Print Centralization
Print Centralization: The process of moving from a situation where printing occurs at multiple, even hundreds of locations to using only a very small number of digital print facilities.
Figure 1: A simple diagram showing the basic idea for print centralization.
Benefits
The benefits of print centralization are primarily about cost savings. It's not just the economies of scale which can drive down cost; larger, more efficient printers working at their optimum capacity; but also the opportunity to reduce errors in print output using automatic content control and the ability to manage quality control at a dedicated print facility.
If there are more than a handful of sites in your operation generating printed documents, then you should give consideration to a centralization process.
How we help
We help companies through the following steps:
- Review: Identify current print methodology, applications, sites
- Plan: Target organisation-specific issues with the plan to centralize
- Implement: Transition to a centralized solution
We supply the technology, both hardware and software, to achieve centralized print, but we do not run a digital print facility ourselves. We do have partners who can deliver cost effective print fulfilment or we will be happy to work with your preferred digital print house.
Implementation Overview
Figure 2, below shows the basic implementation of print data transfer using WML's DataGateway.
The customer operation has one or more applications generating print output; jobs are "printed" to the DataGateway, which takes on the task of transferring data from the customer site to the print facility.
Figure 2: Data flow from print application to printer using a DataGateway tunnel.
Once the data arrives at the print facility it is immediately transferred to printers. Time to print is typically within three minutes.
A DataGateway appliance is installed at each customer site, as well as a suitable number of appliances at the central print facility, It is possible to use virtualised infrastructure such as VMWare or Linux KVM to install virtual DataGateway appliances. We stay involved throughout any print centralisation project to ensure a successful outcome.
For further information on print centralization with WML, please read our brochure.
Benefits of Print Centralization with WML
- Consolidation through centralization
- Economies of scale: more efficient printers, more effective deployment of staff.
- Realtime print centralization gets documents into the mail earlier within any SLA period
- The Data Protection Act is fulfilled by our DataGateway transfer method
- An opportunity to apply transpromotional print advertising based on content
- Data is extremely difficult to snoop
- Faulty documents can be held using document content control - document checking can be automated
- DataGateway provides a migration path to electronic document delivery
Solutions
The core of our solution for print centralisation is DataGateway, a single application hardware appliance based on the WML Print Platform.
DataGateway enables secure print data transfer in realtime from multiple facilities to a central location. It provides a full audit trail which can extend to barcoding items as they go out for mail.
Read more about DataGateway on its product page.