kennysarmy Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 I searched the forums for managed print contract and expected to see loads of threads to read what other schools have done on this topic. The facts are : Last year we spent £20,350 on toners across all our networked and stand-alone printers. 50% of our printers are over 5 years old... 97% of our printers are our of warranty... To replace our 9 oldest printers (out of 60) would cost around £6,500 The technicians spend about 50 hours per year repairing printers. We hold £8,500 worth of stock so that we never have any of our 28 different models running out of toner... I've been looking at the possibility of a managed print contract and have been offered the following: All our printers (networked and standalone) replaced with networked Lexmarks; Either cs736dn or ES460dn (colour and mono) 5 year contract - annually £23,000 4 hours response on call outs for repairs 5% cap on annual price increase % decrease or increase illustrations on volume changes annually look fair... I've pitched this idea to SMT who did nt seem that convinced it was a good deal.... Wondered what others think?
sonofsanta Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 We went with a managed contract just over a year ago - we don't operate on the scale you do, and direct savings (cost per page comparison) were minimal, but we were in a similar position with old printers needing replacing. FWIW, it's worked very well for us and I don't regret it; I wrote a one pager up for SMT at the time going over dis/advantages and it seemed to win them over, attached for you if it helps.Printer Contract Proposal.doc
Edu-IT Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 Who is that with? Can I ask how the charging for that works - do you pay a cost per page?
kennysarmy Posted February 2, 2012 Author Posted February 2, 2012 We went with a managed contract just over a year ago - we don't operate on the scale you do, and direct savings (cost per page comparison) were minimal, but we were in a similar position with old printers needing replacing. FWIW, it's worked very well for us and I don't regret it; I wrote a one pager up for SMT at the time going over dis/advantages and it seemed to win them over, attached for you if it helps. Thanks. Not a million miles away from what I pitched to our SMT but one attitude was "are we solving a problem we don't really have....."
RobBaxter Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 We don't save any money and its no more expensive (really). However, it's not my "Problem" anymore, because they have engineers for when they jam / break (within 24 hours) and i get all the toner / replacement parts and a whole new machine on failure. We managed to get a good deal out of them also. I have to be honest... doing printing yourself is kinda "sadist" these days because its such a damn nightmare. Also quick tip: Canon if you ask them will basically give the printing away to you! Just hammer them for the best price, our price (can't say because we said we wouldn't by agreement), is so low that its not a case of "compertision" but who has the lowest "costs" Oh... and once you have a few Canon Photocopiers ... speak to Rico, they will match anything you have down on paper with canon, and there color devices are perfect imo for schools!
internetuser Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 We got one in the summer, totally managed and centralised. It works really well, copiers / printers email home when low on toner, toner come in, toner runs out and the copier emails the service desk and its changed with in 5 minutes. No really hassle now and the calls have dropped massively in terms of printers etc. all departments are billed per print now and it makes them manage prints easier, and it got rid of all the old copiers, scanners, laser printers and ink jets. from the whole site, and removed them from all offices, bar core sectors (ie finance) Ours is based on equitrac, with swipe card access for staff, no card, no prints or copies
RobBaxter Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 @internetuser NICE! In our environment we don't need such functionality due to the way we as a school operate, but still that's super cool. I like things that "just work" and even when they don't they take the initiative
Little-Miss Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 Going managed was the best thing i did. I spent so much money and time on toners and fixing our old epson machines and this has been invaluable, especially after the fire. One less stress.
MatthewL Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 Again best thing we did, after we spend stupid on consumables. Got 6 devices in the place of 250. We use PCounter for print management, would never have local printers again unless there was a real purpose.
armadillo Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 Going managed was the best thing i did. I spent so much money and time on toners and fixing our old epson machines and this has been invaluable, especially after the fire. One less stress. Hi, We currently have 51 laser printers, colour b/w. I am thinking in using papercut to manage them, but they are mostly old/ out of warranty etcdo you mind telling me what software/readers do you use to manage prints and which company or make of printers? Also, if possible to visit your school and see it in action? I am in Birmingham area as wll. Thanks in advance.
