Waterford and Wexford Education and Training Board

Success Story

Waterford and Wexford Training Services are dedicated to ensuring students learning experience is enjoyable and successful. At their purpose-built facilities they offer a variety of courses that are suitable for many different learners - jobseekers, people entering the workforce for the first time, early school leavers, people with disabilities, those wishing to change careers and people looking to refresh their knowledge or gain new skills.

Waterford and Wexford Education and Training Board

Company

As the largest training provider in both counties, the Waterford and Wexford Education and Training Board (WWETB) provides a comprehensive range of education and training services throughout Waterford and Wexford. WWETB’s educational and training provision includes second-level schools, further education colleges and a range of adult and further education centres delivering education and training programmes, Post Leaving Certificate Courses (PLCs), Youthreach centres, outdoor education and youth.

Industry

Education

Product

Cloud Print Management

Lexmark Smart Managed Print Services - Key Benefits:

Calculable savings from day one
Rightsizing of equipment
Secure print management
Flexible and transparent pricing model
Includes the latest technology and future proof designs

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Challenge

With 46 organisations, 1600 staff and 24,000 students and learners, WWETB needed to upgrade its capacity to meet the print, scan and copy needs of all its educational centres. It was important that a new solution would offer sufficient analytical data, whilst also being secure and easily managed

To meet wider company goals, WWETB wanted the new solution to be as sustainable as possible and reduce the overall carbon footprint of both individual learning centres and the provider as a whole.

Solution

In May 2020, WWETB partnered with the Office of Government Procurement to run a mini competition for the provision of a Managed Print Service. WWETB worked with Independent Photocopier Services to deliver Lexmark devices alongside Lexmark Cloud Print Management Applications which allows Lexmark to support the ecosystem and provide a stable, flexible print environment. IPS provided a seamless service, installing the devices on site with amazing speed and minimum disruption.

Lexmark was also able to provide a sustainable solution through its Cartridge Collection Program, which ensured that all empty consumables would be 100% recycled, avoiding any waste going to landfill.

Results

During deployment it was quite evident that the implementation of a Cloud Print Management Service delivered on Lexmark hardware significantly reduced the impact of replacing an incumbent supplier. IPS managed the installation, delivering a forward-thinking and future-proofed print solution. Once the Lexmark Cloud Print Management solution had been configured to match the WWETB Printing Policy, IPS ensured all devices arrived onsite, preconfigured, and ready to print. The average install for a device was 10 minutes, saving a significant amount of time during deployment. Plus, users had received all their PIN’s, training material and how-to documents in advance, meaning the onboarding process was simple and easy, and downtime was effectively non-existent.

Thanks to the Lexmark and IPS solution, students, learners and teachers now can submit print jobs from their smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops on any platform with all prevalent file types supported. Each user has their own Lexmark printing portal whereby documents can be dragged and dropped, allowing users to queue and retrieve print jobs without having to install a print driver. Print Submission via the Lexmark portal is steadily increasing as users become more accustomed to utilising this service.

WWETB now also has access to key analytics that enable them to manage trends, better understand their print environment and apply policies that reduce costs across the entire organisation and IPS is on hand to support with any issues. Colour usage is controlled via the Lexmark Cloud Print Management application with a key ratio of 78% mono usage and 22% colour usage since the system went live. 65% of all jobs are converted to duplex, saving significant costs on paper usage and over 20% of submitted jobs are deleted automatically when users do not retrieve within three days. Overall, the Lexmark and IPS solution will deliver over 35% project savings over the contract term.

Working with the WWETB ICT Team, Corporate Services, Teachers and Students has been an entirely positive experience. The forward-thinking approach of WWETB has ensured that the Lexmark solution could be utilised to its full potential. Plus, working with an exceptionally well-managed Network and ICT Team with a clear strategic approach has made the project a dream to deliver.

Paul Farrell Professional Services Manager IPS

From an ICT Projects perspective, we needed to ensure that the hardware was fit for purpose, but more importantly, that the print management infrastructure provided would enable WWETB to create an organisation wide print, copy and scan policy, backed up by analytics, security profiles and ongoing service management.

David Guiney ICT Manager WWETB

After investing significantly in our IT infrastructure over the past few years, focusing on delivering a uniform technology platform to all our users, it was vitally important that the print provider we chose would onboard seamlessly into our strategic ICT plan.

Fintan O’Reilly Corporate Services Manager