Title : NHS Portsmouth Print & Photocopy Control Solution
Market : Library
Service/Product : Print & Photocopying
Reseller/Distributor : Integrated Card Solutions Ltd

Client

Location – Portsmouth, England
Client profile – Library carrying books and journals on health-related subjects for healthcare professionals and students who are members of the NHS.
Contact – Helen Bingham – Library Service Manager
Number of sites -2
Number of terminals – 6 MB20 terminals, 4 print release stations, 4 card dispensing units
User – Staff & Students

The Challenge

The NHS Education Centres in Portsmouth wanted to introduce charges for printing to recover costs and reduce waste. This was seen as an opportunity to improve the administration of photocopying, by integrating charging for the service with a new single card based system, providing a more innovative and flexible solution.
Ability to charge individual users and departments separately.
Operate 24 hours per day and be self reliant reducing staff involvement and the ability to cope with a split site operation.
System must be flexible, reliable, easy to use and require minimum maintenance.
Cost effective and be value for money as NHS operates on a very tight budget.

The Solution

Introduced an on line magnetic stripe card based system to control & integrate printing and photocopying at the two Education Centres. This consisted of implementing a third party print management product with Monitor Supervisor net software, and 3 MB20 terminals, 2 print release stations, and 2 card dispensing machines at each site.
To help reduce overall costs for implementing the system, ICS offered a mixed purchasing and leasing package, this appealed to the NHS as it operates on a very tight budget. Installation was fully operational in March 2004.

The Result

The print management system has allowed the library to manage its printing usage, gaining more control over how the system operates, allowing more flexibility. Charging for printing has dramatically reduced paper wastage and will eventually increase revenue for the NHS library.
The new system is easier and more convenient to use, since both services are now on one card. The cards are also robust, durable and secure.
The new system has the ability to cope with individuals and departments separately – there is now a central account which has the ability to cope with a split site operation.
The new management software has made it easier and quicker for staff to recharge their cards, since users have 24 hour access to the system and there is no staff intervention required.
Department accounts are now easier to administer and this has allowed greater elasticity to departments.

The Future

The possibility of installing self-service pay stations, allowing users to add value to their cards without staff intervention.

Quote

Charging for printing and photocopying has dramatically reduced paper wastage and will eventually increase revenue for the library."
Helen Bingham - Library Service Manager