- Online Support
- Driver downloads
- Camera Service & Repairs
- Business product relocations
- Windows Vista Drivers
- Manuals
- Brochures
- Product Registration
- Safety Instructions (MSDS)
- Contact Us
- Business service
- Find a service location
- Spare parts providers
- Extend your warranty
- Online Meter Reading Service
- My Canon
- Online Returns for Credit (RMA)
Print
Download
The USQ's move to Canon technology paves the way for a new kind of service portfolio.
"We had been the customer of a competitor for 12 years and never accepted Canon as a viable option, but they have proved to me they can be. Canon's pay per print option really won me over?. We're not paying for equipment that isn't being used, we're more productive with staff working shorter shifts, and we're saving $350,000 a year just on machinery and clicks - and that's not even taking into account the reduction in overtime hours." - Barry Bowen, Manager Printing Services, University of Southern Queensland
It may be located just 1 ½ hours from the nearest capital city, but due to the growth of distance learning with off campus students and an increasing commercial trade printing business the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) has become a massively high-volume printing operation.
Staffed by a team of seventeen people at USQ's Toowoomba, Queensland campus, USQ Printing Services produced over 60 million digital printed pages last year in addition to its large offset, trade binding and finishing operation. A significant part of this volume comes from USQ Printing Services' internal core printing business, which supports USQ's nearly 5000 on-campus and 20,000 off campus students with up to 400 copies of each of 3000 different sets of student notes - each semester. The digital section is manned by four operators who turn out 480,000 impressions daily during the busy periods.
Even more demanding is USQ's burgeoning distance learning program, which involves the printing and distribution of course notes to nearly 20,000 students around Australia and overseas. USQ also carries the additional printing responsibility of a growing commercial trade printing, book binding and finishing operation, handling the high-volume printing needs of customers like the Toowoomba City Council and Southern Queensland Institute of TAFE.
The operation also provides high-security printing for exams, high-quality offset printing, full-colour printing, finishing, custom book publishing and related services including secure document disposal. "Most people have this false misconception that we're just a few photocopiers behind a counter," said Barry Rowen, Manager Printing Services, USQ. "We are a significant industry production house."
To keep up with such high demand for their services, Printing Services staff used to work 11 hour day shifts with an additional five-hour night shift, producing 340,000 impressions per day using a number of high-volume printers.
The previous arrangement was costing USQ fully $1 million annually - half for the equipment lease and half for the clicks-per-page cost. This was a significant cost, and also a limiting expense as the USQ inplant printing operation recently began looking for ways to offer new services to its customer base. Recognising that there had to be a better way, Rowen investigated his options and commenced discussions with Toowoomba reseller Total Technology Centre (TTC). With the help of Mr Wayne Wallace from TTC, he concluded the pay for print method was the best option available to the University.
The Better Way
Working with TTC, Rowen ran a complete audit of the USQ Printing Services digital business and came to what for him was a surprising conclusion: high-volume Canon printers, offered to USQ with an all-inclusive per-print and leasing pricing arrangement, promised a vastly improved cost model that would also increase the division's printing throughput, enabling it to support additional lines of business as it continued to diversify.
"We had been the customer of a competitor for 12 years and never accepted Canon as a viable option, but they have proved to me that they are," said Rowen. "The main focus of my whole operation is to keep costs down for the university, and Canon's pay per print option really won me over. We're not paying for equipment that isn't being used, and we're not paying for equipment during downtime" such as the three months a year students are on holidays.
USQ and TTC worked together to install six Canon imageRUNNER iR105+ high-volume printers, which took over the majority of USQ printing from July 2005 and have proved extremely reliable ever since. The machines are running nearly non-stop, serviced regularly by a dedicated on-site technician provided by TTC to service the machines. As Canon was also successful in a recent, separate offer for supply of multi-function devices (MFDs), the technician also services these machines.
Once the iR105+ machines were up and running, Rowen said, it soon became clear just how beneficial the new equipment was going to be.
Cost savings from the new fee structure will amount to $350,000 annually just from reductions in operating lease costs and pay-per-click operations. Even more significant, however, are projected cost savings from the improved efficiency of the new printers. Because of this increased efficiency, Printing Services is now producing 480,000 pages per day - and has been able to reduce employee shifts from 11 hours to just 7.2 hours a day, with no night shift at all.
