'I'm genuinely impressed with the way NRG go about things. They're honest, open, upfront and available to answer questions'
Building Service
The gardens are looked after by a small army of specialists, and many international experts base themselves at Kew to carry out vital research projects. This means that over 500 people can be on site at any one time, all making demands that can only be satisfied by a highly sophisticated communications network.
An exceptionally demanding brief
NRG were originally approached in 1998 to implement a solution to meet the Royal Botanic Gardens' exacting demands. The technology of the time was unable to meet the brief, and NRG's realistic appraisal was dismissed in favour of a competitor's proposal, which subsequently failed to deliver on its promises. Kew again invited the organisation to come up with a response.
The brief was to provide a network of machines providing fax, copier, print and scanning facilities at 25 different locations, including a remote site at Wakehurst Place, 60 miles away. All activity was to be captured and accounted for without involving Kew's busy IT department.
Software services
NRG had the technology within its multifunctional devices (MFDs) to meet the demands of users, and by employing its SmartNetMonitor application it could gather all volume data at a central point and interrogate it to produce accurate billing information. Keen to ensure that the proposed system was easy to use and maintain, NRG software experts were brought in. Key components of NRG's solution were the hardware - 25 4502 black and white MFDs and a full colour DSc38 - and a number of off-the-shelf software elements, including SmartNetMonitor for printing, LanFax for PC faxing and document server and DesktopBinder for scanning.
Benefits of central monitoring
To this, NRG added an advanced network accounting solution that allows for central retrieval of all print, copy, fax and scanning activity, which breaks down by function, department and individual user. The machine runs on an embedded version of Unix, allowing the software to indicate the status of each device : for example, if a machine is out of paper in a specific drawer or a cover is open, this can be seen on screen at a central PC. The advantages of this on such a vast site are enormous, saving a great deal of legwork and service interruption. At the same time, Kew can determine exactly which functions are available to each individual user : for example, one may have unrestricted use, whilst another can be limited to black and white copying only.
Data collection - from two days to 11 minutes
Bespoke programming includes a specially developed 'User Code Manager' which generates random but unique user codes which can be changed at regular intervals to ensure security, and an Excel VBA 'wizard' that compiles a master billing sheet for each month. Without involving Kew's IT department, all machines are constantly monitored and billing is handled via e-mail. This means that the whole system can be maintained from a central point, and the gathering of volume data for billing now takes 11 minutes each month rather than two working days of travelling round to each individual device.
A UK first
With such a robust solution, there have been very few issues and the Royal Botanical Gardens now have a system that meets their very exacting demands. This is the first time that an email billing service for this type of service has been implemented in the UK, and NRG is now in a position to offer its ground breaking bespoke software services to any European client requiring this level of sophisticated application.
