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PRINT.IT
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EDUCATION
Thomas Buxton Primary School is a
two-form community primary school
with a nursery situated in the
heart of Whitechapel, London. It is
maintained by the London Borough
of Tower Hamlets and currently has
around 460 pupils.
The single-storey school was
recently refurbished to reflect ‘the
high expectations of both children
and staff’. It has also overhauled
its printer fleet, replacing four old
devices with two high speed, low
cost RISO ComColor 7150 A3+
inkjet multifunctional printers.
Cheryl Wason, School Business
Manager, says Thomas Buxton
Primary School took the decision
to replace its existing printers
following mounting concern
about the devices’ high print and
maintenance costs and increasingly
unreliable operation.
“We had four printers in our
school but we were starting to have
serious problems,” she said. “The
machines were old and needed new
parts, which we were going to be
charged for, and the colour printing
was expensive – as much as 7p per
copy on one particular machine.”
Wason was also dissatisfied
with the school’s existing supplier.
“We were having battles about how
much they were charging us for
the new parts – for machines that
we couldn’t actually use as
they often broke down! And they
rolled the contracts on and on,
so we were just stuck with
old machines. It was a crazy
situation,” she said.
This state of affairs was not
unique to Thomas Buxton Primary
School – many schools experience
similar problems and, at the time,
there was much in the press about
how too many were over-paying for
supplies.
Through conversations with
another school, which recommended
RISO, as well as a direct approach
from RISO itself, Wason realised
that there was a way out of Thomas
Buxton’s predicament and its
unsustainable print costs.
“We knew we had been spending
a staggering £2,000 a month
on printing. That’s an enormous
chunk of the budget and it simply
wasn’t sustainable. Something had
to change. Now, we spend about
£1,900 a quarter. That’s a huge
difference that equates to a saving
of about £25,580 a year.”
Freedom to print
Because of RISO’s economical
inkjet printing technology, these
savings have been achieved
without any reduction in colour print
volume. In fact, Wason says school
staff today have more freedom than
ever to print in colour.
“We still use paper in the school
for creating beautiful displays
on the walls, as well as
for homework, class
work, newsletters and
information for governors.
We also have a weekly
newsletter. It had been the case
that if we had two or more pupils
from the same family, we would only
send it to the eldest sibling, purely
to keep costs down. With the RISO,
we can just do it! We print 350
double-sided newsletters in colour
every week, because it is now so
cheap to do,” she said.
Wason added: “Everybody uses
the RISO. They have their set limits,
but we are definitely printing more
in colour than we used to. We don’t
have to worry too much now.”
Lower print costs are not the only
benefit enjoyed by Thomas Buxton
Primary School. With print speeds
of up to 120 pages per minute, the
RISO ComColor 7150s are also
highly productive; they are easy to
use; and technical support is always
available, should it be needed.
Summing up, Wason said: “We
needed reliable customer service
that could be trusted to respond
efficiently and effectively; a machine
that could do the job with low running
costs; and billing that was the same
across the printers. We have all that
now with RISO.”
RISO helps London primary school cut annual print
bill by more than £25,000
A lesson in school printing
Update printer fleets to make most of BYOD, says Annodata
Annodata is advising schools to update
their printer estates to secure the full
benefits of ‘bring your own device’
(BYOD) schemes.
Its recommendation follows a recent
survey by RM Education, which found
that 29% of UK secondary schools have
already opted for some form of BYOD,
with a further 26% considering a policy.
Annodata Marketing Director Joe
Doyle said: “BYOD and mobile devices
have the potential to significantly
increase engagement and make it
easier for students to transfer work,
collaborate and, ultimately, learn. But in
our experience many of these mobility
drives are being hamstrung by a lack
of mobile printing. It’s all very well
equipping students and staff with new
devices, but unless documents can be
accessed efficiently, when and where
they are needed, any productivity gains
to be had from mobility and BYOD
schemes will be lessened.
“Students want to print from their
tablets or mobile phones to university
or college printers/MFDs, but there’s
been reluctance from IT directors to
allow those devices on their network.
An increased number of personal
devices can result in security and
data protection risks, as they increase
complexity in determining which devices
are accessing which systems and data.
That’s where clever software solutions
come in, allowing staff and students
to print easily and securely from their
mobile devices.”
He added: “A number of schools
are at the start of their digital journey
and the potential for the education
sector to adopt new digital processes
and technology is clearly there. But, as
many of these institutions don’t have
large IT teams, they need the help of
suppliers for the appropriate guidance.
The right provider can offer the ability
to build sophisticated student billing
infrastructures so that costs relating
to mobile printing by students can be
re-charged to the student (if appropriate)
to prevent spiralling costs.”
Now, we
spend about
£1,900 a
quarter.
That’s a huge
difference
that equates
to a saving
of about
£25,580
a year
