Car dealer gets behind the wheel of a new printing solution

Things had pretty much chugged on for about 15 years without much change. That was until about five years ago when Logan was charged with overseeing the company’s long overdue migration from dumb terminals to the comparatively complex world of PCs and Windows. Driving this need naturally was the new dealerships.

"Over the past 18 months we have updated our IT infrastructure by purchasing 68 new computers, and installing an internet server. However, when it came to printing, we were still using the same methods as we were 15 years ago."

But developing a new printing solution that would take the internet, PCs and Windows into account for the first time, was trickier than expected.

"What started out as pretty simple, ended up getting pretty complicated," Logan says. "In my role on the IT side of things I saw a pretty big gap as the internet was becoming more heavily used for work...We had this old tech and there was an increasing need to upgrade our computers but printers were getting left behind."

After shopping around, the company finally settled on a Fuji Xerox solution supplied by Victorian company Solution Printing. It invested in 12 240ADocuPrints and two 205-DocuPrints. "The decision was made easy, as both these printers are flexible, especially as they come standard with two trays, which means the staff don’t constantly have to change the paper," Logan says.

The Fuji Xerox 240A-Docuprints were flexible enough for Etheridge's requirements

"The stand-out benefit with Fuji Xerox is the low cost per page printing that we are able to achieve with the DocuPrint range."

He adds that overall the transition from dot-matrix printing to using the Xerox printers has been a relatively easy one, and Etheridge is more than happy with not only the quality of documents that are being produced, but also the savings. "We estimate that without having to carry a large amount of pre-printed stock we are able to save around $40,000 per year," Logan says.

Contributing to this saving, he explains, is overall reduced spending on consumables. "For a home user to have their $90 deskjet printer cartridge is fine -- but I was finding that we were spending a lot on consumables for the products we already had."

In fact Etheridge Ford had vast numbers of deskjet printers that were being used inefficiently and at times inappropriately, with staff often printing in colour mode unnecessarily. The decision was made to invest in a much smaller number of laser printers shared between multiple users across the LAN.

"The requirement was to invest in laser printers which were not only able to print documents quicker than the current printers, but it also meant that we could remove a large number of deskjets and instead share the laser printers over the network."

But while it was the simple answer, it was not as simple a task.

"The more complex side of things is something you don’t take into consideration with printing -- especially going from little inkjets plugged into the PC."

Logan naturally had to shift from this mind-set to one whereby single printers must be configured and supported to perform multiple tasks for larger work groups throughout the organisation.

"People often focus more on the PC and the desktop but printing is obviously a key thing. You take it for granted how fortunate you are to hit one button and have a document print where it’s supposed to. It’s definitely something you don’t take into consideration."

One of the benefits of working with Solution Printing, Logan says, was that they were able to quickly and easily provide a way to consolidate Etheridge’s printing needs while having the whole lot networked.

"Instead of five people having a deskjet each they could share a laser printer."

Logan says that having printers networked over the LAN has made his and everybody else’s jobs much easier.

For starters, Etheridge used to rely almost entirely on handwritten order forms. Since installing the Fuji Xerox laser printers they are all done on PC, meaning that sales staff simply go through and select the relevant order forms electronically and print them from their PCs.

"This is definitely a lot more efficient for staff," Logan says, adding that he is able to make changes to them within just a few minutes if necessary.