Managed Print Service – A practise ensuring Efficiency

As of now everyone is quiet aware of what MPS is. Still giving a brief introduction, MPS is an acronym for Managed Print Services which aims to help you gain visibility and have control of your printing routine. It also helps you save a lot of money, improve productivity and enhancing environmental sustainability.

Managed Print Services has a much wider scope which includes managing and optimizing the capacity of your printers and the processes that are attached to them. Its ambit includes:-

1. Devices
Desktop printers, MFPs, Photocopiers, scanners and other high-volume printers.

2. Supplies.
* Paper requirements and usage of ink, toner and other consumables.
* Materials sent for fast printing, mailing and distribution.

3. Workforce.
Printouts produced by staff

4. Services.
Serves as IT support, technical support, maintenance, upgrading and other related requests.

Advantages of MPS

  • Assess & optimize your print environment.
    MPS helps you in assessing and evaluating your current operating costs in terms of power, ink, paper and other consumables. Once analysed, it offers you intelligent and productive printing solution thereby optimizing your print policy.
  • Track the Print costs.
    With an up-front assessment and analysis of your current printing infrastructure, MPS monitors, tracks and manages total print output environment in terms of unnecessary printing and other document related expenses thereby eliminating needless costs.
  • Enhance Security.
    MPS offers an advantage of securing your printers from being attacked by illicit intruders and safeguard information in transit and in queue.
  • Initiate eco-friendly steps.
    Being ecologically friendly shows your awareness and respect towards environment. MPS helps you a lot towards reducing greenhouse effect by consuming less energy, less paper and keep waste out of landfills.
  • Automated workplace solutions.
    It helps converting the slow and paper –based processes into automated one thereby enabling an “automated document workflow” and streamlining other related process.
  • Helps a lot in striking off undesired costs and save time and money for business expansion.

  • It gives customized solutions. 

Milkman Toner Company as your MPS Company.

Milkman Toner Company can help you in following ways:-

  • Expert Document Assessment & Recommendation
  • Fleet Optimization & Redeployment
  • Remote Monitoring & Management
  • Automatic Supply Fulfilment
  • Expert Support Team to Increase Uptime
  • One Invoice for all of Your Devices
  • Quarterly Strategy Reviews

 

If you haven’t seriously thought about what a major chunk of printing costs add up to your total operations cost annually, then it is the right time to do it. Take a note of it and imagine running your business without being occupied with your printer fleet issues.  Let us manage your printer fleet and find you in an assured performance and efficiency enhanced environment with higher return on investment.

Lease the right Photocopier

Lease the right Photocopier.

Leasing is one of the best ways to save your hard earned money without compromising on the functionalities of the new equipment. Same is true for a photocopier as well. Leasing an essential equipment like a photocopier for your office is an important decision and should undergo some research work.

So here we are, to guide you on some of the important aspects that you should consider before signing a lease contract.

  1. Recognize your requirements.
    This simply means that first and the foremost thing that you need to consider is analysing your business requirements. You must understand as to what are your copying/printing needs. This apprehension will not only help in deciding the features required to get your work done but also evaluate your current and expected print needs. Broadly users are categorised into three categories as Home users, Small offices and Large concerns.

Home users like include students or families or individuals who have printing requirements for home assignments or photos only. For this category, a colour inkjet printer can easily accommodate their requirements.
For small offices, where quality output is important, can choose from a laser printer or a colour inkjet printer for economic running costs.
Whereas large business concerns have heavier printing and copying needs and hence need a multi-function photocopier. To avoid any hindrance in the workflow big businesses should opt for laser printers.

 

  1. How to pick the right buy?
    It’s very easy these days to find anything online that you need at the most competitive price. But sometimes just for the sake of catching the product at cheap rates, users don’t go into details which turn out to be a disadvantage later. So it’s always good to ask questions regarding:-

    a) if there are any hidden costs related?
    b) if the company (in question) has good reviews?
    c) if they provide satisfactory after sales?
    d) if they provide quick solution without any delay in response time?
    e) if they offer buyout or upgrade or end the lease with the completion of lease time?

