The Right Solution AND the Best Partner

Worcestershire County Council has moved its print strategy forward and now has an efficient and secure solution – thanks to IT provider XMA.

Saving money is a key concern for any council as the need to achieve value for money is vital. So it is not surprising that improving efficiency was one of the main factors driving staff from Worcestershire County Council to investigate ways of improving their printing strategy.

According to Technical Development Supervisor Kevin Wheeler, the Council was keen to replace the large numbers of small printers it contained with a few, larger but more efficient machines. He explains: “We initially met staff from XMA when we were looking to reduce the number of smaller printers we were supporting. We believed that running costs would be much lower with fewer printers and we also wanted to reduce our level of wastage.”

Like many other large organisations, people using the printers at Worcestershire would often print documents they later did not pick up from the machine. “People would print a document by accident or then discover they didn’t need it or didn’t really want it,” says Kevin. “So you ended up with the situation where you have unwanted prints at the side of a printer which were never collected.”

Efficiency guaranteed

To address this issue, the Council asked XMA to provide a more efficient solution. XMA's Print Management team worked in partnership with Bluemega Technology Ltd enabling Worcestershire's IT department to reduce the number of printers from around 180 to 60 and introduced a balanced deployment of HP single and multi-function printers with a SafeCom Pull Print solution. The result was also the introduction of a pull print solution where documents were only printed when staff visited the printer and authorised the job.

Kevin explains: “Our workers print from their PCs and the print jobs are then stored on a server. They only actually print out when the person visits the printer and authorises the job with their identification badge.” “By introducing this system, we believe we have made dramatic savings, possibly up to 50 per cent, because we have eliminated wastage. Now, if someone decides they don’t want a print out after all or forgets they have sent it to the printer, they don’t authorise it and it is automatically deleted from the server 24 hours later.”

A secure solution

Most importantly, though, was the implementation of a secure printing solution. Kevin says: “We have recently moved to open plan office buildings. As a council, we also have some sensitive information we hold about members of the public and our own staff. It can be anything from financial details to records of children in care. It is not the sort of information that should be left at the side of a printer.” Part of the reason the Council chose to partner with XMA was because the company’s solution meant only the person printing could access the information. “It’s a secure and efficient method of printing,” says Kevin.

The right partner

However, for Worcestershire County Council it was important to find the right provider as well as the right solution. According to Kevin, one requirement for the organisation was that the solution included a mix of hardware and software from other suppliers along with XMA’s expertise. He says: “XMA was one of only a few companies doing this type of solution. The company had the knowledge and the access to the product range and the other suppliers involved.”

”In fact, we had tried another option before using XMA and that had not been successful. It was totally different when XMA became involved.” “The company is a good single point of contact. I go directly to my account manager if I have any issues and he is very good at ensuring they are resolved. Plus, as a bigger company, XMA can apply more pressure than we could alone and ensure that, in terms of price and support, the solution we receive is the best possible one for us.” “What’s more we wanted a company that could give us an informed view of what was available in the market – and in that respect, the company has been good.”