Childcare centre consolidates print fleet, goes with Canon

Plagued with out-of-date photocopiers and paper-based systems, Sesame Lane Child Care was forced to look for a system to help automate document management and control business process from a central location.

The centre has experienced significant expansion since its establishment in 1988 from approximately 50 children in one centre to around 1500 children in 14 centres across Queensland.

Sesame Lane’s IT manager, Michael Aisthorpe, told Computerworld Australia he needed to create an effective and easy-to-use document management and workflow solution to improve productivity and to centralise business processes.

“By upgrading our print fleet and introducing an effective workflow, we were hoping to improve productivity through faster access to files across all 14 of our child care centres, and save costs by eliminating previously cumbersome workflow and document management processes and consolidating our print fleet,” he said.

Aisthorpe considered three different vendors to replace the centre’s Konica Minolta Bizhub 162s and C450, including Konica Minolta, Canon and Fuji Xerox but went with Canon based on the vendor’s reputation in the market, despite a ten-year relationship with Konica.

The project began at the beginning of January this year and includes the consolidation of Sesame Lane’s print fleet, including multifunction devices, printers and faxes from 42 to 16 IRC3080 multifunction devices. The centre’s administration building will also receive a Canon Therefore document management system.

“To have a central location for all those documents, being able to retrieve those documents effectively and efficiently, and have a workflow system in place making sure that the type of document that is imported and what’s done against that document is consistent with requirements so people don’t do things their own way while others do it differently is invaluable,” he said.

According to Aisthorpe, having the maintenance of the copiers included in the cost of the implementation is a huge saving with machine issues being tended to by a technician and covered by Canon.

“On the copier side of things we’re saving around $1200 across the board every month, it’s not a huge saving but it’s significant for us,” he said. “On the documents management side of things, having a central repository of files and being able to retrieve them effectively and efficiently, not only increases our productivity, it also decreases the risk within the organisation.

“The old system had manual copies stored offsite or in a store room with just the one copy, whereas having an electronic system, there should be no reason why you’d ever lose that documentation, we have offsite backups, onsite backups, and I have backups that come home with me at night.”

The implementation also allows Aisthorpe to access any multifunction device from his desktop, with the ability to identify any issue and often resolve it from there instead of going out onsite.

The project is scheduled for completion in two months.

Follow Chloe Herrick on Twitter: @chloe_CW

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU

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