Increased Productivity, efficiency and staff motivation and reduced waste, cost, office space and time

Sector: Education

Increased Productivity, Efficiency and Staff Motivation
Improved Environmental and Sustainability Management
Reduced Waste, Cost, Office Space and Employee Time
 
A professional, customised print/copy/scan strategy from a reliable source for Brit College.
 

Brit College is one of the outstanding colleges of higher and further education in the United Kingdom, offering students a stimulating environment in which they can work together to achieve academic success. 
 

Background
Brit College is a rapidly expanding college with excellent facilities, offering education to UK and International students.  They are accredited by the Accreditation Service for International Colleges (ASIC) and been granted a licence by UK Border Agency as a Sponsor of Tier 4.

Brit College is affiliated to many reputable institutions including; the Institute of Administrative Management, the Organisation for Tourism and Hospitality Management, ACCA, NCFE, ABP,ABE, Edexcel and British Computer Society
In order to meet the demands of their growing student population, Brit College increased in size from 1 to 4 campuses in and around London.  The increasing number of students meant increased facilities, courses, staff, paperwork and of course, printing and copying facilities.
As Brit College grew, so too did the unreliability of their printers, copiers and the service from our current provider.  SLA’s were in place but unfortunately had to wait longer and longer for engineers to arrive, spare parts to be obtained and machines to be back in service.  This whole procedure meant that staffs were spending precious time managing the situation, calling suppliers, chasing up engineers and even ringing when toner was required. 
 
A Lucky Break
Al-Masum Al-Amin, the Director of Communications at Brit College knew something had to be done as print and copy volumes were on the increase and the current devices were obviously not built for such high volumes.  Coupled with this, the relationship with the supplier was less than satisfactory due to the constant battles for service calls and consumables.
 
Al-Masum asked around a few of his contacts at Schools and Colleges to find out who they were using and the type of service they were receiving.  A few names were mentioned and he arranged meetings with 3 suppliers to discuss his requirements.

Chris Rumble, a Corporate Account Manager at Quadtronix met with Al-Masum and walked the floors of the buildings to ascertain exact requirements, print speeds, volumes and costs.  A proposal was put together, recommending four K yocera TASKalfa 300ci, 30-page per minute, colour multifunctional offering print, copy, automatic duplexing and stapling.  These devices were to be included on a Quadtronix Service Agreement which included a remote monitoring system which would alleviate Brit College employees of the mundane tasks of ordering consumables, providing meter readings and requesting callouts. 
 
“I really liked the sound of this”, said Al-Masum.  “It would mean that any faults or error codes would be sent immediately to Quadtronix and they could decide if an engineer was required and if so, arrange to send one it.  It also meant that toners would be sent out automatically when supplies were getting low”.
 
Quadtronix were very pleased to be awarded the contracted which was to commence in October 2009.
 
The Quadtronix Solution

“4 Kyocera TASKalfa 300ci’s were installed by our own engineers within 2 weeks and Chris was on-site to ensure everything went smoothly and our users were trained on how to use the new machines.”, states Al-Masum.  “The installation went very smoothly, the downtime was minimal and staff morale was amazingly high.  They were so pleased to see the back of those unreliable devices and Chris gave us all a very comfortable feeling.  He wasn’t a pushy salesman who you don’t see again after you have signed up, he took the trouble to spend time with all the users answering their questions and demonstrating the machine.”

The service agreement included a response time of 4 hours for callouts, all colour and mono toners, parts and labour, regular maintenance and the remote monitoring service, Capture-IT™.  Among its many benefits, this service provides:

• A fully automated collection of meter readings without the need for human intervention from which accurate invoices are generated automatically;
• Automated Toner Supplies—we supply toner automatically before the device supply is exhausted, saving you time and inconvenience.
• Intelligent Alerts—automatic alerts ensure our Engineer can attend your service calls with the right parts for a first fix solution, thus you benefit from increased device availability and uptime.
• Scheduled Reports—daily, weekly, monthly, usage reports available, based on actual meter readings and emailed direct to you for internal budgetary purposes.

On our old machines, we already used automatic duplex to reduce paper usage and postage but we didn’t have the ability to scan-to-file which we now have.  This enables us to scan documents and send them directly to an email address which has saved us time and money and ensures the document arrives quickly.” Says  Al-Masum.

Brit College were so happy with the service and the multifunctionals that when a need arose for a standalone black and white printer, Chris was called in to provide a recommendation.  Chris explained that Quadtronix recommend printers which are not cartridge-based because they offer much lower running costs and are more energy-efficient, therefore ensuring maximum return on investment.

Of course, there are many cheaper alternatives available, but they are cartridge-based and, as such, are cheap to purchase but expensive to run.  Initial savings made on a lower purchase price are soon wiped out by the ongoing, frequent replacement of expensive consumables.

“We were given a proposal with 3 models to choose from.  All had excellent features; automatic duplex and networking, large paper supply and a really quick warm up time.  The only difference was the print speed.  We selected a Kyocera FS2020dn and the really good news was that it was added to the Quadtronix Service Agreement.  Again, we didn’t have to worry about ordering toner, arranging for engineers or giving meter readings.” Said  Al-Masum.

In March 2010, Brit College needed an additional multifunctional and Chris went on-site to ascertain the exact requirement and this time a faster device was required due to the number of large booklets which needed to be produced.  A Kyocera TASKalfa 400ci, 40-page per minute, colour multifunctional was installed.

A final word from Al-Masum
“The service we get from Quadtronix is second-to-none.  Chris calls up regularly to check we are happy and have no issues.  Our multifunctionals and printer have made a vast difference to our day-to-day operations.  We no longer have to put any effort into them, Quadtronix take care of everything for us; our toner arrives before we have run out, our invoices arrive based on actual automatic  meter readings, any faults are highlighted to Quadtronix, sometimes before we are even aware there is a problem.  Our staff used to get very frustrated with the old, unreliable machines and the effort involved getting issues resolved.  Now, it is all done for us.  Many thanks and keep up the good work.”.... Al-Masum Al-Amin – Director of Communications, Brit College.