HOUSING
Oliver Fusco, director of FSG Technologies, explains his firm’s work with a fast-growing housing group.
T
he Future Solutions Group (FSG), which provides office equipment and
facilities management services, has re- cently begun providing print solutions for Paradigm Housing Group.
Paradigm provides a wide range of hous- ing and support services throughout the South, the Home Counties and West London and has been involved in social housing since 1989, when it was previous- ly known as Chiltern Hundreds Charitable Housing Association.
It evolved into Paradigm in 1999 and the group’s divisions now include homes, commercial, maintenance and develop- ment and it operates a variety of housing opportunities to just under 25,000 people. As well as managing their core business, Paradigm’s 440 staff operate from eight different sites, which require efficient and productive management in their own right.
Adrian Green is Paradigm’s group fa- cilities manager, based at the organi- sation’s head office in Wooburn Green, Buckinghamshire.
He explained one of their main issues: “We moved, last year, to the new head office building, and decided this was the right time to improve our efficiency and cost effectiveness, throughout the group, by consolidating our copier and printing equipment contracts.”
There were a number of different sup- pliers, with varying contracts and lease agreements, and Paradigm also owned some desktop printers themselves.
Green said: “The move to new premises al- lowed us to look ahead to the future. We wanted to improve efficiency and cost-sav- ing and enable staff to utilise follow-me printing. Confidentiality is an important issue in our work, and we needed respon- sive, reliable servicing.”
Follow-me printing allows staff to print from any device on the network, using
50 | public sector executive Mar/Apr 11
their door access cards to authenticate themselves. It presents users with a list of their print jobs, and provides greater flex- ibility, functionality and confidentiality. Print jobs which are not collected within 24 hours are simply deleted off of the serv- er – saving wastage and printing costs.
Paradigm feels at home with FSG’s print solutions. At the time of the project, the IT contractor, chosen to handle the initial setting up of Paradigm’s networks, recom- mended FSG Technologies, a local Olivetti business solutions partner, to add a solu- tion to the group.
FSG won the business and were the first of the suppliers asked to quote and to iden- tify a way to reduce paper wastage, provide the follow-me printing solution, and set up a series of rules-based printing to enhance efficiency and functionality.
FSG now provides a fully managed print service to Paradigm, after installing 19 Olivetti multifunctional colour devices comprising ten 45ppm d-Color MF451 machines, eight 55ppm d-Color MF551 models and a 30ppm d-Color MF3000. The company also installed a Fiery for the machine used by the communications de- partment, but all machines are set up to automatically duplex documents, as a pa- per-saving measure.
Also, they are set to print certain docu-
ments in black and white, such as emails and some Word documents, and other ap- plications, such as PowerPoint, are set to print in colour.
The staff received full training from FSG, including top-up overviews after the ma- chines had been in place for a while, when needed, and have accepted the change to MFPs instead of single-user printers.
Green explained why Paradigm are pleased to be working in partnership with FSG: “We have a very good working relationship with Oliver and his team at FSG.
“They are responsive, and willing to come in to meet us, and Oliver is always con- tactable. What is more, we have been able to increase the amount of scanning and email faxing, which helps to reduce costs even further.
“Their recommendations have proved to be cost-effective and have improved pro- ductivity and I am now able to analyse information supplied by FSG, on a regu- lar basis so I can see exactly how the ma- chines are performing, but I don’t have to worry about their maintenance, as it is all taken care of.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Oliver Fusco T: 08443 351 343 W:
www.thefuturesolutionsgroup.com
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