glennda Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 (edited) We lease hire all our photocopiers from Ricoh. As for Toner we are are part of the Inkwell Scheme. The Provide the Cuboard and the stock - once a we do a stock check and they bill us for the toner. therefore we do not hold stock of toners. I beleive Stone Computers have just started managed print Solutions aswell. Have you tried Papercut - we put a price on peoples screen which made them think twice about printing. Worked really well cut our printing costs from 18k pa to around 10k Edited February 2, 2012 by glennda
garethEds Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 We took a contract out with Konica Minolta and have had machines on 3 and 5 year contract as we remove the majority of our network printers. We have 10 Multi function devices (MFDs) and 5 have just come to the end of their 5 year contract. @rich_tech and I took ownership of the copiers to see where we could save money. So after looking at the costs on a monthly spreadsheet over the past year we decided that we could ditch three of them and this is what we are doing in the knowledge that if we were wrong we could just get another one in for a contracted period of time. The problem we have is that there is old printer stock around the room and no printers to use them with. Anyone interested? I'm not sure what the dates are on them. Maybe I will put them on the department ebay account. The management of them is a lot easier now. Gareth
MatthewL Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 Something worth doing is doing a reading of each of your current devices and then again say in 6 weeks and work out your useage this will help you loads with something like this.
Edu-IT Posted February 3, 2012 Posted February 3, 2012 In terms of internal management, I'd definitely say PaperCut is the way to go rather than Pcounter. PaperCut is so much more flexible!
sonofsanta Posted February 3, 2012 Posted February 3, 2012 Something worth doing is doing a reading of each of your current devices and then again say in 6 weeks and work out your useage this will help you loads with something like this. When you work out usage and costs, bear in mind that toners are measured for lifespan on 5% coverage, whereas realistically a page of A4 12pt text is closer to 10%. A colour page would use 5/10% of each toner as well. You also need to factor in the cost of drums, belts, fusers and other consumables to get a true reflection of cost per page to compare against the offer from the managed contract. As others have said, chief benefit to me was no longer worrying about printers - time saved on shopping around for toners alone is significant.
kennysarmy Posted February 3, 2012 Author Posted February 3, 2012 When you work out usage and costs, bear in mind that toners are measured for lifespan on 5% coverage, whereas realistically a page of A4 12pt text is closer to 10%. A colour page would use 5/10% of each toner as well. You also need to factor in the cost of drums, belts, fusers and other consumables to get a true reflection of cost per page to compare against the offer from the managed contract. As others have said, chief benefit to me was no longer worrying about printers - time saved on shopping around for toners alone is significant. Thanks. In our case the managed contract firm ran some software on our network for almost 3 months which gave them volumes off all the network printers... We did our own internal audit on the stand-alone -and although this was only over 1 month it's better than guessing... The monthly cost to them is based on volume ie. 122,000 mono and 54,000 colour - which hopefully is pretty accurate....
Ben_Stanton Posted February 3, 2012 Posted February 3, 2012 We use Danwood for our contract. On the face of it, it doesn't look like it saves much money - but then again, we did get a load of brand new kit 'thrown' in. Plus, any real problems - I just ring and they come and sort it (usually same day). If you want figures, i'd be happy to PM you with details. Ben
owen1978 Posted February 3, 2012 Posted February 3, 2012 We purchased a Konica Minolta C35P Bizhub outright for about £600 I have attached a copy of my reportICT Printer proposal.pdf
armadillo Posted February 3, 2012 Posted February 3, 2012 We use Danwood for our contract. On the face of it, it doesn't look like it saves much money - but then again, we did get a load of brand new kit 'thrown' in. Plus, any real problems - I just ring and they come and sort it (usually same day). If you want figures, i'd be happy to PM you with details. Thanks Ben Hi Ben, yes please could email me some details as
armadillo Posted February 3, 2012 Posted February 3, 2012 Thank you all guys and ladies for your advice and help. It helped me get a picture of what's out there.
mooney3019 Posted February 14, 2012 Posted February 14, 2012 What area of the country are you ? you can get it cheaper than £25K per annum
internetuser Posted February 14, 2012 Posted February 14, 2012 We went out for tender for ours. It is a god send for support now, really can not fault it, and combined with joint ID cards / HID print cards and follow me printing for staff, it means 80% of the grief has gone.
SUPER8 Posted September 17, 2012 Posted September 17, 2012 Thought you all might find the following interesting. To keep you up to date with all developments. BBC Panorama investigation announced. The long awaited BBC investigation into copier companies selling into schools has been announced. Broadcast set for Monday 24th September at 8.30pm the program will be called "Reading, Writing and Rip offs” The program will provide insight into the world of companies who force schools into debt through miss selling
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