Case Study

As Canada’s most populous town, the Town of Richmond Hill—part of the Greater Toronto Area—is home to more than 200,000 people. Its busy municipal office responds daily to requests for sub-division prints from residents, in addition to handling the day-to-day print demands of its staff. On any given day, this could include town-wide maps, blueprints and CAD drawings, among other documents.

For years, the Town of Richmond Hill’s Engineering, Parks and Planning departments relied on a dual solution: an TDS450 black-and-white plotter and an HP colour plotter, each on a different floor.

Wanting a single, all-in-one unit, the departments upgraded to two ColorWave 500 plotters, one for each floor. The corporate and CAD printer is ideal for multi-user environments; more than 200 town employees have access to the plotters.

Sustainability

The two new ColorWave systems have decreased the organization’s footprint—literally and environmentally.

“We have one unit that pretty well does everything now: scanning and printing, colour and black and white,” says Todd Kroeplin, a GIS (geographic information systems) analyst with the Town of Richmond Hill who led the project upgrade. Space previously used for a second printer is now reserved for tables and desks to review drawings.

At a time when governments at all levels prioritize sustainability practices, the ColorWave 500’s eco-friendly features stand out. “The ColorWave 500, with the toner balls, just seemed cleaner than the old systems we were using,” says Kroeplin. With TonerPearls, there are no ozone emissions, no odour or system contamination, and minimal waste disposal. And toner waste is completely non-toxic and safe, making it easy to dispose as part of regular office waste.

Software upgrades

The departments also upgraded their software, the first time since 2007. They now run the Direct Print Suite software, a cost-effective scalable job submission, print management and archive solution. “One of the main reasons we upgraded our software was because it was all sitting on old servers. Even the database was an old version of SQL,” says Kroeplin.

The software allows employees to do more from the comfort of their desks. “No one has to schedule time and wait for one PC,” says Kroeplin. “That’s one of the best parts: Productivity has gone up because people can do more from their desktop. The one unit seems to be one-stop shopping. People can set up [preferences] themselves; then, they just point, click and go.”

Productivity

About 50 people use the plotters every day. Kroeplin sees the machines constantly printing; what he never sees, though, is a line.

“There hasn’t been a bottleneck yet where someone says, ‘I need this now, and somebody else’s drawing is printing,’ because [the plotters] seem to print so fast it doesn’t really matter,” says Kroeplin.

Print Quality

Speed has not come at the expense of print quality, either. “That’s one of the main benefits, especially the [quality of the] colour,” says Kroeplin.

The engineering group prints mostly black-and-white sub-division drawings, but also colour maps on request. “But the Parks Department is seeing the biggest difference because their colour prints for park designs come out so much quicker and cleaner than [with the older machines],” says Kroeplin.

Flexibility

The ColorWave 500 affords greater flexibility for the group as well. For one thing, users can choose between economy- or production-type prints. “If someone is printing a whole bunch of drafts, they can scale back and not use as much toner—and it’s much faster—until it’s time to do a production print,” says Kroeplin. “We have so many more options now using these machines.”

Should the need arise—say printing plowing maps for municipal truck drivers—they now have the option of creating waterproof prints. And with the plotter’s ability to hold four different rolls of paper—of varying sizes—reloads are fewer and farther between, and options on what to regularly stock are greater than before.

Scanning

The group has also enjoyed the plotters’ scanning capabilities. The scanning technology eliminates the background noise of original documents such as blueprints and sepia prints. The Image Logic Software takes the most important features, eliminates any folds or cracks, and brings out only the most important elements. An image never goes through the scanner twice.

This has proven to be especially beneficial for those requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act. Often those documents haven’t been looked at in 20 or 30 years, much less scanned before.

“We have an older machine in our lower level, and that’s for our Freedom of Information people,” says Kroeplin. “They find they use the ColorWave 500s when they have a suspect drawing—a blueprint that’s washed out or faded, for example—because these machines scan them nicer.”