jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

In particular the auto replenishment of toner ?

How exactly does it work with the ordering process, what's the software that's used etc.

Cheers

Littleted

jay we do out own and use resell Ricoh, but they work in much the same way, You will have a server located somewhere that each printer Ping its reports to, when the toner is low the server knows and automatically orders you one.

Although printing isn't my chosen technical expertise, I did just do Royal Mails Output Management that sits ontop of Ricohs, its gives visibility of what your printing and cost, then flags each manager if somebodies going nuts.

It also gets rid of File and print servers, this I halved the estate from 300 to 150 on Tin

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

cheers Littleted, so its a decent enough system and generally reliable? We are doing a new project at work, and the IT dept are having this svs, but the printing that is being done is in a critical area of the business (circa 60k prints per day). Currently the IT bods don't know much about it!

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

My organisation are running a managed print project at the moment - it is going to take some serious cultural changes to make it work well. Cant get the higher paid help to see the wider perspectives - ie publishing more on our intranet, introducing a collaboration solution or electronic forms in parallel or even providing tablets or laptops for use in meetings or briefings to stop the routine printing of multiple copies of papers for issue at meetings.

Used to work with an old fella who would print all his emails first thing in the morning, read them later in the day, and bin most of the hard copies at the end of the day - seriously costly and unnecessary.

chrispy200+

iTrader: (2)

Sounds like my place, it's that mentality which is hard to get away from.

We use HP managed print services with them on site too. Not involved with that part of IT but when it's working its pretty good, we do have issues but that's more around the networks

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

tarmac, where we are going to use it, the prints need to happen (despatch note). Change is happening anyway due to the project we are near completion so people are expecting it etc.

Chris, sounds like you may have info that could help me. My concerns from an operational pov is that the contract we will have is dealt with at a different site, however all printers we have will be hp, and therefore if we need a replacement cartridge (will happen about every 3 weeks per printer in this particular business critical area) cartridges may go to the wrong area / building and therefore could effectively take out one of our printers.

My other concern is that the printers in this area will print at different rates depending on the person working in that area (min of about 50 prints per hour max is upto 80), does the software on the server accommodate for this or will it order a replacement cartridge with say 2000 prints to go (which will occur sooner on some)

cheers

LostUser

You can specify a toner delivery address per printer so you should be alright there.

The toner delivery is done on percentages. I think they normally start out at about 20%. So when there's only 20% left it generates a toner order. Bearing in mind the toner comes in from Holland it does take about 3 days to get delivered. You can change the percentage if you want to.

It generally works very well. The only slight issue we had was that the printers are delivered with the tiny starter toners which only do about 30% of the number of pages of a standard size toner. So some printers ran out of toner in the first couple of weeks and the replacement toner didn't arrive fast enough. The new toner that arrived was the full size standard toner and luckily this lasts for alot longer.

At any time you can call HP and they will despatch a new toner if the printer isn't communicating back to them or you're expecting to do a very big print run.

Littleted

2 things here

Are HP managing your PRINTERs and toner usage, if so then its not really an issue, as its the printer that reports back to the toner server.

But if they are replacing the way you print IE not windows file and print but another method

TEST IT

I use a product called VPSX from a company called LRS, it uses its own spoolers and printservers, it also caters for Unix/SAP Mainframe etc.

But when i did Royal Mails they also have some funky printers depot side, that we didnt actually put on the platform, we left then as was, didnt want tom rock the boat.

but we did capture 97% of the estate which helped loads

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

Littleted, it is purely printer and toner management, prints are all controlled by our ERP.

Lostuser, that's good that you can have individual addresses per toner cartridge. We have actually managed to buy a bit of buffer stock (this was before we were told the company was going to a managed service), we have been told that the replacement toner is a guaranteed next day delivery though so bit of a worry if we have to wait 3 days. The problem that I can see though, is that there is not a definitive number of prints per day per printer, although the overall amount of prints combined will be consistent so 20% re order value could be needed next day or could be a few days

Thanks