  2. Understanding your lease agreement.
    Before entering into a lease agreement, you should always know and understand all the terms mentioned in the contract like:-
    a) Your payment terms. Be well aware of the amount and the interval of your payment. If the payment gets delayed or in case you want to exit the lease contract, what penalties shall be imposed on you?
    b) Damages Covered. Try to find whether your contract covers any accidental damage? What type of and what amount of repairs does your agreement cover?
    c) Extra hidden costs. Make sure that the cheaper looking product does not have extra hidden costs. These can be in the form of costs for ‘add-ons’ or slow or unresponsive services causing a disrupt in your work environment.

Conclusion

Considering the above mentioned points before leasing a printer/copier you can definitely benefit from the leasing arrangement. Saving money not only by leasing that purchasing outright, you can acquire a printer like a pro in no time. For any other assistance, Milkman Toner Company is always happy to hear it from you. We understand that each individual has different priorities and we can refer the best advice that helps you as an individual or your business to work with optimum efficiency.

4 Finishing Options to Help You Get More out of Your Multifunction Printer

Today, printers have emerged as true office document management workhorses. It’s simply incredible to know about so many functions that a printer can perform. At the same time, it is unfortunate that not many offices use these functions to the max to improve their efficiency. Finishing option is one such feature.

 

Here are some ways in which you can get more out of your multifunction printer –

1 – Booklet Printing

By setting the booklet finisher to your printer, you can avail of a great way to boost productivity. The print setting is adjusted to print two sides with space at the center to make a fold and get a smaller booklet page. Some printers also offer saddle stitching (or stapling) on the edges to provide a more refined look to the booklet.

2 – Hole punching

Filing of documents is routine. But the effort to get holes punched in a consistent manner as per the alignment of the file is tedious. Let your printer handle this job for you. With a hole punch finisher, you can get holes punched in neat rows on stacks of papers. You can choose from a two hole or a three hole punch, depending on the type of binder you will be using. This way, when the paper drops off the tray, it fits into the rings and is bound automatically without effort.

3 – Stapling

With the stapling function you can easily organize larger stacks of papers into smaller groups. If you are looking to make multiple copies then stapling the single instance of a copy will make total productivity sense. Automatic stapling is a great finishing option to have when you need to keep certain sections of your print job together as a single unit.

4 – Folding

C- Fold (folding into three equal parts to fit an envelope), half fold, Z- Fold (folding one edge of the paper), or accordion fold; the folding techniques employed in today’s age of communications are too many. How about having a folding finisher that does the appropriate type of folding of the sheets for your convenience?

Check out which printer brand or model carries what type of compatible finishing option, before you buy them. Connect with us at Milk Man Company here in Sacramento, CA.

Top 5 Laser Printers to Buy in 2017

The huge array of printer models made available by multiple OEMs has made our purchasing decision harder. If you are looking for a laser printer, then you are at the right place. Today we take stock of the best laser printers retailing here in the US this year:

 

1 – Samsung ProExpress M3320ND

The printer offers a 250-sheet drawer and in-built duplex printing facility. It also integrates Google Cloud Print. It offers a speed of 35 ppm for text- only pages. It generates decent quality prints above par for a mono laser.

 

2 – HP LaserJet Enterprise M712dn

The mono laser offers a top speed of 41 ppm on B/W text pages. The EPEAT Silver compliant machine is best for small office use and offers tabloid size printing as well. This model too has an auto duplexer. Business collaterals like brochures and flyers can be easily printed at low running costs.

 

3 – Dell Color Cloud

This slightly heavy duty workhorse is an ideal MFP for smaller offices that put emphasis on good quality and faster prints. It offers scan as well as cloud printing options. Connectivity is enabled through Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and USB. It also comes with PCL and PostScript drivers – an important consideration for enterprise grade printing.

 

4 – HP Laser Jet Pro 400 M401n

Integrated with HP ePrint facility and offering superb quality prints, this printer is a must have for a creative agency or students who look for attention to detail. It doesn’t have a touch screen and offers a low-cost printing option. So if your agency is high on quality but low on costs then this is it (if you can afford to give duplex printing a miss, as the Laser Jet Pro doesn’t offer this feature).

