Print centrally and reduce costs accordingly! Case studies
How Hanover Revenue Office halves costs 7 million times each year
Hanover Revenue Office
Hanover Revenue Office and dots go back a long way – the office’s inhouse printshop introduced dots software for electronic print job submission back in 2000. Since then, a select group of employees have been able to submit jobs straight from their desks to the printshop. The print data was accompanied by an electronic job ticket – this has raised the efficiency of print production and made it substantially easier to allocate costs.
The challenge
Attempts to link more people to the system have foundered owing to the hybrid nature of the office’s IT environment. Print data submission via e-mail was not a satisfying solution. The transmitted data volume overloaded the mail servers and also the job ticket functionality was missing. Therefore effectiveness gains were low and the revenue office ultimately decided to search for a way to integrate all 12,000 of its employees into a new printing concept. The solution would have to adapt to the given IT infrastructure and permit user administration across multiple LDAP databases.
The solution
A request for tenders went out – and again, it was dots software that made the running, with iSWT. Alongside all the tried-and-tested functions of dots Cockpit JTX, the iSWT solution comprises a web-based portal which now enables all 12,000 of the office’s employees to order their print jobs quickly and conveniently from the inhouse print shop – irrespective of the operating system on their own desktop workstation.
Integration
In 2007 dots distributor partner IQprinting installed the software at Hanover Revenue Office and managed the challenge of integrating the LDAP databases. As a dots software distributor and print application specialist, IQprinting delivered local support to Hanover Revenue Office during the rollout phase, training staff and helping them begin productive operation with the system.
The gain
Within months of the rollout, users had shifted substantial print volume to the printshop. Around seven million pages are now produced there each year – professionally and efficiently. An added extra are the savings: each of these seven million pages now costs less than half as much as production on a workgroup copier.
Print more flexible
How the Chamber of Commerce in Hanover profits from a money saving central printing concept with dots Software
The company
The Hanover Chamber of Commerce has over 110,000 members, of which around 34,000 are on the companies register. Unsurprisingly, the Chamber produces a correspondingly large volume of material such as brochures, circulars and invitations to seminars, generating print volumes of 2.4 Million pages per year for its in-house print room.
The challenge
After replacing the high-maintenance offset press by a modern printing and copying device, the aim was to empower personnel to print their brochures in-house exactly to their own design specifications.
The solution
The solution was to install a centralized print workflow using dots Software. Thanks to dots Software employees now select the in-house print room for higher volume jobs directly in desktop applications such as Microsoft Word. For print room jobs, the dots Software offers a special menu in which users can make settings such as the number of copies or document finishing options – like folding or stapling for brochures. Digital Job Tickets are generated in place of the hardcopy ones, and information from the Job Ticket also serves as input in cost allocation and other applications.
The gain
dots Software optimized the internal print workflow. The new printing technology offers more reliability and allows highly cost effective print production.
Company profile
- Name: In-house print room of the Chamber of Commerce, Hanover Germany
- Print volume: 2.4 Million pages per year
- Employees networked with print room: 80
- Hardware: Konica 7075 incl. finishing unit
- Special: An internal Chamber directive determines that jobs with over 20 copies have to be sent to the in-house print room using dots Software, since the central solution is far more cost-effective.
“What we used to do is print each page once. Then we’d send the individual pages along to the print room, which would produce the plate and offset-print it.” Ulrich Schulz, head of IT department at Hanover Chamber of Commerce
Text: Rainer Hill and dots Software GmbH
Centralized Printing - Reduce Costs up to 20 %
Interview with Clemens Großmann, founder and CEO (1997 - 2009) of the Berlin-based company dots, who speaks about software solutions for cost transparency in printing and cost-effective print job management in local government. The interview was first published in the magazine “Kommune21” in March 2007:
Clemens Großmann, you founded the company dots in 1997. How did you come to start developing software for printing with digital copying systems?
Both I myself and Detlef Rupp, the co-founder of dots, used to work for companies in the Berlin area that produced print hardware. At the time, Berthold, the long-established manufacturer of photosetting equipment, was still in business in Berlin, so there was a lot of print technology expertise around on the local scene. In 1996, new systems came on the market with technology that enabled them to double up as both copiers and printers. These machines offered a new range of opportunities. What was missing was the software to make proper use of the potential. Our idea was to make the opportunities of classical printing technology usable on the new copying systems.
Nowadays, it’s standard procedure virtually everywhere to use copiers for printing. But at that time, we were talking about perhaps five per cent of all users. Today the ratio is reversed – and only about five per cent of systems are used exclusively for copying.
In other words, you launched your development onto a market where growth was about to explode…
Yes, we were lucky. This year we celebrate our 10-year anniversary.
How would you describe the specific expertise of your company?
The unique combination which we offer with our solutions is secure, efficient print job submission, plus integration into existing IT systems. At a relatively early stage in our history we also began serving the local-government market. Over the years, we’ve accumulated considerable expertise concerning this market’s requirements – such as the submission of cost centre codes with print jobs, for instance, the need for confidentiality in job submission, the need to accommodate the distinct organisational structures of local government. This is a very different scenario to the copy shop market.
But are you active on both markets?
Yes, we serve both markets, but our main focus is the public sector. Two thirds of our clients are in public-sector organisations.
Your solution iSWT is used in local government for sending print jobs from networked workstations to in-house print shops. What are the advantages of this approach to printing?
Many local government offices attempt to send print jobs via E-Mail to central printing facilities. This is an extremely inefficient way of doing things, above all because the E-Mail often fails to provide the information that the print shop is going to need in order to process the job correctly. Then there’s the confidentiality problem. The mail server is not as secure as our software solution. What’s more, we offer direct integration. Office staff can select the in-house print shop via the print command in their usual applications, exactly as they would select a desktop printer. An on-screen form then appears for users to enter information such as the cost centre, the document format, or how the job is to be processed. This type of structured list makes sure nothing is forgotten by mistake.
What are the cost benefits of using your software with a central in-house print shop?
Print costs tend to be hidden costs. Many local government organisations do not have any reliable data on how much they actually spend on printing. Yet print costs account for a large slice of the budget. We’re in the process of developing a product that helps users decide which jobs are suitable for a desktop printer, and which should more appropriately be handled on a digital printing system.
Is there any way to put a figure on the value of your solutions?
Yes, for example, we’ve done an analysis with the headquarters of a German retail chain. Within three months the organisation managed to cut its printing costs by 20 per cent. That’s a huge saving – even though the main focus for the organisation was more the positive impact on the environment and sustainability. Of course, one reason for the cost savings is that the large printing systems are more energy-efficient. The workplace environment also benefits. For instance, there’s far less noise in the workplace when large jobs are printed in the in-house print shop.
There is an even greater savings potential in the long term, since organisations will be able to optimise their entire print infrastructure. And there’s another aspect to consider. Today’s central copying systems are sophisticated and powerful tools. Many have functions for finishing documents – for instance, they can fold and staple booklets, and deliver prints with ready-punched binder holes. But many of the staff simply aren’t aware what the copiers can do. The user interface in our software displays these options for people to choose. This raises the appeal of the in-house print shop.
And how do you see your product portfolio evolving into the future?
Where I see one of the main challenges is to integrate our software more closely with other software packages, and in this way to improve cost transparency across all the offices of a local authority. That means that the information we generate about the print costs has to be channelled back into other systems such as the administration’s accounting software.
Interview: Rainer Hill
