Does your company own a printer? More than one? It’s still prevalent for companies to own printers these days—no matter how much we invest in digital resources, we continue to print documents when doing business. It seems to be an inevitable fact of life at this point, despite all of the predictions otherwise.
Depending on the volume of printing done in your office or the types of print jobs you use them for, your current device(s) might not be suited for the number of outputs your workflow demands. When you need a powerful, high-speed, high-volume machine that can also produce high-quality graphic marketing communication materials, you need a production printer. In this article, we’ll introduce you to these robust devices and help you determine whether your office would benefit from having one.
What Is a Production Printer?
Production printers are perfectly suited for big jobs. They are designed to print large quantities of high-quality media. They are the ideal printers for producing booklets, brochures, manuals, and large-scale photo publishing. Production printers can typically print more than 65 professional-grade pages per minute, with some devices capable of producing well over 100 pages every 60 seconds. They are an excellent solution for environments with high printing demands, eliminating the need for you to outsource these jobs to your local print shop.
Production printers can print on a variety of different media types, making them extremely versatile. They also offer finishing options such as binding, folding, and hole punching, further adding to their versatility.
It is important to understand that production printers do more than just produce a lot of professional-grade copies of a document very quickly. They are also designed to create savings via efficiency; production printers will use less power and fewer printing resources per page without sacrificing quality in the final product.
These high-volume, high-quality printers are typically found in professional print shops, marketing firms, and the in-house marketing departments of large companies. However, when you consider the various benefits and opportunities provided by production printers, you’ll see they can play a vital role in many other types of environments.
The Benefits of Going Big
Bringing aboard a production printer raises your company’s printing capacity, ability, and efficiency, but how do those benefits translate into real business practices? For starters, a production printer will increase the quality of your print jobs. If your printing yields better prints, that can help with your marketing campaigns, proposals for prospects, and much more. Having the freedom to print your own top-notch, professional-grade promotional materials allows for in-house design and production, eliminating the need to outsource this work. It also introduces flexibility into your campaigns, as you get to choose when you print and how much you print, allowing you to adjust the volume as needed.
Production printers also help with reliability. They are made for heavy work, and on average, they last a lot longer than other printers. They are simply better suited to handle large print volumes. As such, your production printer helps you avoid troublesome downtime that costs unnecessary money and can cause frustrating delays in your workflows.
A production printer can also improve your business processes. In an office setting, it’s usually cost-effective to have a central printing station that is shared by multiple people. When the shared resource is a production printer, the incredibly high printing speeds reduce bottlenecks by completing jobs in shorter amounts of time. It’s rare that anyone would have to wait for more than a few minutes for a single printing job to finish. The lack of bottlenecks and employees standing around waiting helps with workflow and overall labor efficiency.
Perhaps most importantly, having an in-house production printer improves confidentiality. When you don’t have to send out major printing jobs to a print shop, you can keep everything under your roof. That reduces potential points of vulnerability that could put critical data at risk. It also saves you money by limiting the scope of what you have to manage to protect data when you print.
Is It Time to Bring A Production Printer In-House?
If any of those benefits would help your business, then it is worth considering an investment in a production printer. It may be more accessible than you first assume.
Let’s be direct. Production printers typically cost more than the standard office printers you’re used to. However, that cost is often recovered from the improved longevity and efficiency of the printer. Not to mention eliminating the need to outsource jobs to a printing professional, for which you’re paying a higher cost per print.
One of the most cost-effective ways to get your hands on a production printer is to look into leasing. With an equipment lease, you don’t need to cover the entire cost of the printer upfront. Instead, you can negotiate a payment schedule that is more affordable and still nets you the benefits of having access to one of these devices in-house. Leasing a printer also comes with certain tax deductions and makes it easier for you to upgrade to a new device down the road.
Of course, you can make everything a lot easier by getting an office technology expert like KDI on your side. We’ll discuss your mid-Atlantic region business’s needs with you, and once we know you a little better, we can make precise recommendations to help you acquire the technology you need to succeed. Since 1984, we’ve been committed to empowering area businesses with the best solutions and services available. Contact us today to get started.