Reductions in staff expenses have been a significant indirect benefit of the adoption of Canon technology, and Rowen is eager to turn the improved efficiency into additional benefits by working with staff to extend the Printing Division's services to all-new areas such as document management for USQ, with scanning and archiving being two main areas for development.
"The Canons do an excellent job of black print on white stock, achieving all that we need in quality for a great price," said Rowen. "We've improved our throughput, and this now leaves us more capacity to take in new business that will grow our non-core revenue."
A Lasting Partnership
Successful installation of the printers was only the beginning of the partnership between USQ and Canon.
Rowen and his team got a taste of important new technologies to come during a visit to Canon's CISRA research and development facility in Sydney, while Canon actively participated in a recent USQ open house. TTC and Canon also provided three $8000 scholarships for USQ students, while Canon also provided funding for USQ's world-renowned Japanese garden.
More recently, Canon representatives sat down with TTC and Rowen to map out USQ's longer-term printing plans, particularly in the area of document workflow. For example, careful optimisation of activities such as composition and pagination can further streamline the productivity of its Canon devices.
Workflow will also benefit from Canon innovations such as MEAP (Multi Embedded Application Platform), a Java-based application environment that will allow USQ to introduce 128-bit encrypted carriage of documents between user and printer. This would secure the carriage of the document across the network, allowing the Printing Division to offer both internal and external customers complete confidence in the integrity and security of their documents.
Such security is crucial when printing sensitive documents like examination papers or sensitive third-party documents, and will become even more important as USQ expands its business with new third-party services. Because they will involve the managed electronic movement of documents into the inplant operation, these services will require additional capabilities to facilitate a secure document workflow between clients and USQ Printing Services. Those capabilities become possible by linking Canon MEAP's capabilities with those of other applications in the USQ operation.
No matter where the relationship takes them, Rowen is confident that USQ made the right choice in selecting Canon. "I can't emphasise too much the value of the partnership and the collaboration we hold with Canon and developed through Mr Wayne Wallace," he said, "and the fact that they are keen to work with us into the future to make our workflow systems even better. I really look forward to that, and I can see they have the goods to take us there."
About Canon
Canon Australia Pty Ltd (canon.com.au) was established in 1978 and is a subsidiary of $US33.3 billion Canon Inc. Canon Australia is an industry leader in professional and consumer imaging solutions, with an extensive product line that includes networked multifunction devices, document solutions software, printers, scanners, facsimiles, digital video cameras, film and digital cameras, and lenses. The company also operates its own finance service, Canon Finance Australia, which provides a one-stop shop for customers wanting to lease or finance their equipment. Canon Information Systems Research Australia (CISRA), located beside Canon Australia in Sydney, contributes local R&D to Canon Inc., which has ranked among the top-three US patent recipients for the past 13 years.
Back to topStaffed by a team of seventeen people at USQ's Toowoomba, Queensland campus, USQ Printing Services produced over 60 million digital printed pages last year in addition to its large offset, trade binding and finishing operation. A significant part of this volume comes from USQ Printing Services' internal core printing business, which supports USQ's nearly 5000 on-campus and 20,000 off campus students with up to 400 copies of each of 3000 different sets of student notes - each semester. The digital section is manned by four operators who turn out 480,000 impressions daily during the busy periods.
Even more demanding is USQ's burgeoning distance learning program, which involves the printing and distribution of course notes to nearly 20,000 students around Australia and overseas. USQ also carries the additional printing responsibility of a growing commercial trade printing, book binding and finishing operation, handling the high-volume printing needs of customers like the Toowoomba City Council and Southern Queensland Institute of TAFE.
The operation also provides high-security printing for exams, high-quality offset printing, full-colour printing, finishing, custom book publishing and related services including secure document disposal. "Most people have this false misconception that we're just a few photocopiers behind a counter," said Barry Rowen, Manager Printing Services, USQ. "We are a significant industry production house."
To keep up with such high demand for their services, Printing Services staff used to work 11 hour day shifts with an additional five-hour night shift, producing 340,000 impressions per day using a number of high-volume printers.
The previous arrangement was costing USQ fully $1 million annually - half for the equipment lease and half for the clicks-per-page cost. This was a significant cost, and also a limiting expense as the USQ inplant printing operation recently began looking for ways to offer new services to its customer base. Recognising that there had to be a better way, Rowen investigated his options and commenced discussions with Toowoomba reseller Total Technology Centre (TTC). With the help of Mr Wayne Wallace from TTC, he concluded the pay for print method was the best option available to the University.
