Peer-to-Peer

Print transformation at a construction giant

Unitech Limited (India) is saving approximately one million rupees after switching to the Canon imageRUNNER (iR) C3200 for its printing requirements. By Tanu Talwar

Unitech Limited (India), a real estate giant is one of the most trusted and well established names in the construction, real estate development, consultancy, hotels, electrical transmission and information technology arena. From its incorporation in 1974, the company had depended upon a manual system for handling important information and had relied upon physical files and records carrying valuable documents, applications, site maps etc. Although the manual system for handling documents worked fine initially, enormous growth experienced by the company caused it to manage and upgrade pools of fragmented data on a daily basis wasting valuable time, resources and capital. Looking for an answer the company decided to go in for a well connected computerised network in 2003.

Printing blues

Prior to this the company had been running a small manageable legacy network that looked after its internal corporate communication and activities relating to finance and accounts, customer relations etc. However without a well formed IT infrastructure, the company was stuck with numerous difficulties at various levels. Although the decision to form a well connected IT framework offered a solution to some of its problem areas, it still faced challenges such as slow printing speed of coloured maps, poor print quality and an inability to cope with increasing printing volumes. Rakesh Kumar, Sr Manager IT, Unitech states, “Being in the real estate industry, it’s imperative to us to have a clear picture of how the internal as well as the external location of a site appears.” In order to get an approval from the client the company needed to present apt, detailed and clear colour site maps. However, the printers that had been installed in the company lacked these features and this was resulting in inefficient communication and leading to high maintenance costs and low staff productivity.

Then again, with no facility to transfer the work site maps online they had to be sent to different locations in the form of physical files or CDs. This process was slow and time consuming. Kumar explains, “We have to deal with various work-site design development plans simultaneously. Earlier, with printers not offering the scan function these work site maps were physically sent to the central architecture department in Unitech for approval and revision and then sent back to the site. This communication process use to take up precious time of the engineers on site.” Furthermore, the company’s growing business prompted a tremendous increase in print volumes that were becoming increasingly unmanageable for the existing printers. “The design development work is handled by a team of engineers who have a requirement to print various documents such as maps, floor plans, elevation views and designs in colour and monochrome. The time taken to print colour maps and designs was too long consuming many man-hours as it did, decreasing productivity,” adds Kumar. In addition, there was no uniformity in the print quality at various locations, due to different printing machines in operation.

Another constant hurdle encountered by the company was that of maintenance. Each time a printer was down due to some problem it took approximately three days to be repaired thereby reducing productivity. Then again with various applications and other important forms spread throughout the office the company was faced with the hurdle of storing paper on a large scale. Coupled with these problems the company had to fork out the huge annual maintenance cost of the printers and was in constant need to change ink cartridges, this cost further increased the company’s operational cost.

The implementation cycle

In order to come up with a solution for these ever growing hassles the company decided to go in for a complete evaluation of its printing solutions and a team of three members from the company’s IT department was assigned to the task. After a series of evaluation rounds that went on for two months and consulted the top ranks of the company’s management, Unitech decided to go in for Canon. Kumar explains, “During this period we considered a number of other vendors in the market such as HP, Epson and Toshiba. However we finally decided to go in for Canon.” For Unitech there were a number of reasons that prompted it to choose Canon. However one of the major attractions was the direct approach taken by Canon. “Unlike other players in the market Canon takes a direct route to its customers and not the channel approach. This was one of the main factors coupled with the cost and print quality factors,” adds Kumar.

Once the decision was taken, a team of five members from Canon came together to address and analyse the printing requirements at Unitech. To meet the specific high quality printing needs of the company the team suggested Unitech go in for Canon’s imageRUNNER (iR) C3200. Over the next one year, the team went ahead and did over 18 installations across the company’s 15 branch offices spread across the country. In order to provide a detailed understanding of the machine the team further engaged itself in providing on job training to various personnel in the company as the need arose.

Reaping the rewards

Talking about the benefits received, Kumar reveals, “This machine can easily handle our printing requirement that at times exceeds 15,000 sheets per month. Moreover, with its network capability, many more computers can now be attached to the same multi-functional device.” Unlike the earlier printers that could be attached to ten or fifteen machines, the imageRUNNER (iR) C3200 can support up to 75 machines. Then again, the iRC3200 paved the way for the removal of printers in various departments, thereby reducing the annual maintenance cost of the printers. Immediately after its deployment the company saved approximately Rs.1000,000 through reduced annual maintenance and running cost. “Right now, there are 28 computers attached to the iRC3200, compared to the earlier 15 computers to the printer only. In this way, we have cut the cost of IT infrastructure by an estimated Rs. 1 million in one year,” explains Umesh Vashisht, CIO, Unitech India Limited.

Furthermore, the communication process in Unitech has been simplified as the central architecture department sends revised documents back to the work site by using the scan to e-mail option instead of physical delivery, improving productivity tremendously. Moreover, as the iRC3200 comes with mailboxes that allow the company to store documents through the desktop or by scanning them, mailboxes, soft-printed documents are stored for easy retrieval later, thus reducing the paper spread all over the office. Then again, the clarity of printouts was one of chief difficulties and a matter of concern earlier. This has been tackled. “This machine has improved the clarity of colour prints through its 2400 x 600 dpi resolution making it easier for us to understand the real picture of any upcoming work site,” asserts Kumar. The iRC3200 has further enabled Unitech to enlarge maps and other minute documents in a finer manner, without reducing the quality of print output. All of this has increased the productivity of the company by printing better quality prints and finishing jobs on time.