Converged printing is king

The old adage "size does matter" still applies in today`s technological world, but bigger is not necessarily better anymore. Convergence of technology means that more and more features are being packed into devices that are rapidly decreasing in size. For example, cellular phones are becoming cameras, media players and even live televisions. They also keep getting smaller.

Printers have not escaped the convergence craze, and the phenomenon here is no different. Gone are the days when every office worker had to have a printer and scanner on his or her desk, and fax machines and photocopiers took up more space than people.

Converged printing has resulted in devices that are known as MFPs, or multifunction printers, which are exactly what the name suggests: printing devices that perform many functions.

Originally, this entailed the standard print, scan and copy functions. Later a faxing facility was added, but is not always standard on MFPs. As technology has moved forward, MFPs have incorporated even more features, such as e-mail, and scanning a document to an electronic destination instead of just making a copy. This has brought features that were previously limited to PC users and large enterprises to users in the small office/home office environment.

Having one device that does the job of many has several advantages. Firstly, it increases the effectiveness of how people work with paper in their environment. Any business is only as fast as the speed paper moves from one process to another. It also cuts down on the time wasted wandering between the fax machine, the photocopier and the printer, which may have been in separate rooms.

Imagine this process: an order is received via fax, the sales manager authorises it, and the order moves to order entry to place the order on the system.

Any business is only as fast as the speed paper moves from one process to another.

Hans Horn, MD of Lexmark South Africa

Usually it looks something like this: The sales manager receives the fax, signs it, makes a copy for his/her own records, and places the original on a pile of paper that will be handled "later". This can mean that someone needs to walk to another department to drop off the order, but imagine if the sales manager is in Bloemfontein, and order entry is in Johannesburg. Then the sales manager will need to fax it to order entry, or maybe place it in an overnight internal mail system.

Additional papers used - two (not a lot for one process, but they quickly add up). Time wasted - copy time, faxing time, paper lying on a desk, walking to another department, overnight mail.

Bring in an MFP, and the process changes dramatically: The faxed order comes through, the sales manager authorises it, and scans it to his/her e-mail. From there he/she can archive it for future use, as well as e-mail it to order entry as a proof of the order which they can start processing, while awaiting the original fax.

Additional papers used - 0. Time wasted - well, none!

Add to these functions such as: intuitive processes; priority print, which allows users to pause a copy job to print their document; confidential print features, which enable users to protect confidential documents by requiring a password to be entered before a document will be printed; hands-free scanning and faxing; network options; scanning and printing directly to/from USB; scanning printed documents into editable text; creating and searching PDFs directly from the device, and so on, and the benefits of an MFP start to become obvious.

Not only does a multifunction device make life easier for users, save on space, and reduce wasted time and paper, most importantly it increases productivity and effectiveness.

Let`s face it, nowadays we have less space and more work to do than ever before, and we need the right tools to be able to do the job. Instead of one device to do one job, you now have one machine that does the job of many. With so many features packed into one handy device, it is easy to see why convergence is indeed king.