 

5 – Canon Laser Class 710

Offering a 19ppm printing speed, the Laser Class doubles up as a standalone fax machine too. The proprietary ultra high quality (UHQ) from Canon provides sharp image reproduction. It can hold up to 600 sheets through three trays – 2 front- loading trays of 250 sheets each, as well as a multi-purpose tray that fits 100 sheets.

 

Which one of these will be your pick of laser printer for home or workplace? Do write to us and let us know.

5 Common MFP Issues and their easy solutions

Multifunction Printers are an indispensable part of our workplace these days. Due to multiple tasks that they dispense, any problem in their working can cause frustration and inefficiency amongst your team.

There are some of the common issues which are experienced by MFPs generally and your machine is not an exception to it. Here we bring some sure short ways to prevent you from kicking and screaming at your printer.

  1. Your printer isn’t working.
    The first and foremost thing to do in this situation is to check the basics. There are 2Ps and 1C which denote Paper, Power and Connection. So get your printer plugged in with active power connection, fill the paper tray and ensure it is connected to your computer with the cable or through wireless connection.
    If still the machine is not taking the command then try it again by restarting. Some network issues get sorted by simply allowing the machine to reboot. If still some error or warning is shown on the machine for insufficient toner or machine out of paper, then please do the needful. But if the printer is scanning and copying but not printing then the fault lies in the network connection of your computer. Run the trouble-shooter on the Printers and Scanners settings and get the issue resolved.
  2. Printers take too much time to print.
    Sometimes when your printer has too much printing load, you wish to get it done a bit faster. MFPs have this provision to speed up the tasks with just a few changes to the printing settings and network settings.
  • Slow speed of your printer might be because of the poor signal strength or distantly located router. This can be fixed by updating your network connectivity from outdated protocol and by repositioning the router to enable strong signals and more bandwidth.
  • Lower the print quality to speed up the printing job. Just change the default settings from high quality to draft or standard in case the quality is not a priority.
  • Switch to simplex mode of printing to save time as the default duplex mode though conserves paper but also slows down the speed.
  • If all this is still not serving the purpose then try to add some more memory space to your printer and get better performance.
  1. Wet looking and wrinkled Prints.
    This issue is faced when you have used wrong type of paper for laser printer. The logic behind it is that paper meant for inkjet printers are coated for ink absorption whereas if this paper is used in laser printer, then the coating prevents the toner to stick on to the paper and the result is wet looking and wrinkled prints in your hands.
    So the solution to this issue is to read the label on the paper and then put it to use in relevant printer. Another tip on this is to try to keep the printer paper in the wrapper rather than in open as it may catch moisture and can result in fuzzy prints.
  2. Lines, Spots or marks on Images.
    Many a times we experience unexpected lines, spots and marks on all the print jobs. The first step to fix this is to determine when does it appear? If these appear on the print and copy commands then the problem lies I the print drum or paper feeder. But if they appear on copy and scan jobs and not on prints then the problem lies in the copy reader or glass.
    Cleaning the glass above the copy reader with a gentle glass cleanser and a soft microfiber cloth can sort this issue out.
    But if the prints are creating a problem then you should try to get the experts or call for technical help rather than trying to resolve it of your own.
  3. Warning sounds quite loud.

If the warning sounds are going nuts then they can be solved by changing the sound settings. Most of the MFPs alerts at critically low levels of the toner and they are fair enough to do so. So rather than scrapping your head go to the sound settings and change the volume level to ow. If you are completely out of toner stock and waiting for the new to arrive then you can just remove the toner cartridge in the meantime. Shake it well to get some drops of toner and a few more prints.

 

Conclusion
The above mentioned problems are quite commonly experienced and their solutions are equally easy to fix the issues. But there can be many other technical issues which might occur and affect the productivity of your workplace that needs to be attended to by technical experts.

