Are you printing needs exceeding the capabilities of your office printers?
Depending on your device, printing can seem like an immense chore. Refilling paper trays, managing jobs, replenishing ink or toner, waiting on jobs to complete — sometimes it can feel like you’re pushing your office printer to its limit while wasting your own time. If this story sounds familiar, it may be time to consider upgrading to a high-volume production printer with specialized finishing capabilities. But how does one determine if a high-volume production-level upgrade may be a wise choice? Perhaps the answer to the following questions may help.
What does your current print-load look like?
If you find yourself constantly restocking the paper trays and ink or toner cartridges, this could be a tell-tale sign that your current printer isn’t keeping up with your demands. How are you current printers handling your needs? Frequent maintenance issues can also be a sign of overworking your machine.
What is your full print budget? How much are you actually spending?
Tied into the last question, if you find yourself spending an inordinate amount of time tending to the needs of your office printer, these are hours in the day you could be doing better things. Do you find yourself manually folding, stapling, binding, and stacking materials? These hours should be factored into how much you’re actually spending on your current printer. These can dramatically weigh down your printer budget. Though a production printer along with the necessary finishing units may seem more expensive, the amount of time saved could actually end up saving you money.
Is your current printer holding you back from hitting deadlines?
Nobody likes to miss deadlines due to device and system shortcomings. If your printer isn’t cutting the mustard from a speed and volume output perspective, the issue may not be with your particular machine, but with the intended speed and volume output of the model’s design. If you have potentially lost any business deals due to slow or inadequate print materials, there's a good chance you can factor that into your production print budget. After crunching the numbers, you may find that production-level printing is a worthwhile investment.
Would a production print device give you a competitive edge?
If your ability to manage your printer less and produce more material for a lower per-print price point, a production machine may give you a competitive edge. If a production printer feels excessive or possibly out of your price range, you may actually be surprised by how affordable and manageable they are.
Could you outsource some of your production print jobs?
So, you've crunched the numbers and they don't justify purchasing a production device or an in-house print shop. Either you don't have enough volume or resources to sustain an in-house production operation. You may still want to weigh whether outsourcing some of your production-level print jobs to a third-party shop may be a suitable option. This may also be a great temporary solution until your company can justify investing in its own in-house production print shop.
