Follow Me Printing

A properly controlled printing and copying network can reduce your business’s expenditure by up to 40%. Here at Weaver & Bomfords as part of our wide range of printing services we offer follow me printing as a key component in ensuring your costs are kept to a minimum.

What is it?

Put simply, a follow me printing service from us positively changes the way your staff print their documents by ensuring they take accountability for what they are printing. You may have a current set-up in your business with individual desk printers, multiple MFPs across different locations in the office, a mixture of both or perhaps printers in different buildings. Whatever the set-up, the process for printing is the same, the user presses print, it’s sent to whichever device is set to default or the user has chosen a printer, and they then retrieve those documents. This may seem “normal” on the outset, however the user may have printed 100 documents instead of 10, there may be a queue of colleagues already waiting to retrieve their own documents, the wrong printer may have been selected, colour was selected as opposed to monochrome, the job was sent to an out of service device, or maybe they were just printed in error. All these as well as many more have a negative impact on time and budgets.

We can implement a system whereas once a staff member presses “print” they must go to the device to provide authorisation before the device actually prints the documents – whereby the name follow me printing originates.

Although there is some very clever technology behind the processes, the system yourself and your staff see is incredibly easy to use. When a document needs to be printed, the staff member will press “print” and that document is then sent to a print server where it is held in a queue. Once the staff member is ready to retrieve their printing, they attend which device they wish to use (they can choose any device on the network in which they have permission to access) and then once at the printer, activate their authorisation. Authorisation can be done in many ways, from an individual PIN code, a proximity card, to a biometric scan (we will discuss the right options for your business before the system is set up). The printer will load the documents sent to the print server for that individual, the staff member selects what they wish to print (or cancel) and the device prints whilst they wait ensuring full control over what is printed and the correct documents are taken away by the right staff member. The document can then be either saved on the print server or deleted.

The Benefits

There are many benefits to a follow me printing service from Weaver & Bomfords:

Cost Reduction

Since the staff member selects which documents to print whilst at the printer, documents that have been printed in error, lost, forgotten about or are duplicates can be deleted before actually being printed. This helps to save on the amount of paper and toner being used as well as reducing costs if your business is charged per printing page.

We can also help you to reduce costs by setting up user account restrictions. For example, setting print limits by user or department, only allowing certain users or departments to use certain printers or print in colour and setting up pop-up messages on the display prompting users to print double-sided in monochrome if possible. We will discuss what document solutions are best for your business including paperless printing and build them into the account restrictions for you. If you use follow me printing as part of a managed print service you can achieve cost savings of up to 40%. This is because we carry out a full audit of your current printing network including the current solutions and software you have in place, evaluate where we can help you to achieve savings, implement any changes and then manage the service allowing your business to reap the benefits without having to put in the hours into maintenance and reporting.

Have a read through our Case Study with Newcastle-under-Lyme School where we helped them to reduce their printing and copying costs using follow me printing.

Security

The way in which your business handles client information is of the utmost importance and you need to ensure there are safeguards in place to prevent breaches. Our follow me printing service ensures that documents printed are always linked to an individual staff member through their unique User ID, so when those documents are printed, only they are printing it and ultimately retrieving the documents to take away removing the need for individual desk printers. This enables your business to safeguard against any trust issues from clients and maintains the business’s corporate accountability in regards to privacy laws. Weaver & Bomfords have a team of document experts who will offer solutions to any security issues you may face in your printing and copying network, whether that be print related, copy related, scan or storage related. We will ensure that your business is secure and complies with GDPR along with any other legislation or company policy that you need to have in place.

Efficiency

The flexibility of your printing system is greatly improved with the follow me printing service. The time staff spend waiting for documents to appear from a device as well as the disruption caused is reduced as if a particular device has a queue or is out of service they can simply choose to go to another device to print. It also allows for your staff to print documents when and where they need them, for example next to a meeting room to save carrying them distances between departments or buildings and printing extra copies on that device if needed.

The service also allows for delegated printing. This means that an authorised individual can print on behalf of their manager or department. It also allows for a continued flow of productivity should a staff member be absent.

Environment

Your business may already have environmental commitments in place and if not, the introduction of a follow me printing service is the ideal opportunity to build them into your business’s standards. Each of your staff members will have a greater accountability for the documents they are printing whether that be by printing limits, default print settings, or by giving them the option to cancel a document printing at the device should there be a mistake. This not only reduces the amount of paper and toner your company is using, but also electricity and wear on the device and gives the staff member responsible printing accountability. Want to go a step further with your environmental policies? We offer a toner recycling service which encourages responsible recycling within your business, reducing the amount of ink and toner cartridges that are disposed of into landfill each year. The scheme actively promotes these cartridges to be recycled and reused ensuring that each business that is involved whether they recycled, reused or both, take a few more steps to becoming greener.

Why Choose Weaver & Bomfords

We are single source experts in follow me printing and are committed to making it as easy to use as possible as well as the most cost effective solution for your business. We will discuss your exact business needs, from the hardware itself, to their locations, the best way to network them, user restrictions and print limits. We provide you with management reports providing instant information that will allow you to see any departments or individuals that are regularly exceeding budgets, reaching their print limit, printing in colour or one-sided only. Our extremely knowledgeable and friendly team can answer any questions you may have and provide you with resources to make the most out of your follow me printing as well as giving you first class support to you and your staff. All of our services come with free delivery and excellent training from DBS checked experienced engineers so you are safe in the knowledge that the transition will be as smooth as possible. We come highly recommended by the people we work with, take a look at what they say about us here. Finally we pride ourselves on being active within our local community and support many great clubs and charity organisations.

You can call us on 03456 123858 or visit our contact us form on our website to start discussing how follow me printing can benefit your business.