TRANSFORMING
DIGITAL SERVICES
Time for Change
In 2009, City & County of Cardiff implemented its first managed print service with Canon, naming it PrintSmart. Eight years later, in 2017, it was time for the Council to review its entire print estate as most of the machines were coming to the end of their contracts, including devices in the Centralised Reprographics Department for high-volume print-on-demand workflows.
With significant budget restrictions and a 23% reduction in staff, the challenge was to implement a solution that was not only easy to use, but also satisfied all the Council’s financial and digital requirements.
A key factor was to implement a true universal print driver across the organisation to standardise and simplify the end user experience of printing, thereby minimising ICT staff support time for print-related issues.
To achieve this, the emphasis would have to be on the streamlining of business processes and the integration of scanning solutions into Sharepoint and other back-office systems, which would deliver greater savings and operational efficiencies.
"The Canon IRIS Powerscan technology has enabled the Council to digitise all of its paper personnel files. This project has seen 39,500 files - comprising over 9.9 million A4 pages - being scanned into SharePoint."
Dave Parsons – Information Governance Manager
Added Value Services
The Canon project team conducted an in-depth discovery exercise at every one of the Council’s sites. To ensure that the new solution comprised the correct devices to handle different applications and volumes, key users throughout the estate were interviewed to gain a thorough understanding of operational requirements, both current and future.
The implementation of the solution was then carried out in three stages:
- Stage 1 – County Hall
- Stage 2 – City Hall & Wilcox House
- Stage 3 – Satellite offices
"Through the direct award under CCS RM3781 framework, it was projected that the City & County of Cardiff would save a minimum of £155k over the new three-year term for Phase 1, with more phases planned we expect to realise more savings, this is in addition to the £1 million pounds saving we have achieved with the Council’s original Print Smart Project."
Sam Harris, Senior End User Computing Consultant
Client Services Manager
In addition to the managed print solution, the Council is benefiting from having a Canon Client Services Manager (CSM) to manage the contract. The CSM is responsible for the strategic and operational objectives of the contract, ensuring that innovation and service improvements continue to be introduced throughout the entire life of the contract.
To support the CSM, Canon has introduced an on-site engineer to ensure fast response times and high machine uptimes across the estate.
On-Demand Document Production
Having relied on Canon imagePRESS technology for many years, the Central Reprographics Department at City & County of Cardiff produces many complex variable data print runs in multiple languages including Welsh, English and barcode.
The high-volume VDP runs are managed by PRISMA Satellite Software then combined and produced using PlanetPress Production giving the council a transactional production solution.
Forms are printed with multiple variable elements that can be recognised by the postal folder/insertion units in the facility to provide a high-speed, streamlined production service to the Council for billing, statements and many other transactional documents that need to be merged and consolidated into one envelope or one document.
"Our investment in Canon Varioprint technology, coupled with the support provided by Canon, has enabled our print room to automate manual processes thereby allowing us to handle large volumes of transaction documents with greater control."
Nick Donovan, Facilities Officer