For such issues, one of the best ways to keep your workplace away from sufferings of MFP’s disorders, implement a managed print services strategy. This strategy includes monitoring of usage and supply levels to ensure undisrupted toners, suggestions to optimise usage of print devices. It can even get remote monitoring and technical support to catch and resolve the issues before resulting in downtime. Milkman toner Company provides you with all the support from replenishing your toner, service and maintenance to Managed Print Services and even leasing the printing equipment. We are always delighted to serve you.

OKI’s Smart ES8473- An innovative solution for Small to medium sized Businesses

A multifunction printer that serves the most basic to the varied needs of small to medium workgroups, OKI presents ES8473 to fit in any environment. This MFP will raise the workplace productivity that too at your fingertips. This device from OKI offers you color printing & copying, colour/mono scanning and analogue faxing – all in a compact A3 size that doesn’t need any sacrifice of space for its optimum functionality.

Included in its features are:

  • It is an MFP with A3 colour workgroup that prints, copies, scans and faxes.
  • It I affordable, networked MFP which delivers upto 35 prints or copies per minute.
  • It can print on media from 2.5”x3.5” cards to upto 11”x 52” banners with a stock of upto 256 gsm. It saves you from outsourced printing & copying costs.
  • It has a memory of 1.25 GB and 250 GB of hard disk drive.
  • With a speed of upto 35ppm/cpm in mono/colour itlets you produce professional documents with productivityboosting speeds.
  • First page printing takes as short a time of just 9.5 seconds.
  • It provides duplex printing/copying with convenience stapler and job separator.
  • It has a tilting 7” colour touchscreen display with an intuitive menu system, enhanced help functionalities and a range of software.
  • 100 sheets duplex RADF (reversing automatic Document Feeder) that can scan and print on both sides of the paper.
  • It has ENERGY STAR compliance.
  • It can be easily connected to a network, wireless or web-enabled and compatible to Google Cloud Print Ready as well as to AirPrint by Apple. This enables you to have remote printing from anywhere in the world and no need to be directly connected to the printer device.
  • It has a secure print feature for printing confidential documents.
  • It uses the latest open APIiteration of the smart Extendable Platform (sXP) to support OKI’s printing solutions.
  • ES8473c MFP standard cabinet included, ES8473x MFP standard 535-sheet paper trays

 

With the above mentioned features a number of more of them OKI Smart is redefining the “Multifunctional” tag and becoming an innovator in the challenging business world today.

OKI can optimize the productivity by simplifying documents processing and workflow. OKI data offers a broad portfolio of products that are developed and built to optimize the managed print engagement. Taking up a consultative approach, the company supports every customer’s requirements and also deliver customized or individualised print solutions that maximize performance.

Replenish your toner in no time

Do you own a Printer or a multifunction photocopier? Milk Man is your “one-stop shop” support and servicing company for all the issues related to your printer. Be it replenishment of your machine’s toner, installation of new equipment or a fleet of network printers or support to these network copiers, printers, scanners and fax machines, we specialize in serving with one goal in mind to exceed our client’s expectations. With following services at your doorsteps, we have always been happy to serve our customers:

  1. Maintenance & Support. Downtime is the most unproductive thing that can ever happen at your workplace during working hours. Being a company with factory trained and certified technicians, we have the expertise to help your equipment stay productive and run smoothly to eliminate downtime. If satisfied with our services, you can also have maintenance agreement with us which shall relieve you of any maintenance or replenishment worries. We will take complete care of your copier and printers’ maintenance and supplies and guarantee quick service call response all for a consolidated fee on monthly basis.

 

  1. Deliver Supplies. You can order your required supplies from “The Milk Man” company and we shall deliver them to you across the country throughout California and down the street, at no delivery charges. Recognizing your time as money, we offer double benefit to you by saving your time to fetch supplies and deliver them straight to your workplace at no additional costs. So whenever you need to replenish your toner, just give us a call and we shall be right there to minimize your equipment’s downtime and unproductive hours for your business. We can also pick and recycle the empty cartridges that are of no use to you anymore.

