Liebherr builds more efficient print estate with Annodata
Annodata builds print estate for construction company.
Key points
- Annodata established a partnership-approach built on service and trust.
- Leaner and more efficient processes.
- New fleet provides business growth opportunities.
About Liebherr
Liebherr-Great Britain is over 50 years old. With around 360 employees spread across 9 locations, the company distributes a wide range of construction and material handling machines throughout the UK, from mining equipment through to professional and domestic kitchen appliances like fridges and freezers. Its product range is supplemented by the rental service offered by Liebherr-Rental, which offers rental machines for a wide range of earthmoving requirements.
The challenge
Paper remains critical to Liebherr, and while the company plans to reduce its reliance on paper to speed up the flow of information throughout the organisation, it relies on its printers to function day to day.
However, maintaining the print fleet posed a number of practical and logistical challenges. The company has been through a number of different print management solutions in pursuit of a rock-solid printer estate that would deliver the capabilities that it needed to maintain daily operations.
Ed Werry, Fleet Manager at Liebherr, explained: “As an organisation like many others, we are heavily paper-based and use our printers daily for many critical tasks. It’s therefore critical that they not only work when we need them to but that we are getting value for money – and that we’re not paying over the odds to keep them up and running.
“Our print estate has gone through a number of changes over the years. Prior to our initial engagement with Annodata we only had a handful of MFDs throughout the business and a significant number of desktop printers, but it was quite clear that the set-up wasn’t sustainable for a number of reasons. Part of the problem was that we didn’t have any visibility over who was printing what, which made it very difficult to drill into and get a handle on our spend. Moreover, we had little control over our printers and they lacked the additional safeguards around security that every modern business needs today,” Ed continued.
“Annodata immediately understood the pressures we were facing and where we wanted to get to. We’ve got a great relationship with our account manager and know that he’s always looking out for our best interests.”
Ed Werry, Fleet Manager at Liebherr
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The solution
The company first turned to Annodata in 2010, who, after taking the time to understand the organisation’s needs and pain points, devised a unique solution that would satisfy their specific usage, costs and support requirements. They subsequently won the tender and set about implementing the solution.
At the time, Liebherr’s print estate consisted of a handful of Panasonic multi-functional devices (MFDs) and a large number of HP desktop printers scattered around the organisation. Critically, the estate was made up of a number of printer models, which made them difficult to use and maintain, and they lacked print software capabilities.
To tackle these problems and achieve greater cost efficiencies, Annodata replaced the entire estate with Canon machines, raising the number of MFDs to 19 and significantly reducing the number of desktop printers throughout the organisation.
Each of the MFDs, which can be used for printing, copying and scanning documents, were fitted out with Canon’s print management software Uniflow to facilitate new ways of controlling, measuring and managing their outputs. The software includes PIN-release printing, meaning that staff can retrieve their print jobs from any MFD on the network and that sensitive documents are never left unattended at the printers. Jobs that get left unclaimed are removed from the system after 24 hours, significantly reducing waste.
The entire solution is backed up by Annodata’s industry-leading SLAs, and, if there is ever a fault with one of the devices, Annodata will dispatch an engineer to rectify it within four hours. Moreover, Annodata holds regular review sessions with Liebherr to assess how well the solution is working for the organisation and look at where improvements can be made.
The result
Liebherr and Annodata have established a partnership approach built on service and trust. Testament to the strength of the relationship, Liebherr’s solution with Annodata has evolved over time, becoming leaner and more efficient, and is now perfectly able to meet the company’s requirements.
Commenting on the new solution with Annodata, Ed said: “Annodata immediately understood the pressures we were facing and where we wanted to get to. We’ve got a great relationship with our account manager and know that he’s always looking out for our best interests.
They were consultative at every stage and have been incredibly flexible. The net result is that our processes are much leaner and more efficient than ever before. The new fleet has the ability to grow with us, rather than being on the limit, which is where we were before. It was at its full capacity and there were so many inefficiencies in the solution. It’s much more efficient to use MFDs.”
Canon’s Uniflow has come as a real benefit for the organisation, bringing cost savings, greater visibility and flexibility and additional security benefits. Ed continued: “We’d never had any print management software in place, which meant that we had to first nominate a printer and then pick up the print job. If the device wasn’t working, we’d have to start from scratch, but Uniflow has changed that. It’s much easier. The additional security benefits of Uniflow were very welcome. Naturally we’re very securityconscious as an organisation and Uniflow means that we never have sensitive documents lying around the printers that might be seen by people they shouldn’t be. It brings additional peace of mind.”
Annodata and Liebherr look set to continue their relationship for some time to come, as the company continues in its drive to become more efficient and cut down on its carbon footprint by reducing its reliance on paper and implementing greener printing practices.
Ed concluded: “As an organisation, we’re committed to reducing our environmental impact and ensuring that we act responsibility. There’s still some work to do to get our print estate to where it needs to be and we see Annodata playing a critical role in that. The ERP system hasn’t yet moved over to Uniflow, so that will be the next project. We’re also looking to introduce new rules in the system so that the printers default to black and white, and doublesided printing. It’s an evolution, rather than a revolution, but we will get there!”
