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Solving 'Ctrl + P' Puzzle

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

Printers is the most common piece of equipment found in every office, with

its importance varying according to the type of organization. Think about the

organization whose work revolves around printing i.e. print media, banking, etc.

The management issues related to printing in these sectors are huge and complex

with lot of cost associated, which in turn could be optimized if proper policy

is followed. On the other end of spectrum are organizations that take only one

or two prints per day or even lower. For these organizations printing

requirements are simple and minimal with very low associated cost. In this

article we would throw light on different types of printing solutions available

in market along with total cost associated with them and some outsourcing policy

that can be followed to save money and resources.

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There are two major categories of printers available for enterprises: Laser

printers and Multifunctional devices (MFDs). One point to be noted here is that

color inkjet printers are still used where print quality is a constraint but

their usability is limited. Having a deployment policy in hand before thinking

about buying is must, where deployment policy identifies points on network,

where printers can be attached based on different parameters like network

traffic, maintenance, and accessibility. One approach is to carry pre-deployment

tests using isolated test network.

Color or Monochrome?



The decision of buying enterprise level color or monochrome printers is very

subjective and totally depends on requirement of organization. Consider example

of big telecom enterprise that wants to print customer bills, where the numbers

of pages to be printed are in millions. The cost of printing may increase if

color is used for printing the entire bill, but if color is used to highlight

only certain portions of the bill it might not affect the cost majorly. At the

same time usage of color may help in branding and improvement of user

experience. Therefore decision of striking balance between cost and user

experience is very crucial and one has to define its need before going for that.

And with lowering price of laser color printing, more and more organizations are

using color to appeal existing and potential users.

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Specialized or MFD?



Standalone laser printers are good where space as in real state is not a

constraint and the infrastructure for other devices like copier, fax, etc is

already in place. On the other hand MFDs are optimal for organizations where

space is a constraint and there is good requirement for other functionalities. A

single MFD with its print, scan, and copy capability can easily support a

department or a floor. The only visible issue with MFDs is underutilization of

features.

The next question to answer is: What to look in before buying? The answer to

this question lies in balance of three parameters: price (total cost of

ownership), performance, and features. Here by performance we mean high PPM

(pages per minute), low warm-up time, high tray capacity, enhanced media

support, and low maintenance.

Outsourcing



Outsourcing is fast becoming popular with its great success in BPOs where

customer support business is outsourced. Now the printing functionality of the

organizations is also walking the same road. The whole printing infrastructure

and process could now be outsourced to third party.

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This process can considerably reduce cost and resources associated with

printing process. Even in outsourcing one can choose from two options of offsite

and onsite printing. In onsite as the name suggests third party vendor installs

printer in your office premises and takes care of printing process. In offsite

printing pages or documents to be printed are sent to vendor where printing

process is done. Outsourcing is great boon for printing intensive domain and

lots of companies have successfully cut their budgets by outsourcing their

printing work. Though outsourcing potentially lowers cost but if not done in

proper manner, it may lead to loss of control and security issues as material to

be printed goes to third party vendor.

Printing policies and technology offerings



In this section we would be covering some enterprise-level printing

solutions offered by leading vendors. The competitive market of printing has

compelled leading vendors to think out of box, this has given birth to some

innovative ideas like outsourcing. Here are few initiatives by leading vendors.

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Charging back (HP)



To cut operational costs organizations can charge departments or individuals

for printing in color. This will make internal users more responsible regarding

printing and at the same time save resources. This will also make printer

billing more rational amongst different departments of same organizations. To

deploy this kind of model for HP products there are vendors that offer tracking

technologies like SafeCom Tracking, CapellaTech Megatrack, etc.

Gloss Mark (Xerox)



This is way on inserting digital information onto printouts that cannot be

duplicated using scanning or photocopying. This is kind of water marking of

printouts to protect it. This technique can also be used for customization of

documents.

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Fixing-film (Canon)



The time taken to heat up metallic roller inside printer is high, to reduce

this time very thin metallic sheet is used instead that heats up and cools down

quickly. This technique makes printing devices more efficient and saves time.

Protection



Printers come with built in authentication mechanism for protecting privacy

of document to be printed. Consider a situation where one wants to print a

private document on shared printer, one just has to give print command and later

when he/she has time authenticate and print.

E-mail facility



There are MFDs packed with e-mail facility and storage space. This feature

adds more functionality as one can create customized folders on MFD where

documents can be stored and if required mailed. To protect privacy of documents

access control mechanism can be implemented on documents stored.

Print 2.0 (HP)



To overcome growing challenges in printing domain HP has introduced Print

2.0 plan for enterprises that includes HP printing products, services, and

solutions. Print 2.0 has three components to make printing process and

management simple and efficient. These components are: Optimize infrastructure,

Manage environment, and Improve Workflow.

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