Conditorei Coppenrath & Wiese, has established an integrated printing environment using a combination of Konica Minolta systems and its print management system SafeQ. Europe’s largest producer of frozen desserts and other baked goods has thus relieved its IT department of the burden of managing its printer systems and has also made significant savings. Sander Bürosysteme from Osnabrück, partner of Konica Minolta, received the contract for the whole solution.
The printing infrastructure that had grown at Coppenrath & Wiese over the years with more than 400 local and network printers was put to the test in 2012. “We wanted to fundamentally reduce the number of printers and outsource the service required to do so,” says system administrator Jonathan Lang, one of the project managers at Coppenrath & Wiese.The company with more than 2000 employees continues to grow and distributes its products worldwide. Production takes place exclusively in Germany. Reducing the number of systems was not only supposed to reduce the global costs; above all, it was important to dramatically reduce the time spent by the IT department providing support for and installing work station printers, which was one of their responsibilities at the time.
The printers that were installed up until that point had been supplied with the desktop PCs and caused problems on a daily basis when the cartridges had to be changed. Once the warranty expired, multifunction printer systems were therefore to replace the current printers and fax machines throughout the company. In addition, the company only had an approximate global cost overview and was anxious to reduce the high printing volume of approximately four million pages per year on a long-term basis. “Establishing an integrated printing management system was therefore a prerequisite for relieving us of the burden of routine tasks,” adds Manuel Düvel, system administrator at Coppenrath & Wiese.
Jonathan Lang and Manuel Düvel have intensively tested the quality workmanship of diverse systems from many manufacturers as an important criterion in the run-up to the conversion. Based on experience with the existing printers, for Manuel Düvel the choice depended on outstanding workmanship on the new multifunction system, among other factors: “We wanted to avoid having problems changing the cartridges again, especially as many of the new systems were to be placed in production areas with strict hygiene requirements.”Other important criteria included printing speed, printing technology and the range of toners on offer. Last but not least, economic reasons would also be a deciding factor. Based on the recommendations of the two administrators, the company finally decided on the bizhub multifunction system from Konica Minolta.
Along with reliable printing management, the efficient tools that Konica Minolta provides as part of the complete solution were an important deciding factor for introducing this solution. Equipped with the SafeQ printing management solution, the printing infrastructure now provides employees of Coppenrath & Wiese valuable additional features, such as scan-to-me and scan-to-mail.“We were able to draw on the experience of other customers and were convinced by the quality of this solution in the run up to its implementation,” according to Manuel Düvel. The RFID identity cards with Legic chips that have been introduced at Coppenrath & Wiese serve as authentication on the multifunction systems. Sander Bürosysteme carried out the customization of the reader device, which proved to be simple.
Konica Minolta managed to reduce the total number of printer systems to 70 using their MFP systems and laser printers. The follow-me function offered by SafeQ has also proved very practical for company-wide printing on a daily basis at the company’s extensive premises. One other convenient printing management feature from SafeQ is the automatic integration of different user directories, which are updated on the SafeQ user database daily. “This way, all printing permissions are always up to date and at the start of the project there was no need to re-enter the data from applications such as the active directory, our master key system, or from Lotus Notes,” says Jonathan Lang.The LDAP search function on the bizhub system is also practical for employees: All Notes users can be selected from the display and scanned files can then be sent straight to them.
Thanks to the uniform printing infrastructure, Coppenrath & Wiese were able to realize their goal of directly reducing costs. After one year, the number of pages printed per year has already dropped to 2.5 million because, thanks to the multifunction printing system, employees are now more aware of how much they are printing and print less as a result. With its automated functionality, the fleet management solution FMAudit caters for toner procurement and timely service through Sander Bürosysteme.Designated employees of the company, also known as key users, are responsible for properly inserting the cartridges. This way, there is no need for maintenance technicians to go into production areas (which are subject to strict hygiene requirements) for this sort of routine task. Printer systems also automatically report the number of pages being printed to the printing management software SafeQ, which is installed on the printer server. The cost center is then able to carry out corresponding evaluations at any time.Any possible defects that may occur are corrected on the same day by technicians at Sander Bürosysteme. “Just as we planned, the IT department has been relieved of routine tasks involving the printer systems thanks to the printing management system and the service provided by Sander Bürosysteme,” says Manuel Düvel. As expected, electricity consumption has also dropped.