Productivity: The Ultimate Measure of a Multifunction Device
When companies examine current document workflow processes, more often than not, they find legacy operating systems and ancient lease contracts that include collections of standalone office machines. They are discovering that these devices are costing more in maintenance and wasted resources, rather than providing cost savings. More important, they’re noticing that employees are increasingly handling documents electronically and therefore increasing network activity. To address this shift from a print-and-distribute paradigm to a distribute-and-print model, offices across the globe are turning to document solutions that can handle both hardcopy and digital document requirements to improve office productivity and provide a higher return on investment.
Companies have begun to recognize the benefits of combining office assets at the workgroup or departmental level by adopting multifunction peripherals (MFPs). Although manufacturers are continuing to evolve MFPs, these systems provide workgroup environments with a variety of options for how documents can be captured, distributed and stored. Because of this versatility, the use of MFPs is exploding. Xerox research estimates the worldwide printing, copying and multifunction market to be $53 billion, with the multifunction market growing 15 percent a year.
By moving to a document strategy that features a network-based multifunction system, corporations can easily implement a consistent document process across entire enterprises to more effectively capture and share intellectual capital, as well as reduce costs. According to Gartner the average document is copied—either physically or electronically—nine to eleven times at a cost of $18. And International Data Corporation reports that end-user research has confirmed that companies spend approximately 10 percent of their revenue on document production.
Managing information flow and communication throughout the company doesn’t have to be the challenge it once was. Companies used to have to rely on expensive fax lines in order to send information. By integrating multifunction devices, companies can streamline their communication process within the organization. Users can
e-mail or scan hardcopy documents to any e-mail address in addition to sending print jobs to any printer on the network, providing significant productivity gains. In addition, today’s wireless connectivity has put the true power of office mobility in the users’ hands. For example, multifunction systems have been working with EFI’s PrintMe wireless Internet standard to provide mobile professionals with the ability to print and fax documents from a mobile device—anytime, anywhere.
In addition to being a primary office communication tool, MFPs can provide significant productivity advantages. MFP systems that have been specifically built for digital applications not only offer ease of integration into existing IT infrastructures through compatible operating systems and print drivers, but also provide faster document processing speeds and output. How fast a system can process and complete multiple jobs is a critical component in assessing how productive it will be in the office. Because many employees can be using an MFP at any given time, jobs are typically identified in the system’s output tray through the inclusion of a banner sheet. This sheet makes it easier for each person to identify his or her particular document, while reducing the chance of jobs getting mixed together or thrown out. Some MFP systems are set up to make the banner sheet a part of the user’s document file. Others require that the banner sheet be created as a separate file, negatively impacting productivity by increasing the number of files that need to be processed before printing.
In addition, while some multifunction devices appear to process jobs faster, the reality is that not all machines treat every job the same way. Some MFPs are built to process bigger jobs faster, while significantly slowing down the printing of the average one-to-three page office document. Research shows that the typical office document is between one and twenty-five pages. The ability of an MFP to produce job after job with no time in between and with little degradation to the network is proven to provide increased productivity to office employees around the globe.
MFP productivity can also be defined by the system’s ability to handle advanced functions. According to an IDC report on document solutions released in 2001, effective document and content management requires the transfer of hardcopy documents into softcopy through scanning. Many MFPs can provide not only this type of document service, but extend it by enabling the user to distribute the document electronically to the point of need—directly to a repository on the server, a desktop or an e-mail address.
Enhanced concurrency—or the ability to perform several functions at one time—is perhaps the most important factor in MFP productivity. However, it’s important to note that not all devices can effectively multitask. Systems with significant memory can typically scan multiple jobs ahead of time while other jobs—such as printing—are being processed. Systems that have job interrupt features built into the unit’s controller provide increased multitasking, such as the ability to interrupt a print job to copy documents for an urgent meeting, without comprising the print file.
However, MFPs can grind to a halt if they are not programmed to make intelligent decisions. For example, if special stock is needed to complete a job and the supplies are not configured to the machine, some manufacturers’ devices will shut down. The devices will not move onto processing the next job, rather they will stand idle until the job is deleted.
Factors that can reduce downtime and enhance MFP productivity include intelligent media selection and self-contained customer replaceable units (CRUs). Intelligent media selection allows the device to find the paper tray with the user’s specified paper weight and color—eliminating extra steps for users. The CRU feature, enables users to easily replace specific device components when needed.
According to Industry Analyst Inc.’s evaluation of owners of more than 1,400 printers and multifunction devices, the primary concern customers need to focus on is network performance. This means that when evaluating productivity, MFPs have to be compared in actual networked environments using real-world office applications.
To understand multifunction performance and demonstrate how systems react to busy office demands, testing performed by Xerox Corporation has shown that Xerox Document Centre multifunction systems outperformed competitive products in network printing speed. The tests also showed similar results when producing print or copy jobs concurrently. The lab sent a suite of 25 common office jobs—including single sets of e-mail and word documents as one network queue to the 35-page-per-minute (ppm) Xerox Document Centre 535, a 50-ppm Canon machine and a 45-ppm Ricoh unit. To process the 64 pages, the Xerox 535 printed at 20.53 ppm and completed the job in 3.11 minutes; the Canon printed at 9.46 ppm and completed the job in 6.77 minutes; while the Ricoh printed at 5.94 ppm and finished the job in 10.78 minutes. This speed translated directly to office productivity when total production was measured.
The true value of any multifunction device is how productive it can make its users. Afterall, productivity is about efficiency and saving money. Because of the productivity benefits and cost savings MFPs can provide, corporations are increasingly turning to multifunction systems to provide office workers better ways to get work done.
June 2002
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