Plain sailing for P&O Ferrymasters with Docex360

Streamlined printing without borders

P&O Ferrymasters is a leading provider of tailor-made transportation and logistics services with sites across the UK and Europe. Recently the company decided to upgrade its printing fleet to deliver more coherent and economical printing facilities – and printing specialist, Docex360 and its print partner, Toshiba Tec, provided a solution that spanned multiple European countries and facilitated centralised visibility and management of the entire printing fleet. The system was implemented without disrupting the company’s operations and is delivering cost savings of over 40% with big improvements in reliability, GDPR compliance, data security and user friendliness.

P&O Ferrymasters is a multinational company specialising in the design and delivery of innovative and flexible supply chain solutions that add value to its customers’ businesses. To help the company improve its printing operations, Docex360 and Toshiba Tec conducted an audit on P&O Ferrymasters sites across Europe. After carefully assessing the requirements of the staff in each office, Docex360 devised a tailored solution and an installation plan that would help all sites to achieve their operational goals.

During the initial audit, it became apparent that within the P&O Ferrymasters business, each geographical region had a high degree of autonomy, and its own specific IT and printing infrastructure. Additionally, each site had a separate contract for printing services, which meant that the contract renewal process was complex and time consuming.

“We conducted an audit on the sites and learned that whenever there was an update, the printer drivers stopped working on the Dutch sites,” explained Stuart Rogers of Docex360. “This created a lot of disruption and led to almost daily calls for maintenance. We knew that there must be an easier way to connect everyone and ensure the same technology is being used across the board – so we suggested an agreement that included the supply of 36 latest technology Toshiba multi-function printers (MFPs), alongside specialist print management software.”

Docex360 designed a managed print service covering all the European offices and aligned service agreements that would start and end at the same time across all locations. This removed a large administrative burden from the procurement departments by making renewals much simpler and more transparent.

Another crucial implementation was to configure the whole printing fleet with PaperCut. This software allows P&O Ferrymasters to easily manage their print assets, collect usage data by location and device, identify inefficiencies and implement cost recovery and allocation strategies to maximise system productivity and return on investment.

To protect the confidentiality and integrity of the multi-national company’s data, a pull-printing solution was implemented. This feature holds print jobs in a central queue until the user logs on to a pull-printing enabled MFP, thereby ensuring that the correct user is physically present before the document is printed.

As a further aid to compliance with GDPR and data security, Toshiba Tec products provide the highest security standards with end-to-end encryption, data overwrite functionality and secure hard drives on their printing devices. What’s more, the new system allows all documents to be stored in a central repository that can be audited and has stringent access restrictions. This offers an extra level of data security, as no unauthorised personnel within the company can access sensitive information.

“When Docex360 came on-board, they quickly got to grips with our requirements and developed a very clear plan of how to best deliver what each site needed. The new printers were deployed throughout our European operations with a minimum of disruption to our business.” “- Roger Harris, Head of IT Support and Operations

“The new printers were deployed throughout our European operations with a minimum of disruption to our business. The new multi-site printing installation is delivering numerous benefits, including cost savings of almost 40% over the duration of the contract. The new system will also help to improve our green credentials thanks to the Toshiba Tec Carbon Zero Scheme.”

Just like P&O Ferrymasters, Toshiba Tec puts protecting the environment at the core of its operations. With the help of carbon management experts CO2balance, Toshiba Tec has created a scheme to help compensate for CO2 emissions by carbon offsetting its products. Carbon offsetting involves investment in CSR projects that eliminate the emission of (or absorb) an amount of CO2 equivalent to that associated with the Toshiba Tec product. This way, emissions are balanced to become ‘Carbon Zero’ which allows for business activities to be carried out with no detriment to the environment.

“When we initially started talking to P&O Ferrymasters, the company was having real problems with operating and maintaining its printing facilities,” recalls Stuart Rogers at Docex360. “So we worked closely with them to devise and deliver new printing systems for the UK and across European sites. Now all reporting comes to the help desk in the UK, billing is done in one location, we have eliminated the limitations and annoyances associated with the old equipment, and delivered considerable cost savings. P&O Ferrymasters has a global reach, and Docex360 alongside Toshiba Tec were able to deliver a multi-national project that works well in every geographical area and for every department!”

“The new multi-site printing installation is delivering numerous benefits, including cost savings of almost 40% over the duration of the contract. The new system will also help to improve our green credentials thanks to Toshiba’s Carbon Zero Scheme.” “- Roger Harris, Head of IT Support and Operations