Rightsizing Makes Heavy School Printing Load Easier

It takes a lot of printing power to support this southern preparatory school. This campus includes a middle school and a high school, with over 500 students, plus teachers, aides, administrators and assorted others. Three different buildings are spread across the campus.

Many people come into contact with the production printers, not just one or two users, so many are impacted when the machines have issues. A typical example would be a teacher needing to print materials for class, but can’t because of a jam, low toner or something else. It creates frequent stress and interrupts education.

Big Horsepower Came at a Price – Big Printer Problems

The big black-and-white equipment printed essential school-related materials, including lots of books. The problem was that the production printers in place were also production-size machines.

The growing school was running out of places to put these large, high-traffic printers, resorting to closets because of lack of space. The printers were huge and hard to work with, and school workers had difficulty maneuvering these machines around. There was simply no room for the equipment anymore, but school users still needed that robust printing capability.

Toner Turnaround Slowed School Printing Down

Besides being bulky and hard to use, the school had problems getting consumables and parts for the printers. Due to a manufacturer toner shortage, “Toner for that specific black-and-white machine was very limited,” noted the school’s Novatech Business Technology Advisor (BTA), “but replacement parts turnaround was just as bad if not worse.” The situation was in part a result of overall global supply chain issues.

School Printing Fluctuations Made It Hard to Stabilize Device Use

As expected of an organization with two hard-working production printers, the school printed a lot, but volume fluctuations made it hard to stabilize on an ideal printer environment. Things changed in where and how much school users were printing. Along with toner issues, Novatech spent time looking at these erratic print volumes.

“For a while there wasn’t as much need for print volume due to Covid, but now we’re starting to see that coming back,” explained the Novatech BTA who led the assessment. “They easily print over a million clicks in a three-month period, so we got down to right-sizing printers for their volume.”

Listening to Users Leads to Solutions for Toner, Space Issues

The right-sizing process began with onsite meetings and reviews of where the school was currently with their fleet. Toner turnaround, space, usability and other topics came under scrutiny during the thorough print assessment.

Novatech made onsite observations and talked with users about their print volumes and what was changing about school operations. This close engagement would result in an actionable, long-term printing services plan for the school.

Canon Solution: Same Speed, Same Strength, Less Space

“With the Canon B1100 model, we found a print solution that is the same speed and as hefty a unit as the production machines, but smaller. The school can maneuver these print machines in tighter places, while keeping the same capabilities and speeds as before. On top of that, rightsizing ended up saving them money,” said the BTA.

In addition to the Canon production printers, Novatech provided office printers, for a total of about 16 units across the three campus locations. Overall, the models breakdown as:

• 9 Canon 8795i light production black-and-white units
• 2 color A3 (11″x17″) units
• 2 black-and-white A3 (11″x17″) Canon 4735i units
• 2 color HP desktop units

Novatech Simplifies Printer Interface for Easier Use

To make the production devices more comfortable and fast to use, Novatech simplified the interface in ways that helped teachers work quickly. The school prints many of their own books, so the devices also have staple and hole-punch functionality. PaperCut cost recovery tools cut down on unnecessary paper use overall, and provide secure print-and-release functionality using card access.

Reassurance that Comes from Working with Print Experts

Novatech worked primarily with the school’s Director of Operations, as well as the Principal and CFO. The process went fairly quickly from signing in early May to delivery of 15 machines in June.

The client team was reassured by Novatech’s attention and experience, which included a dedicated production specialist who was very familiar with the durable Canon systems.

Benefits of Right Sizing Printers in Education

With right-sized, easier-to-use machines correctly placed in high-volume areas, a lot of the school’s previous service issues went away. “The durability of the Canon models and the ease of use for the teachers is a big deal,” said the Novatech BTA. “They’re able to put them in the locations they want, thanks to the smaller size of the units, and they’ve been running them like crazy without any service issues.”