Vocational training organisation chooses Epson business inkjets

The Organisation for Vocational Training chose Epson's business inkjet printers for its office, for printing materials to be used in its vocational training workshops.

In addition to training in 36 recognised skilled trades, a general course and a comprehensive advice service, the German organisation offers the opportunity to repeat secondary school exams. In total, around 65 staff at the charity look after up to 600 participants in the various courses and apprenticeships.

As a consequence of such a broad range of services, there are many different printing and copying needs in the charity's offices. To deliver them, the company decided on Epson's WorkForce Pro and WorkForce Pro RIPS printers and multi-function devices. In addition to the usual office documents such as letters, bids and invoices, school documents such as reports, certificates, and training and apprenticeship documents are also printed.

"We were pleasantly surprised by the WorkForce Pro printers," says Torsten Nekwinda, manager of the organisation's metal/electrical engineering workshop. "We were initially a bit sceptical when it came to the water resistance and durability of the prints on paper, but the Epson inks are very robust. That's important for us, because we also use the printers for producing teaching materials for every lesson, and they need to last a while."

In addition to printing and copying, the WorkForce Pro WF-R8590DTWF devices are also often used for faxing. Many small and medium-sized enterprises that, for example, order an education or training course from the organisation, use fax machines. Thanks to the integration of all four functions in the WorkForce Pro, the organisation also saves space as previously, printers, copiers, scanners and fax machines were different devices.

The ability to scan a document directly onto a memory stick or into a particular folder to help prepare lessons or courses is also a useful tool. The duplex scanning facility, is therefore also very useful - this is not a common feature in devices in this category.

Thanks to the frequency with which the scanner is used, the organisation is currently considering the high-performance, free document management that is Epson's document capture software.

In addition to the positive impact on power consumption, the inkjets score highly on a number of other points.

"Some of our staff complained about noise and emissions when working with our old laser systems. This led to a general concern among staff that the laser printers might be emitting harmful toner dust. Naturally, we had to respond to this, and thanks to the business inkjet printers, we now have an outstanding alternative," says Dirk Angermann, on the reason the organisation made the switch to inkjets.

The organisation's laser fleet was completely exchanged for seven WorkForce Pro R8590DTWF and 20 WorkForce Pro M4590DNF devices. They are now operated via a managed print service customised to the organisation's needs, which includes maintenance and service in addition to a low cost per page.

Thanks to the high ink capacity of the WorkForce Pro RIPS and the monochrome devices, it is no longer necessary for engineers to visit to replace the consumables. They only come when there is a fault in the machines, because the cartridges for the WorkForce Pro M devices can be easily changed by the users themselves. This means there is no downtime caused by empty cartridges and technicians do not need to clean the machine when it is restarted. This reduces the amount of disruption and increases the organisation's efficiency.

Alongside this, the construction of the inkjet devices is so simple and reliable that the machines can always be repaired on-site if there is a fault – this reduces the need for lengthy and costly repairs.

"With WorkForce Pro, we've actually managed to kill several birds with one stone," concludes Angermann.

"The inkjets not only consume very little power, they also have a significantly lower cost per page than the old laser printers. As a consequence, we're now thinking about significantly adapting our policy on which documents should be printed in colour and which in black and white, in favour of more use of colour. We would never have been able to do that with the old laser printers, for reasons of cost alone."