Bfi Salzburg

About the company

BFI Salzburg is one of the largest training and education facilities in Austria, with a strong reputation across a wide range of courses. Based across several locations in the west of the country, its regional, vocational training and further education courses are designed to provide relevant and sought-after skills, making it ideal for students seeking new opportunities and companies that want to ensure their employees possess the necessary expertise to respond to current market requirements and business needs.

The challenge

As a popular regional training and education provider, BFI Salzburg identified a need to streamline its estate of 68 printers and MFPs located across its main Salzburg site and other satellite locations. According to Infrastructure Manager Manfred Killer, the fact that every location managed its own toner stock for equipment from various manufacturers made the process for re-ordering consumables extremely complex. “The combination of different models, several delivery locations and a range of different materials created a great deal of work,” he said. “We had to improve the situation.” As the variety of devices used within the organisation grew, BFI Salzburg also found the estate was becoming increasingly difficult to manage.

The solution

In moving to a managed print service, BFI Salzburg’s primary objective was to optimise the cost-benefit ratio, replacing some older devices while providing a new satellite location with a solid set of basic equipment. Having performed an analysis of the internal costs for printing and equipment, together with hidden expenses such as inventory management, ordering processes and repair costs, Manfred Killer submitted his requirements to several printer manufacturers.

Delivered with the specialist support of a regional service partner, OKI’s Smart Managed Print Service was identified as being the best solution for the organisation because it combined a far better price-performance ratio for high printing volumes while optimising inventory management and material ordering. Responding to the organisation’s significant print output of around 80,000 pages a month, OKI provided powerful A4 colour and mono printers and multifunction printers (MFPs) as well as high-quality A3 graphic arts printers featuring state-of-the-art technology to support specialist training programmes.

BFI Salzburg was also keen to standardise the types of devices and consumables used by the operation with the help of local support from OKI. This requirement was met with an automated ordering process for consumables which automatically checks toner levels and other indicators in the OKI client software, placing material orders when necessary. The order is sent directly to the correct location determined by the equipment serial number.

The benefits

Thanks to its reliable service and long-lasting consumables with an automated replacement service, OKI was able to deliver a more economical flat-rate service which has helped increase efficiency and provided the organisation with greater visibility and control of print costs. Since moving to OKI’s Smart Managed Print Services offering, BFI Salzburg has achieved the following:

Fixed monthly pricing with a 10% reduction in costs compared to the previous solution
A consolidated, manageable unified system landscape
Easy-to-use, high-performance A4 colour and mono devices with user-friendly touch screens and state-of-the-art, high-quality A3 graphic arts technology
Long-lasting consumables and automated replacement service, saving time, minimising user intervention and significantly reducing inventory levels
High-levels of service and ongoing regional support provided by OKI’s trusted dealers and service partners

The future

Having addressed the key challenges faced by the organisation, Manfred Killer has welcomed the improvement OKI’s Smart Managed Printer Services offers. “Thanks to local support, response times are much shorter. The personal contact is irreplaceable. Inventory levels have reduced significantly and OKI toners last four-times longer. That’s a tangible improvement.”

The OKI Smart Managed Print Services programme encompasses a range of tried and tested methods and tools to establish the current state of an organisation’s print related costs and processes before OKI create a professional bespoke proposal to suit individual customer specific requirements. Our sales and engineering staff work closely with our key partners to offer Managed Print Solutions with maximum customer value.