have for printing, where they log on to pick up a job and release it to the printer.

[mthomas08]

Within the device you need to go and restrict who can login to the machine to stop students logging in if you don't want them to use the machine for copying.

 

We want them to be able to print, scan to email etc but not photocopy.

 

It's okay we got the Toshiba reps arriving today for a catch up so I will give them a list of our next stage. Our aim is to cut back printing without impeding too much. After all why does a Student need to photocopy more than 1. Good thing about our HT and my LM they both agree that enough is enough, it's time to cut back from spending 10's thousands that we currently are on mentality, attitude and laziness (printing). They are also setting examples by not printing a lot.

[MatthewL]

I've got a ticket raised with PaperCut at the moment as your not the first to raise this issue.