Eric Caswell is the Central Services Manager at the college, providing essential support to the teaching and administrative staff to ensure that everything runs smoothly. One of his responsibilities is the provision of a copying service by the reprographics department and the provision of various satellite copiers throughout the college. During the last four to five years the amount of copying equipment had gradually increased, along with the number of suppliers. When Eric came to review the copying and printing requirements for the whole college, he discovered that having four to five different contracts with different start and finish dates from different suppliers, was not only complicated to administer but expensive.

NRG won the contract to supply Salford College and provided copying and printing equipment on a lease basis. Eric is really pleased with the decision to go ahead.

He said : 'Not only did they offer the best price, but we also really liked the machines. They look smart, are easy to use, reliable and include lots of features that are important to us.' Eric continued : 'The installation procedure went very smoothly. We had to arrange for all our old machines from various suppliers to be collected and the new ones were delivered within a week. This meant that we were without any copiers for a few days in certain areas but we were able to use the new ones straight away. We're really impressed with the service that we've had. Sales consultant, phones me on a regular basis and is very helpful, and we're so pleased with the equipment that we've offered our facilities to use as a reference site.'

No Complaints At All

The reprographics department produces print for teaching staff on a demand basis and aims to achieve a turn around of two days. Approximately 3.5 to 4.0 million copies are produced per year, so the machines need to deliver quality print at high volumes and be reliable enough to withstand the demands made upon them. Salford College installed a CS225 colour copier in the print room along with three 9002 black and white high volume machines. Julie Armer, the copy shop supervisor and her team, Alan Morris and Chris Coucill, feel that the 9002 is an excellent machine. Julie commented : 'The thing that attracted me to the 9002 was the position of the user interface. The screen is at eye-level so it's much easier and more comfortable to use. Only one other company offered this feature and it really makes a difference when you're using the machines all day every day.' 

'Because of the quantity of print we do, we really hammer the machines but they're very reliable,' Julie continued. 'We've only required routine maintenance, so far. They also have loads of great features that are really useful. For example, I can put in different account codes for the various departments and then get the machine to add up the total at the end of the month. It saves me plenty of time.'

Julie concluded : 'This is the first time that we've had digital machines of this size, rather than analogue ones and we're really pleased. The print quality is excellent, they're fast and not as noisy as our previous machines which makes a big difference. I've got no complaints at all!'