Tally line printers improve Transman`s performance

More and more corporate finance departments that originally chose laser or dot-matrix printers for the generation of the company`s statements, invoices, cheques and management reports are moving to line printers and benefiting from reduced print costs and increased work loads.

"Whichever way you look at it today, line printers are still the cheapest and one of the fastest ways of putting ink onto paper. Most companies that originally opted for laser or dot-matrix printers years ago are switching to line printers. Not only have their print volumes increased substantially, but fleets of printers are both difficult to manage and expensive to maintain," says David Terry, general manager of TallyCom.

"These companies often forget they were substantially smaller many years ago, when they decided on laser or dot-matrix printers. Now with multiple printers in their finance departments, they are required to keep a large variety of consumables in the store rooms, a scenario that would be easily simplified by using a single line printer," Terry says.

A company that faced this exact dilemma was Transman, which was experiencing rising print costs and a growing print fleet within its finance department. What compounded the issue for Transman, however, was the fact that the majority of its print load was squeezed into the end of each week, with wage slips, cheques and management reports needing to be generated in a short time frame.

"With a predominantly dot-matrix based print fleet, it was taking us in the region of five hours to print invoices, cheques and payslips each week," says Suren Kisten, wage processing supervisor at Transman. "Our woes were compounded by the fact that a paper jam, which was relatively common on our dot-matrix printers, would set us back substantially, calling for a reprint of the entire job, wasting both paper and time."

On recommendation from its internal IT department, Transman investigated the consolidation of its fleet through the installation of line printers. "After conducting a thorough needs analysis, we recommended the installation of two Tally 6050 Lanplex line printers," Terry says. "The print volume is in the region of 30 000 pages per month, with over 7 000 pages being printed in the space of two days which dictated that the company needed both fast and reliable printers capable of generating a high-volume of output in a short space of time."

To test compatibility with Transman`s custom-developed processing system and gauge customer satisfaction, a demonstration unit was supplied to the company for a week. With a substantial increase in performance and 100% compatibility with the Transman processing system, Transman placed an order for two Tally 6050 Lanplex line printers through a rental agreement with Itec.

Looking back on the improvements the printers have effected in Transman`s finance department, Kisten says the five hours spent printing payslips, invoices, cheques and management reports have been reduced to around two hours.

"There are also no paper jams with the new printers and consumables are relatively cheaper and have a much longer life. In total, we replaced in the region of 11 dot-matrix printers with the two new Tally line printers which are currently being used by 23 people simultaneously, on a weekly basis," says Kisten.

Interestingly enough, blowing one myth about line printers out of the water, Kisten says his department has been positively affected by the reduction in noise level. "The office environment is far more pleasant now, with less noise being generated from the two new printers. Print times are faster, the printers are more reliable and are cheaper to run. Overall, Transman is extremely happy with the results," Kisten concludes.