The Better Way
Working with TTC, Rowen ran a complete audit of the USQ Printing Services digital business and came to what for him was a surprising conclusion: high-volume Canon printers, offered to USQ with an all-inclusive per-print and leasing pricing arrangement, promised a vastly improved cost model that would also increase the division's printing throughput, enabling it to support additional lines of business as it continued to diversify.
"We had been the customer of a competitor for 12 years and never accepted Canon as a viable option, but they have proved to me that they are," said Rowen. "The main focus of my whole operation is to keep costs down for the university, and Canon's pay per print option really won me over. We're not paying for equipment that isn't being used, and we're not paying for equipment during downtime" such as the three months a year students are on holidays.
USQ and TTC worked together to install six Canon imageRUNNER iR105+ high-volume printers, which took over the majority of USQ printing from July 2005 and have proved extremely reliable ever since. The machines are running nearly non-stop, serviced regularly by a dedicated on-site technician provided by TTC to service the machines. As Canon was also successful in a recent, separate offer for supply of multi-function devices (MFDs), the technician also services these machines.
Once the iR105+ machines were up and running, Rowen said, it soon became clear just how beneficial the new equipment was going to be.
Cost savings from the new fee structure will amount to $350,000 annually just from reductions in operating lease costs and pay-per-click operations. Even more significant, however, are projected cost savings from the improved efficiency of the new printers. Because of this increased efficiency, Printing Services is now producing 480,000 pages per day - and has been able to reduce employee shifts from 11 hours to just 7.2 hours a day, with no night shift at all.
Reductions in staff expenses have been a significant indirect benefit of the adoption of Canon technology, and Rowen is eager to turn the improved efficiency into additional benefits by working with staff to extend the Printing Division's services to all-new areas such as document management for USQ, with scanning and archiving being two main areas for development.
"The Canons do an excellent job of black print on white stock, achieving all that we need in quality for a great price," said Rowen. "We've improved our throughput, and this now leaves us more capacity to take in new business that will grow our non-core revenue."
A Lasting Partnership
Successful installation of the printers was only the beginning of the partnership between USQ and Canon.
Rowen and his team got a taste of important new technologies to come during a visit to Canon's CISRA research and development facility in Sydney, while Canon actively participated in a recent USQ open house. TTC and Canon also provided three $8000 scholarships for USQ students, while Canon also provided funding for USQ's world-renowned Japanese garden.
More recently, Canon representatives sat down with TTC and Rowen to map out USQ's longer-term printing plans, particularly in the area of document workflow. For example, careful optimisation of activities such as composition and pagination can further streamline the productivity of its Canon devices.
Workflow will also benefit from Canon innovations such as MEAP (Multi Embedded Application Platform), a Java-based application environment that will allow USQ to introduce 128-bit encrypted carriage of documents between user and printer. This would secure the carriage of the document across the network, allowing the Printing Division to offer both internal and external customers complete confidence in the integrity and security of their documents.
Such security is crucial when printing sensitive documents like examination papers or sensitive third-party documents, and will become even more important as USQ expands its business with new third-party services. Because they will involve the managed electronic movement of documents into the inplant operation, these services will require additional capabilities to facilitate a secure document workflow between clients and USQ Printing Services. Those capabilities become possible by linking Canon MEAP's capabilities with those of other applications in the USQ operation.
No matter where the relationship takes them, Rowen is confident that USQ made the right choice in selecting Canon. "I can't emphasise too much the value of the partnership and the collaboration we hold with Canon and developed through Mr Wayne Wallace," he said, "and the fact that they are keen to work with us into the future to make our workflow systems even better. I really look forward to that, and I can see they have the goods to take us there."
About Canon
Canon Australia Pty Ltd (canon.com.au) was established in 1978 and is a subsidiary of $US33.3 billion Canon Inc. Canon Australia is an industry leader in professional and consumer imaging solutions, with an extensive product line that includes networked multifunction devices, document solutions software, printers, scanners, facsimiles, digital video cameras, film and digital cameras, and lenses. The company also operates its own finance service, Canon Finance Australia, which provides a one-stop shop for customers wanting to lease or finance their equipment. Canon Information Systems Research Australia (CISRA), located beside Canon Australia in Sydney, contributes local R&D to Canon Inc., which has ranked among the top-three US patent recipients for the past 13 years.