Quite a number of companies these days depend heavily on printing large volumes of documents. If you run such a firm, one of the issues you might need to take into account is how to manage the printing in such a manner that it is cost effective and convenient. It would also be wise to have more control over the printing process so as to reduce any waste. By far, the best way to do this is to take advantage of managed print services in Richmond Hill.
This basically means having a third party manage all the aspects of printing that you need in the company. It has been shown that with this model, you can save up to 30% off the cost of printing in both time and money. This makes it a particularly important asset when you need to print large volumes of documents.
How much you can benefit depends on a host of factors, including the type of company you choose to provide the managed printing services. When you are out in the market looking for one, you should consider some of the factors that determine whether a particular service provider will be good enough or not. Some of the features you need to look out for include:
It should give you control over the quality of print
When printing in bulk, it is essential to have control over the quality of the printouts. There are some documents that simply have to look good, and in such cases you would need to make sure that they are of high quality. However, when printing documents that are likely to be used in house (such as memos), you might want to reduce their quality so that you save on the cost of printing.
A high quality print management system will give you enough room to manage all these aspects with ease, ensuring that you get the best value for money possible.
Authentication
A high quality print management system should provide excellent authentication systems. At any one time, you should have a clear idea of who printed what. You should also be in a position to restrict some members of the office from printing if they don’t need it. This gives you more flexibility in preventing misuse of the printer facilities. Given the relatively high cost of printing, reducing the incidences of unauthorized printing will save you a lot of money.
There are several ways in which restrictions can be placed on printing. Some of the most popular of these include requiring individuals to have accounts with passwords in order to access the printer.
Device management
You will definitely need to work with more than one printer if you are to print in bulk. However, this might add to the complexity of monitoring each of them. If you have a few hundred printers in the same office, for instance, keeping an eye on each of them will be difficult for one person.
A high quality print management system will automate this process so that one person can oversee a large number of printers. Software can be used to monitor the state of each printer using metrics such as how much ink each has, the maintenance state of the printer and whether or not it has enough paper. Some can even be designed in such a manner that they will activate an alarm once any single printer develops a problem such as running out of ink and paper.
One of the benefits of having an automated device management system is that it allows for quicker troubleshooting. The fact that defective printers can be identified with ease will also help in maintaining the efficiency of the entire system.
Routing software
In any printing environment, there is a likelihood that more than one category of devices will be used. For instance, you might have regular printers as well as faxes and network folders. Different members of staff might need to print to different devices at the same time.
To ensure that this is not a problem, the print management software should incorporate a routing software that will determine what a client needs, and then direct their request to the relevant device. This has the potential to reduce the complexity of the printing environment.
You can get all your managed print services from one firm. This means that all you need to do is consult them, and they will then determine your needs and the best way to implement them. You could even rent rather than buy devices such as the printers needed for the job, so that the total cost of setting up is minimized.
In all such cases, working with a high quality contractor who has been in the business long enough is the best insurance against any potential malfunctions of the system.