The force's printing function serves 7,653 police officers, 3,138 support staff, 135 traffic wardens and 617 special constables. A high degree of flexibility, reliability and functionality was required to address the printing needs of these different users. Network printing was also an important requirement. The scene was set to find a comprehensive solution.
Fred Tracey, support manager, West Midland Police comments "Across the board, different printers were needed for different jobs. Flexibility was therefore key. At the same time most of our printing is based on mono, text based documents particularly emails, so we needed high quality machines that could print quickly and reliably at low and high volumes."
Kyocera Mita's solution
There are over 1,000 printers within West Midlands Police, the majority of which are networked. The force constantly re-evaluates its printers and over a four year period Kyocera Mita's products have dominated the installed base with over 90 per cent penetration.
Fred Tracey explains, "We refresh our printer inventory on a regular basis. As part of our evaluation, we run in-house tests on products that we are considering for purchase. The evaluation process assesses the quality of printing and compatibility with our network. Once this process is complete a decision is reached and authority is issued to purchase new products."
The printers chosen by West Midlands Police are a mix of workgroup A4 16ppm mono printers and 12ppm entry level business printers.
Results
Fred Tracey comments, "Our satisfied users are the clearest indication of the success of the Kyocera Mita installation. We now have a long standing relationship with Kyocera Mita who has provided us with a clear roadmap of new products that we can evaluate in the future. "
Future plans
Total cost of ownership and colour printing will be areas that West Midlands police pay very close attention to.
"Up until very recently we tended to focus on the capital cost of our printers, however we are now looking beyond the initial capital outlay towards the ongoing costs of printing. Total cost of ownership is important to us particularly as web based content spurs on our demand for more costly colour printing. We are already aware of the low cost of ownership associated with Kyocera Mita's products and this bodes well for our ongoing business relationship."
