Burton College is situated in the centre of Burton-on-Trent, on the banks of the River Trent. The college has 2,000 full-time and 9,000 part time students and offers courses for both school leavers and mature students. Its specialist courses include art and design, performing arts, construction and engineering.
Burton College has recently replaced its printing and copying devices throughout the college with a new range of digital multifunctional products (mfps) from NRG, which can print, copy, scan, fax and transmit documents. In addition, a specialist colour printer and high-speed mono devices have improved productivity in the reprographics department.
Chris Barker, Reprographics Manager at Burton College explained the situation: “The contract with our previous supplier was due to come to an end, and as I was fairly new to the position, it gave me an opportunity to reassess the printing and copying requirements throughout the College. Previously, due to budget constraints, some departments had not been using the most suitable machines. With much more advanced equipment on the market, I tried to anticipate future needs as well as current ones.”
The NRG account team worked closely with Chris to complete a full audit of the current equipment. The team used Equitrac software to determine the true print and copy costs throughout the departments. The initial phase of this study identified some significant potential cost savings, so they were then able to recommend a complete solution for Burton College to improve productivity and reduce costs.
Chris added: “The study really opened our eyes to what we were spending. No one had completed such an intensive report before and as we had a lot of desk top printers; it had been very difficult to quantify the costs. Our new NRG contract is priced on a cost per copy basis so we know exactly how much we will be spending.”
An example of the cost savings can be illustrated by the replacement of satellite workgroup printers with two DSc38u models. These have reduced the price of an A4 colour print from 40p per page to less than 10p per page.
Chris continued: “The combination of the excellent price and high quality equipment was the main reason for choosing NRG. A feature such as the scan to email facility on the multifunctional products is an essential factor. Although the paperless office has yet to become a reality, especially in departments like Human Resources and Finance where hard copy documents are a necessity, we are finding that the mfps provide us with an extremely useful archive tool. By distilling documents into a digital format we can dramatically reduce the amount of storage space that we need for archiving documents and make access easier.”
“Another important factor was ease of use,” Chris added. “The graphical interface together with the way that the screens are set up makes the instructions really easy to follow. They are so intuitive that the staff require hardly any training; most people have adapted to the new machines straight away.”
The reprographics department itself has a new colour Cs213d machine, which it uses for some of the College’s short-run in-house printing of brochures, posters and course materials. The workhorses in the department are two new high speed mono 9002 models. Chris explained: “September and October is our busiest period so the 9002s have really been put to test and we’re very pleased with them. At 90 pages per minute, they are 5 and 15 pages per minute faster than the two machines that they replaced, but we really noticed the difference – the work was just flying off them!”
In conclusion, Chris said: “We’re very pleased with NRG; we have reduced our costs, improved our productivity and have much greater control over our budget. The installation was fantastic and the training and support has been great too.”
