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Colourfast Review of V280 Printer

About Colourfast

Colourfast Group Limited have completed a review of Colourfast Review of our V280 Printer. Colourfast  is a wonderful print shop based in the North Laine in Brighton. They’ve been delivering stunning quality design and print services to the local Brighton community and beyond for over 34 years. 

Colourfast have a fully comprehensive design service as well as offering an array of print options. They have recently expanded their services to offer web design too. Their work extends to publishing the Quick Print Pro magazine and they are also organisers of the Print Trade Expo Exhibition.

It’s fair to say owner and Director Peter Foulkes is an undisputed expert in the world of digital print. 

 

Colourfast Introduction

DWS were delighted when approached by such a large printing influence, in the city of Brighton, in 2017. During 2017 Peter and his team had installed a Xerox Versant V80 by DWS. We have continued to work with Colourfast since then, providing them with maintenance throughout. 

In 2024 they realised it was time to upgrade this trusty digital press to a newer model. 

 

V280 Printer

Colourfast Review of V280 Printer

When considering an upgrade from the V80 model, Colourfast needed to review how their original decision had stacked up. They also needed to deliberate on how print trends have changed over time. 

Some of the changes noted within the seven years difference were that customers wanted shorter turnarounds and shorter runs. This meant that speed and efficiency was paramount. They did query the cost and here is a quote from Peter on that cost. 

 

On our present print volumes the new lower running costs of the V280 funded the rental. So same monthly billing for an upgraded print press.

 

Results of new printer

Colourfast were elated with their new machine. They loved that quality was not compromised by speed, they could have both with the Xerox V280. They can gain higher selling prices with colour matching or introducing embellished, neon or foil looking print. This can all be achieved with their new printer. High demand items such as flyers and posters were simple to print for their new V280 and the automation included for them was outstanding. 

Don’t just take our word for it, you can read Colourfasts own blog titled Xeros V280 – no brainer, in their words here.

 

Contact us

If you’d like to take the advice of Colourfast and upgrade your model to one that will service your business in an improved way, just like the V280 has done for Colourfast, contact us today at 

01444 462980

info@dwsl.co.uk

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Document Processes and Workflows

What will help your organisation reduce overheads and improve productivity? Well defined business processes with the ability to effectively store documents and control them in an automated workflow.

How do we know?

We’ve been implementing our document management system DocuWare long enough to understand how the solution can improve your business internally and for your customers.  We know what works and what changes can be made to enhance customer service and employee satisfaction.

A business process is a series of steps taken in a certain order that once complete, achieves a particular goal. A workflow however describes the automation of these processes and the tools or software used to oversee the sequence of tasks.  A company runs on processes across all departments, but making them work as efficiently as possible is where our solutions can help.

At DWS we will work with you to understand every step of your processes and use our Workflow Manager to connect each step with an action. These actions are based on employee decisions and your business rules.

Well Documented Processes

Well documented processes are perfect for transferring into a digital workflow. If a process already has defined steps, these can be replicated in DocuWare with the same rules applied.  A document can be easily tracked throughout its lifecycle and archived when it no longer needs processing.

If you need some help in determining your processes, we can happily go through this with you using our process planner.  To get the most out of automated workflows it’s a good idea to have everything properly planned out before you make the move to digital.

Workflow Management

With workflow management, complex processes are mapped and managed. A variety of scenarios can be included for processing tasks, with information added from different sources.  If a task is assigned to a member of staff who is on holiday, a number of other employees can be added in as the next in line to complete the task instead.  You decide which conditions are applied to each task, such as an invoice for over £5,000 must be directly routed to the Head of Finance, rather than the Finance Assistant.

Capture

Accurately capturing the data that’s entering DocuWare is vital.  For a workflow to function well it relies on processing information, so making sure the data is correct from the beginning is an important step. DocuWare’s Intelligent Indexing automatically captures data from scanned documents and uses it to populate index fields.  These index fields are how a document is described and classified to ensure it can be found and assigned correctly.

Tasks

Tasks are those parts of the process assigned to an individual or team to ensure the workflow can be completed.  With DocuWare, tasks can never ben missed when they are automated and included in the workflow.

Example

1. An invoice is received and is added to the digital cabinet for incoming invoices.  The workflow is triggered.

2. A digital task has been created and DocuWare checks the invoice against a previously stored purchase order.

3. The invoice is forward to Accounts Payable.

4. The invoice appears as a task for the Accounts Department, is checked and if correct, assigned to a cost centre and then moved on for approval.  If incorrect, a task can be created for another team member to investigate further.

Documents are important to all organisations, each having a part in your processes as well as triggering tasks to be performed.

How Well Do Your Processes Work?

Do you have trouble with lost documents, mis-paid invoices or lost orders?  All this can be avoided by implementing a document management system with automated workflows.  Your processes will run more smoothly, the data will be more reliable and employees will be more efficient.

Our clients see a Return on Investment almost immediately with the biggest gain being time to invest into more productive areas of the business, rather than chasing missing invoices or managers for approval.