 

  1. Managed Print Services (MPS).For your fleet of printers, we offer the most comprehensive and customised fleet management strategy called Managed Print Services (MPS). We aim to meet and exceed our client’s expectations and also unburden them from looking after the office equipment and supplies and to reduce the printing costs drastically. Offering our professional and most knowledgeable services, we shall ensure that you look after your business and focus on operations. With MPS we shall work closely with you and design a strategy that enhances performance, improves efficiency, eliminates downtime and reduces the total cost of operating your fleet of printers.

 

  1. Leasing and Financing. As leasing has been accepted widely as a wiser and better decision than buying a photocopier or a printer, we offer our customers to avail leasing options with greater flexibility provided by North Shore Leasing LLC. With a rapid and constant change and upgradation in technology, we have great options to let you utilize the required upgrades in most cost effective manner.

At Milk Man we offer a wide variety of multifunction and corporate level printers and fax machines by brands like Konica Minolta, Ricoh, HP and Xerox. Serving your fleet of printers and photocopiers or toner replacement, our professionally trained staff shall quickly handle repairs and replace toners in minimum time. For any queries or support call us any time at 916-253-9804.

Photo Copier Leasing – Best Solution to Office Cost Cutting

Every business organisation has a keenness to save the money by cutting down on unnecessary or avoidable costs. Where buying a new office equipment like a photocopier is a big and important decision affecting the budget and the cost of operation of the company.

The best alternative to cut down cost of purchasing a photocopier is to acquire it through a lease agreement. Let’s compare the following basis of difference:

  1. Initial Cost. The decision of purchasing equipment leads to a huge initial capital requirement for utilizing the services of the same. Whereas when you decide to make a lease agreement for the same equipment, you are saved from a big amount of capital being stocked up which otherwise could be used for expansion purposes of your business.
  1. Obsolescence cost. When you purchase a photocopier, you always have a fear of the technology being outdated or turning obsolete within a period of 2-3 years after purchase. With the advancement in technology every off and then, this adds up as a burden to the business in form of cost of obsolete machinery. On the other hand if you choose lease agreement this fear and cost of obsolescence will not hit your business operations as you can utilize the latest technology for as long you want and can easily shift to updated versions during the lease agreement only.
  1. Individual cost. Buying a photocopier alone will prove to be a futile decision when you will realise that you could have leased a multifunctional photocopier rendering the services of scanner, photocopier, Printer as well as a fax. Leasing multifunctional equipment is far more productive than buying single functional machinery.
  1. Tax costs. Purchasing equipment can offer you to get depreciation of just up to 40% of the cost of equipment in initial year and 25% in succeeding years. But when we talk of deduction of amount paid as leasing installment, full amount is deductible as a business expense thereby lowering the overall cost of leasing.
  1. Arrangement costs. Outright purchase of photocopier puts a lot of burden on the business and even arranging the amount for purchase either by forgoing another business expansion or in form of loan from the bank leads to high arrangement costs. But in case of leasing there is negligible cost of arranging the funds as you ink the agreement as per your own convenience for a stipulated period of time that is most suitable to you.
  1. Maintenance & Repairs Cost. The cost of maintenance and repairs in case of purchasing have to be borne by the purchaser but in case of lease these cost are already covered and are not to be borne by the lessee.
  1. Supplies cost. Same as maintenance and repairs cost, the cost of supplies like toner and ink are to be borne by the purchaser but these costs are not to be incurred by the lessee of his own.

Leasing is helping out companies to cut down the costs of investment, obsolescence and maintenance costs. Not only cutting down costs, leasing is far more affordable, convenient and tax efficient way to utilize the latest technology with an option to easily shift to the upgraded model.

Which Printer matches my requirements?

As the importance of printers, copier and scanners become paramount in an organisation, the solution evolved in the form of a multifunction printer popularly known as MFP. But the next important question arises which printer should I buy? Which one suits my needs? Buying the right printer from amongst a number of similar functional ones can be tough job unless you are guided right. Printers are available in a number of shapes and sizes and functions but we have listed the best three that will help you pick one that suits your business perfectly.

This is a best in class multifunctional machine. With a printing speed of 55 papes per minute, it has the most advanced color management tools and color quality assurance. With a variety of media that it can print on, its duplexing automatic document feeder(DAFD) has a standard capacity of 100 sheets. Its next generation security arrangement includes authentication that recognizes vein patterns of the finger.

