At Grantham College the aim is to ensure that all students achieve their true potential. They have over 70 years’ experience of providing education and training and have developed a welcoming and supportive environment where the needs of students are always put first.
They are constantly adapting and evolving to suit the needs of their students and are proud to boast some of the most impressive facilities around, including the purpose-built three-storey Arts Centre with design studios, workrooms, and dedicated Performing Arts Studio.
Their mission is to deliver inspirational vocational, technical, professional, higher education and training that empowers people, businesses and the community to achieve their goals. Fundamentally the college continues to strive to contribute to the economic prosperity and social cohesion of the communities it serves.
Grantham College is a medium sized learning facility with approximately 1,000 full-time students and 3,000 part-time. Like any educational establishment they are still heavily reliant on their print network to produce the supporting materials required by the students. Stewart Boylan, Systems Manager, spoke about the colleges’ requirements, “Post pandemic, we were pretty much back to the same level of printing as before, but with a desire to print less where possible. We had been very happy with the reliability and functionality of our existing Toshiba devices and looked to upgrade to the next generation technology at the end of our lease. As Toshiba were one of the suppliers on the Crescent Purchasing Consortium, we were able to partner directly with a view to refreshing the entire estate.”
Following an audit of the colleges print fleet, taking into consideration locations, usage and discussions with staff and students, Toshiba proposed a reduction of 150 devices down to 60, and suggested creating centralised print areas, with secure print release on the devices. Stephen Lowndes, Business Development Manager, talked about Toshiba’s recommendation, “Grantham College had very clear objectives, to have a future-proofed print network that would create a culture towards reducing the amount of printing, whilst at the same time significantly reducing cost. By taking the time to fully look at the print workflows throughout the college, we were able to make suggestions for areas that could work as print hubs, with appropriate products in each location, offering the required high speed scanning functionality.”
Through the confidence in the brand and having used Toshiba products for over 10 years, Grantham College selected to transition to Toshiba’s latest advanced print solutions, and roll these out across their sites. Already using PaperCut for their print management software, the integration was seamless, with all departments quickly and easily up and running on the new MFPs and printers. Stewart commented on the benefits of the new technology, “We are always going to need some level of printing, but we now have a platform to enable us to encourage our team members to move towards a more scanning orientated environment, and we have the tools with PaperCut to completely manage departments print usage and see where the areas of high volume are. Toshiba, through their expertise with workplace solutions, have not only enabled us to completely rationalise our print estate but saved us over £60k on our print contract, reducing down from £100k to £40k.”
The MFPs are faster, more efficient and staff and students are embracing the new print configuration, only printing what they need from devices via print-release and utilising the scan functionality where possible. The fully Managed Print Service provides just-in-time toner delivery and the remote support from the Toshiba team gives the reassurance that should they have any issues, they will be dealt with quickly and efficiently by an experienced Toshiba engineer.
The whole project has facilitated a culture change across the college, and they now have a future-proofed solution where staff and students are more aware of what they are printing and trying to reduce as much as possible. Stewart concluded on the upgrade, “Our aim at the start of the process was to rationalise the estate and lower our costs, have the latest technology for speed and efficiency improvements, with a mind-set on the longer-term goal to reduce printing. Toshiba has more than exceeded our expectations, with a reliable, stable platform, software to manage print usage, and devices that will support our future plans for document sharing. From a college perspective we are doing more with less, with the support from a manufacturer that we know we can rely on.”
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