Can your business afford to carry being inefficient with no transparency?  Or do you need to make change today?


Book a FREE Proces Assesment

Independent Private Schools

How Does Managed Print Management Work For Independent Private Schools?

For most educational institutions, print is a costly monthly burden that can quickly add up. However with our managed service for schools you will have access to secure and easy printing from any device while protecting sensitive student information – all for a fixed fee.

Print management gives the school’s administrators tools to find inefficiencies in their printer networks. With so much hustle and bustle, important processes and systems often get overlooked or pushed aside.

By implementing a managed print solution service, schools can save time and money by eliminating future headaches. The educators’ attention can then be focused on what matters most – keeping students safe and helping them to learn at school.

A robust managed print service for educational establishments will go beyond print management and include value added features that enables students and teachers to print responsibly, safely and efficiently each and every school day.

Educational institutions that partner with one of our managed print services will be able to implement a custom all-inclusive managed print service, which will save time and money without sacrificing productivity and most importantly, will provide a reliable and accessible secure print environment for all students and faculty.

What Should a Managed Print Service for Schools Look Like?

The foremost priority of every school is to facilitate learning, so they need to be equipped with the tools and technology to enable students. When teachers’ valuable time is spent attending to print problems, the quality of education decreases with students being left at a disadvantage.

A comprehensive print management system can quickly provide any school environment secure print workflows that grant greater accessibility and enhanced data security for the students and teachers.

So, the question is, what key elements and features make up a robust print management service?

The service should include

Easy To Use Dashboard

An intuitive web-based dashboard makes it easy for administrators to keep up with equipment repair and maintenance schedules even across the bigger educational establishments. 

Point Policy Management and Rules Based Printing

These tools shape the print environment based on the school’s user behaviour. For example, a school can implement an eco-friendly print policy that encourages users to take responsibility for their printing habits by discouraging users from printing emails or web pages in Colour.

Find Me Printing

This feature provides the ability to deliver one logically named print que to staff and students, increasing confidence that the print job is being securely printed.

Badge Release and Follow Me Print

Teachers, students, and staff can utilise their access control cards or fobs to securely release print jobs at their own convenience, from any printer within the school with the correct permissions.

Touchless Print

In this post pandemic world, schools should limit the number of physical touch points in their environment. Touchless release allows staff members to walk up to a printer and use their phone to scan a QR code quickly and conveniently to immediately see the print jobs that they have readily available within the print system.

Print Deploy

IT managers can implement the right printer drivers in the right queues at the right time, minimizing printer deployment time.

Mobility Print

Securely and easily print remotely or print outside the school network by sending print jobs over the internet

Benefits of a comprehensive Managed Print Service for Schools and Education?

Educational institutions that employ a custom-made managed print service can expect to see immediate advantages. The benefits of a comprehensive print service include,

  • Data Security Compliance
  • Drastically reduced costs and waste
  • Greater Accessibility
  • Serverless printing Infrastructure

Do you Need an Extensive Xerox DWS Print Management Service for your School?

When choosing the right print management service, you should employ an all-inclusive solution that reduces costs, improves accessibility, maximises productivity, and ensures data security and regulatory compliance.

A truly extensive print management service will also address safety concerns associated with COVID – 19 protocols through advanced added features (such as touchless release) to provide peace of mind for everybody within the school environment during these uncertain times.

Schools that partner with our award-winning managed print service will implement a custom print management system and are investing not only in the productivity of their students and faculty but their safety as well. This all – encompassing, systematic approach to print management will ensure the successful implementation.

If you would like to discuss further, please contact us on 01444 462980 

Difficult times are ahead in Business

Difficult times are ahead in Business

Guy Fawkes tried to bring the country down on the 5th November 1605, the COVID Pandemic is more likely to bring this country to its knees in 2020/2021

Since March, companies throughout the UK have had to make some rapid decisions on how to cope with the immediate effect of this COVID pandemic and how they can operate and, more importantly, how they can survive.

The government came up with several very helpful support packages to help us get through the lockdown and since then we have been employing a number of these schemes to keep the business afloat.  As a number of these schemes are coming to an end in October the big question now is, where do we go from here?

We talked about the new normal with people working from home. Initially, financially for companies this looked an ideal solution to cut costs and continue operating and great for the employees as they did not have to commute and could work flexible hours. In some cases, this has actually been really beneficial for everybody.  Sadly, in other cases, people have found working from home has its distractions, as well as issues communicating properly internally and externally and has had a detrimental effect on the business.

Many businesses now have time to reflect. Initially, they reacted to the immediate issues threatening their livelihoods and put in tools to manage the position. Now, with a second lockdown looming in November, is this pandemic going to cause greater disruption than Guy Fawkes ever could by blowing up parliament?

It’s time to look ahead, respond to the position, accept that we are going to be living with this problem for quite some time and look at how we are going to operate in the future.  What plans, business tools, cost cutting, and employment decisions need to be made to keep in business?

