The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) has successfully completed the printing of more than 75 million grade nine exam paper images covering 140 subjects for the North West and Mpumalanga provinces.
One of the conditions was that the successful tenderer produce the exam papers within six weeks. "The large print volumes necessitated the procurement of additional printing capacity at SITA's bureau service," explained Jaco Smal, Data Centre manager at SITA.
"We required additional printing capacity to meet the tight deadlines," said Smal. "Leading production laser printer vendors were invited to submit tenders at short notice. One of the conditions stipulated was that the successful vendor would be required to supply a fully functional printing solution in less than three weeks from SITA placing the order to installation."
Xerox SA was successful in its tender bid and delivered and installed the equipment in two weeks. Xerox supplied three DocuTech 6180 Production Publisher high-speed printers and three CPBourg booklet makers with a combined market value of over R8.5 million.
SITA's Beta Data Centre was able to meet the deadline and complete the printing of approximately 50 million pages, printed on the Xerox cut sheet production printers and the balance on a continuous form printer.
"SITA's Beta staff, who are accustomed to working under immense pressure, worked on a 24-hour/7-day shift basis to complete the work on time. The equipment proved to be extremely reliable, and provided outstanding performance. The new equipment will now enable SITA to produce high digital print volumes at short notice," noted Smal.
The solution from Xerox will provide the Beta Data Centre with flexibility, as well as the capacity to expand into publishing applications, providing growing our business opportunities. It will also allow the Data Centre to increase its printing volumes by about 40%.
"One of the key reasons for selecting the Xerox printers was based on our need for the 75 million documents to be stapled. The Xerox printers performed this task automatically. Without this facility we would not have completed the task on time," explained Smal.
Compatibility was another important issue as was reliability and the speed at which the exam papers could be produced.
For more information on SITA, visit www.sita.co.za.
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