This multifunctional printer keeps your workflow moving with fast output, with intuitive features on this printer at a low maintenance. It comes with an Energy star qualification which makes it cut up to 45% energy in comparison to any other laser printer. Its built-in automatic two-side printing trims your paper consumption by 50%. Packed with features supporting high security, high speed prints with easily replaceable cartridges, low maintenance and an input capacity of total of 1100 sheets, is a must buy for your growing business. It is an easily managed and updated machine which lets you extend your investment by adding the hardware integration pocket which increases its functionality.

With an exceptional ease of use and high-level productivity, this machine is ultra-fast which would simplify every kind of document processing. High volume copying, scanning, printing andbiometric faxing is made convenient and fast. You can automate heavy tasks and expand your workflow without compromising on the security. With first output speed at 2.9 seconds  it has a continuous output speed of 90 pages per minute, it is loaded with features like eco-friendly, energy and paper saving.

Conclusion

With a brief description of the best of three multifunctional photocopiers, we have tried to help you take the right decision while investing your money in them. You can even specify your requirements and get them tailored into your printer and ultimately save your hard earned money.

We, at MilkMan offer you to buy any of the above-mentioned machines that suits your business. If you don’t want to put in your money right away, you can get the printer leased from us. We have al the necessary arrangements for easy lease by North Shore Leasing LLC. You can stay relaxed for the repair and maintenance of your machine or even toner replacement as we have specialized and professional staff to take care of your printer. We are always happy to hear from you.

Small steps to lengthen the life and efficiency of your photocopier

The photocopier is an essential piece of office equipment and almost all of us use it at work, but we seek maintenance services only when either the print is not right or the paper gets jammed. The photocopier being a machine, needs regular maintenance to handle heavy usage and mishandling in your office. Amongst the most expensive and most useful equipment, a photocopiers in their advanced versions cost thousands of dollars and even its repair and maintenance becomes costly as well.

So today, when you have DIY for almost everything, we have compiled a list of simple and small steps that you can do yourself to keep your office photocopier clean and perform efficiently for linger time.

  • Use Quality products. A higher quality product, be it a paper or toner, always helps in least damage to the photocopier in form of paper debris, dust and shavings inside the printer and hence reduce the internal wear and tear of the machine.
  • Keep it dry and covered when not in use. It is a good habit to turn off your printer and keep it covered when it is not in use. This is the simplest step by which you can avoid dust from getting deposited inside the printer. Moisture may damage certain parts and print quality of the printer, so to keep it dry, invest in some Silica Gel bags in the paper tray. Easily available at any hardware or office supplies stores, silica bags are far cheaper than unwanted repair calls.
  • Keep air filters clean and replace them frequently. The air intake of your photocopier might pull in unwanted dust particles. As most of the printers and copiers have filters on their air intake panels, it is advisable to put a strip of cheesecloth over the opening for another protective layer. Changing the air filters at a regular interval will also help in keeping the machine dust free.
  • Frequently clean the copier glass. Clean the platen glass and its rear side in the feeder scanning area with a damp cloth and then use a soft and dry cloth. Or you can use any non-abrasive cloth dampened with glass cleaner to clean the optics and the slit exposure. Avoid spraying the glass cleaner directly onto the glass.
  • Use fresh paper. It is suggested not to use the paper which is lying in the paper for long. Even keeping the copiers filled with paper to the brim are not advisable as it might have accumulated dust and moisture which may affect the print quality and also damage other internal parts of the printer. For a clean and clear print always use fresh paper.
  • Ensure that suggested toner is being used. With a variation in its viscosity, toners come in a wide range. If you don’t use the toner suggested by the manufacturer or a toner specified for your machine, then it may result into serious damages which may lead to a costly repair or maintenance service.

 

With the above mentioned ways we have tried to give you small and easy yet effective tips for the maintenance and care of your copier to have a longer and productive life. If, in case, you need any assistance or a maintenance service, do contact us for an expert hand.