Municipality of Konz

The municipality of Konz employs around 180 people who look after the needs of its almost 34,000 inhabitants. Eleven local municipalities and the town of Konz, where the administrative headquarters are located, belong to the Rhineland-Palatinate association municipality. As a modern service provider, the tasks of the association municipality administration are diverse and cover various areas - from finance, social services, the environment, schools and education to water supply, business, construction and culture.

www.konz.de

Added value for the customer

Management Summary

A tailor-made complete package of hardware, software, rollout and individual services enables the 180 or so employees of the Konz municipality to print securely and carefree. In addition to the procurement of consumables, the transparent and automated service concept of IT-HAUS GmbH also regulates the service and maintenance of the systems. This not only relieves the customer's IT administration, but also reduces operating costs for the entire fleet.

Project environment

The municipality of Konz most recently used almost 60 inkjet printers at eleven locations, which were provided and maintained by IT-HAUS GmbH as part of a managed service contract. When this expired, a new service contract with a term of 48 months was put out to tender. In addition to renting the new devices, the scope of services included the complete operation of the hardware, including the supply of consumables and the provision of comprehensive management software. The order comprised a total of 54 multifunctional devices in three performance classes, staggered according to the monthly print volume. While VG primarily uses A4 printing and copying systems at workstations or in small workgroups that print up to 2,000 pages per month, larger MFPs in A3 format are usually used as multi-storey systems with a monthly print volume of up to 8,000 pages. The third performance class consists of two high-performance systems for up to 50,000 pages per month, which are required in the print center or the mailroom at the head office. VG Konz intended to switch back to ink, as there were fears that laser printers could endanger the health of employees due to fine dust emissions. However, numerous studies have disproved this and documented the harmlessness of modern laser devices. In addition, the emissions of standard systems on the market are now far below the test values recommended by the Federal Environment Agency. After detailed consultation with the IT-HAUS experts, the customer was convinced of the advantages of laser technology: not only can it be used in offices today without any problems, but laser devices are also much less susceptible to faults overall. This means that dried-out print heads on underutilized devices will be a thing of the past, as will the interruptions to everyday working life caused by frequent service calls. Last but not least, a recent market analysis revealed that it is primarily manufacturers of laser devices whose portfolio is able to meet all the tender criteria.

Project success

In close cooperation with its long-standing partner Kyocera, IT-HAUS was able to submit the most attractive offer, particularly in terms of the price-performance ratio, and cover all requirements with a single manufacturer thanks to its broad product range. This applies in particular to the high print volume of VG Konz at peak times - for example when budget plans have to be printed - which cannot be managed with standard systems. This is where Kyocera scores with a high-performance MFP that offers outstanding image quality at a print speed of up to 83 black and white and up to 70 A4 color pages per minute. Not only does the standardization of the printer fleet enable better prices, IT-HAUS also acts as the sole service partner for the customer, which significantly simplifies the handling of repairs and the like. To this end, VG Konz has concluded a framework agreement with IT-HAUS. This has a term of 48 months and regulates not only the supply of consumables to the customer but also the provision of corresponding services. The operation of the devices is billed based on consumption via a so-called click contract, i.e. in the form of a page price without a minimum volume. Page-based billing per location and a low fixed price per page ensure transparent and manageable printing costs. In addition, there is a monthly rental flat rate which, in addition to hardware leasing, includes all service costs such as consumables (toner), spare and wear parts, technician costs and the provision of fleet management software. To avoid bottlenecks due to delivery delays, IT-HAUS keeps a certain contingent of consumables on site at the customer's premises.
While VG Konz's own efficient IT department guarantees, among other things, very strong first-level support, IT-HAUS also supports the customer in the event of serious faults and failures. This is where geographical proximity and many years of cooperation pay off: While the customer has known the IT-HAUS technicians for years, they are very familiar with the conditions, contacts and users on site and know the specific requirements - to the benefit of everyone involved. As the rollout of the new devices was also carried out centrally from Föhren and in close coordination with the individual locations, installation and commissioning on site could be scheduled flexibly according to the customer's requirements. The legacy systems, in turn, were bundled by IT-HAUS and transported to Föhren and remarketed by a partner following certified data erasure.

Software

The printing environment is managed centrally via the FMAudit software installed at the customer's premises - a manufacturer-independent solution that records all relevant data from the existing systems. Daily meter readings are transmitted automatically, and an automated toner requirement notification is sent to IT-HAUS as soon as a defined threshold value is not reached. The software also automatically reports faults via an encrypted connection so that IT-HAUS, as a service partner, can take quick and targeted action if necessary. The data recorded via FMAudit makes it easy to compare devices, settings and fault frequency. With each invoice, the customer receives a breakdown showing which device at which location, in which organizational unit and cost centre caused the costs per billing period.
Since VG Konz also wanted a solution for secure printing on the shared multifunctional devices, software from the manufacturer Escido is now being used here. The GDPR-compliant follow-me-print solution only allows employees to release their print jobs once they have authenticated themselves on the device. Documents are stored on the server until they are released on a device that the document owner can freely select. This means that misprints and printouts left unattended in the printer tray are a thing of the past. Thanks to end-to-end encryption, all data - be it user, server or printer data - is also one hundred percent secure; all applicable data protection regulations and guidelines are complied with.

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