Print More With Less

Print More With Less

I’m sure the term “less is more” is not unfamiliar to many of us, however how can this be applied to business owners like you? Let us explain our thinking and interpretation of how having lesser will actually lead to more cost savings since print volume, whether large or small quantities, will not increase the cost per print. While digital printing is not here to replace offset printers, both having its merits, digital printing allows businesses to print variable data at a much smaller quantity and yet achieving cost efficiency.

On average, a large enterprise, schools, government bodies and large corporations, of 500 users will typically have an average of 15 Multi-Functional Printers (MFPs). With some even having more machines depending on how widespread the offices are within the premises. These compromises of both colour and mono MFPs to meet the daily demand of its users. Based on data collected from our clients, we’ve seen an average utilisation of machines to be at only 30% to 50% of its full capacity. What this means is that not all the machines are being utilise fully or are at idle state for more of the time.

Print Clusters for Better Optimization and Utilization of Production Machines
Having more machines does not always mean higher productivity, while having more machines increases the bandwidth and availability of the machines. This could be an undetected cost when machines go underutilise or when most of the print jobs are being outsourced due to the complexity of it. A print cluster or print room would allow your team to better optimise and utilisation of machines by assigning the right print job to the machine that is built for it. For example, if a training material that contains both colour and black and white print, it would achieve greater cost efficiency by printing on 2 separate production printers instead. Some businesses are charged based on click charge, by printing black and white pages on a colour printer will incur unnecessary cost.

Misconception About a Print Room
I’m sure you’ve not heard many misconceptions about maintaining a print room especially when you can outsource the job to a professional. Don’t get us wrong, we are saying that by having a print room you’d be able to produce complex print products easily. However, some of these misconceptions needs to be addressed. Here are some examples:

• Only large organisations or schools (universities or institutions) will require one
• It cost more to maintain one since we are talking about large production printers
• It’s more efficient and cheaper to outsource it to a professional printer

Why More Companies Are Consolidating and Investing in a Print Room
In recent years, we’ve seen an increase in the number of businesses moving up from having multiple MFPs to consolidating and purchasing production printers instead. While the initiative to go green and print documents only required are great, we do see that printing essential information such as training materials, marketing collaterals (brochures, specification sheets and sales kit) and financial or legal documents are still something that can’t be replaced with digital at this moment.

Having a print room gives businesses the flexibility to print in-house and enjoy the benefits of having shorter turnaround time, more control over the timeline and able to print when required. During the COVID-19 situation, we’ve seen announcement made by governments to close businesses at short notice. In this event, most businesses that outsource its print jobs were unable to react swiftly to produce marketing collaterals or print its announcements to alert customers.

More Secured to Print In-House than Outsource
For government organisations, banks and insurance companies where they often print highly confidential information (such as annual reports, financial statements and tender documents) that a potential leak would be disastrous. Printing of personal data for legal documentation and processing, it is essential to ensure the security of this print outs. Print room allows companies to print in a secured in-house facility and print at short notice when changes had to be made due to unforeseen circumstances.

Not having to maintain an inventory anymore
Printing of training materials, marketing collaterals and small print products had to be outsourced and many of times this means that businesses are more likely to print in large quantities to achieve economy of scale. By doing so, businesses often require a storage facility to store the excess print products and having to maintain an inventory. Digital production printers aim to address this very issue, long gone are the days where you have to maintain an inventory of books or publication in your storage facility. Digital printer allows you the flexibility to print in small quantity and make changes to ensure that your materials are always up to date. Having a print room can produce books on demand to reduce inventory cost and mark-up cost from external vendors.

Seamless integration with existing IT environment
New tools/software needs to integrate seamlessly in existing IT environment. Users don’t want to create another account for another software, instead they want to be logged into the web shop automatically and their address data should be already there. We understand the pain and hence Flux offers Single-sign on (SSO) for the web shop and you can also connect existing Active Directories (user databases) via LDAP and use this address data in the web shop. This will create an audit trail that allows businesses to trace back on who has requested for the print jobs.

A solution designed to address business needs
As a veteran in the print industry, we understand our customers and partner’s needs hence we launch the AccurioPro Flux that helps optimize print by connecting all your loose MFPs and production printers to a central server. Reduce the need for your operators to always check on the machine by automating the print workflow and getting status updates from your machines. The Flux server also helps businesses to connect customers by using the ecommerce platform that enables businesses to connect web-to-print. Pre-flight checks can be done when users upload the files, this reduces the time when files are incorrect or has missing fonts or information.

A unique feature of the AccurioPro Flux is that it allows business owners to access the flux server through their mobile browser. This is extremely useful during in the event where a lean manpower is necessary, business owners can have an overview of the situation in their print room at the comfort of their home. Having the information at hand, business owners can make an informed decision and guide operators when necessary. To find out more about the AccurioPro Flux, visit: https://www.accuriopro-flux.com/en/