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Licensed Trade Charity

The Licensed Trade Charity is a UK charity that cares for publicans and their dependents. The Licensed Trade Charity runs three, non-selective independent schools for girls and boys, from primary through to Sixth Form. As well as offering discounts to parents working in the licensed trade, the charity also helps many parents with bursaries through challenging times. With a successful working relationship already established between SCC and the Charity, the Document and Print Solutions team was asked to provide an in-depth and accurate picture of print usage and document workflow at the schools, with a view to simplifying and improving document production whilst reducing cost.
 

“With a trading relationship already established SCC was able to further assist The Licensed Trade Charity in introducing a print service which has simplified and rationalised their document output infrastructure. This has provided cost savings, cost transparency and associated environmental benefits.”

The Challenge
The three schools naturally have a very diverse print requirement, from high level graphic reproduction of photographs and art materials, to scanning, presentation printing and general administration; multiple copies of test papers for example.

However the existing environment across all the schools was disorganised, with a raft of colour and black and white printers and copiers. There was little standardisation on devices with a multitude of vendors and associated device types.

In addition, much of the output was of a poor quality and didn’t reflect the image the schools needed to portray.

As a result, there was a high level of wastage and the schools were unaware of their print cost base. As fee based schools relying on support from the Licensed Trade Charity, cost was a vital consideration for SCC when it visited the schools to investigate current usage and design a new, controlled environment.

The Solution
Instead of focusing on the current print infrastructure and equipment, SCC built a forensic profile of the schools’ requirements by focusing on how each school used paper and print. The team also helped each school to identify its current print cost base – not just the visible supplies of paper and toner, but also the cost of wasted resource; the time spent using slow machines and monopolising IT support to deal with aged print devices.

After its investigations SCC moved the schools from an uncontrolled environment to a controlled, rationalised environment, using Xerox MFD technologies as the cornerstone of the new document output infrastructure.

A mix of Xerox colour and mono MFDs and mono HP printers was introduced, with the number of devices across the fleet reduced from 150 to 40.

To counteract the schools’ environmental and cost concerns, printers were set to sleep at night and defaults were introduced, forcing much of the schools’ everyday print to black and white and double sided. As a result, the fleet has moved from a single sided environment, to a predominantly duplex one.

In addition, with SCC’s ability to introduce a single cost per page, regardless of print type, The Licensed Trade Charity was able to monitor costs across its entire print infrastructure and they could be charged out across its various sites.

Summary of Benefits

• Cost control
  As an organisation with a number of charitable duties, it is vital that The Licensed Trade Charity controls its cost base. The introduction of a controlled print environment and measures to reduce print output alongside calculation of a single cost per page has allowed the Charity to understand and rationalise its print use.

• Improvement in quality
  Though much of the schools’ everyday print is now forced to black and white, duplex output, the devices introduced by SCC provide much improved quality for presentation and graphics printing.

• Environmental benefits
  Alongside a reduction in financial cost, the new infrastructure has improved the schools’ environmental credentials, with less paper wastage and lowered energy usage.

• Maximised resources
  Where time was previously spent waiting for print from slow devices and fixing older, unreliable printers, the schools now enjoy a quicker, more reliable service.