The major costs that spring to mind are the office rent, the wage bill and office operating costs. A number of these costs can be difficult to cut as there are long term agreements in place. However, there are several other hidden costs that can be reviewed and, in many cases, can provide valuable income back into the business.

One area that you can look at immediately is the office operating costs and, if you are having to sadly make redundancies, you need to look at technology that can help manage the new position. This can be in areas such as unique software that provides full document management, meaning information is available at a touch of a button with full security and compliance or internal leases like office equipment that could be refreshed at much lower rates and more suitable for your future operating requirement and needs.

Where is there help?

Our business, Document Workflow Solutions, was set up in a joint venture with Xerox UK to help companies see the future and adapt to the changes companies are confronted with, as well as providing unique and valuable business tools that will cut costs, increase business efficiency and help provide a very competitive edge in your market place. If this is something your business wants to look at, we are happy to provide a free office audit and look at all your document costs and processes.  We have been very successful in helping many organisations make at least 30% savings and, in many cases, even greater cost efficiencies.

African woman working on new building plans while sitting at her desk. Female interior designer working at home office.

Working from Home is this the new working environment

Many companies now are changing their thought process on people working mostly from home as opposed to travelling into the office every day. With today’s new technology employing all the wonderful new computer tools, the cloud and advanced telecom facilities life would appear to be sorted, or is it?

One area that Xerox -DWS are very aware of is the cost of printing documents especially when buying a small home office multi-functional printer from the internet and buying consumables to run it. Initially this looks like the ideal solution as it’s a low-cost investment in the printer and then you buy the consumables when you need them at a competitive rate.  However, let’s look at this situation more closely:

All printer manufacturers make a fortune by selling the home office print devices cheaply and then selling the consumables on an ongoing basis. This is why print cartridges are so expensive and not only that, they change the printer models regularly so you have to keep buying different print cartridges even though the model you may replace from time to time looks so similar.  Worst still, if something goes wrong, trying to get any warranty work can be difficult especially if you have purchased cheap compatible print cartridges to keep the running costs down. This cancels the warranty and it is cheaper to buy a new one that get the current one repaired.

This may not even be the worst news because, if you are a company who have a number of home workers, trying to control the cost of print is virtually impossible and there are no tools to manage the position from afar so making this part of the IT budget is a nightmare. Another issue is, by using these small individual printers, companies do not have all the business scanning tools to scan documents into the company’s bespoke applications, making the whole process of managing information from the satellite home offices a nightmare.

Don’t despair though because the Xerox-DWS unique new all-inclusive solution for home workers, DocuCentre, is easy to use and offers a fully managed print solution, meaning you don’t need to worry about buying expensive consumables to run the machine or worry about trying to get the printer fixed if you have an issue.  It’s all done for you including onsite fixed maintenance.

IT managers will be happy as they have all the tools to control and manage the printers from afar and the users have a Xerox-DWS DocuCentre that prints high quality documents at speed, cost effectively with all the scan tools to integrate with the main offices business applications.  Added benefits include additional apps on the print device to enhance the home workers experience of producing and managing documents.

The really great news with this system is there is no initial purchase to be made, no long-term contract instead there is a monthly investment and cover for a 36-month period. If your requirements change there is flexibility to upgrade and at the end of the term, you can upgrade to the latest technology, backed by Xerox, the world’s finest Document management company.

To see how the DocuCentre could save your business time, money and hassle with staff working and printing documents from home, speak to us on 01444 462 980

Click on the link below for more info.

DWS_Home_Printing_AW_digital

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A Paperless Office – Pipe Dream or Reality?

Old habits die hard

The concept of a paperless office is nothing new. Yet the average workplace is usually defined by a paper mountain (or two). While printers hum, photocopiers churn and filing cabinets overflow.

We are paper addicts: a generation who were taught to keep a copy of everything – just in case. The technology to go paperless exists but are we ready to embrace it? Innovative workflow tools mean we have the power to scan in our existing paper and eliminate the need for new paper enitrely! Thanks to highspeed broadband, cloud applications and high capacity storage, the sky’s the limit. But if fear of the unknown is holding us back – tot up the costs of printing out that paper mountain over the next five years!

Click here for the full Business Edge Magazine article

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Managed Print Services to save money

When you think how much you spend on print production, including supplies and maintenance and outsourcing when you don`t have the right equipment for the job, isn`t it time to think again?

Print is too often seen as an unavoidable cost that’s never questioned. But, through managed print services, we can help you gain visibility of your print and control of your spending. We’ll streamline an operation that’s fundamental to the smooth running of your business, making it more efficient and cost effective.

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Fed up with buying expensive ink and toner?

You are not alone; in fact recent studies have discovered that Ink per litre is more expensive than a litre of Channel No5 or a good bottle of Whisky.

Up until now once you purchased the network printer you are forced to buy expensive consumables to run the machine and when it breaks down you have to wait for an engineer.

Call DWS to find a more cost-effective solution to printing endless copies that takes the pain out of filing and shuffling mountains of paper.