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.
Dave Parsons – Information Governance Manager
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:
Sam Harris, Senior End User Computing Consultant
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.
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.
Nick Donovan, Facilities Officer