How a Global Logistics Company Used Vasion Print to Save Time and Streamline Warehouse Operations

 

This Vasion Print (formerly PrinterLogic) customer, a world-class logistics company, needed to reduce the time that the IT team was spending installing, managing, and troubleshooting printers.

 

The company switched to Vasion Print to save dozens of hours each month and streamline print operations. Now, the IT team can focus on more important initiatives and use the time saved for advanced training and higher-value projects.

 

This world-class logistics company has requested to remain anonymous. The company provides integrated supply chain services for customers around the world.

 

This Vasion customer is a global supply chain company with over 50 buildings across the United States. They use around 1,500 printers in their warehouses and offices throughout the country, including 1,000 Zebra printers that often print upwards of 20,000 pages each month in shipping labels, packing lists, and bills of lading.

 

In the fast-paced world of warehousing and logistics, every minute counts. A trailer sitting idle too long can cost the company detention fees or penalties. Being able to print quickly from anywhere in the warehouse makes it possible for operations to run smoothly.

 

As the logistics company’s Desktop Services Manager, Rachel, says, “Having a printer next to you printing what you need, and knowing that you’re printing to the right one, is crucial.”

 

All of the logistics company’s printer operations were manual and time-consuming:

 

Any time an employee needed a printer installed, the support team would remote into their PC, input the necessary credentials, and install the printer, which could take over five minutes per printer. With over 1,400 PCs, printer installation time added up quickly.

 

 

“Any time we had a printer problem, we had to remote into the server and look at the print spool and see if there were errors or if something on that server was causing the print spool to stop,” Rachel says. “If we didn’t find anything, we had to look at our warehouse management system and see if there was a problem there.”

 

Each time the logistics company opened a new warehouse, the IT team had to set up a new server, install dozens of printers, ensure the printer drivers were on the server, and set the IP reservations on the DHCP servers. “If a building has 40 printers, that adds up quickly,” says Rachel.

 

Server maintenance was also a drain on their time and resources. The logistics company used print servers running on domain controllers at each of their buildings. They were difficult to manage and keep up to date. The IT team had to ensure the print spooler was running on each server and constantly monitor them for errors that could cause costly delays. “Having to do that for all of our buildings was a challenge,” says Rachel.

 

With all of this, the IT department spent dozens of hours on printer-related issues each month.

 

They wanted that time back. With those extra hours, the IT team would be able to work on initiatives that would increase employee satisfaction and drive more value for the company. “We knew we wanted to fix these problems. We wanted to focus on other things and not have to worry about the printers all the time,” Rachel says.

 

They chose Vasion Print to centrally manage the company’s entire print environment. Vasion Print “just made sense,” says Rachel. “It was very quickly obvious that it was the best option for us.”

 

Vasion Print made everything related to printing easier.

 

“It was easy for us to set up and easy for our employees to learn. It made it so much easier for our non-technical employees to install their own printers,” Rachel says. “If there’s ever a need, it’s easy for our IT support team to go in and troubleshoot within that one environment without having to dig through multiple systems.”

 

Within a few months, their IT team had used Vasion Print’s reports to identify unused printers that they could eliminate and high-volume traffic printers that needed to be upgraded. Based on the data collected, they were also able to optimize their printing spending.

 

“In the beginning, we were surprised to discover how many unused printers we had,” says Rachel. “Now, we use our scheduled reports to evaluate where we are month to month and see where we can make improvements,” she adds.

 

IT used Maps to upload building floor plans to their environment with printers clearly marked. Employees use Vasion Print’s Self-service Portal to find and install the right printer on their devices without IT’s help. Employees never have to worry about connecting to the right printer anymore, and operations run smoothly on busy warehouse floors.

 

“Some of our buildings are 1.5 million square feet, with printers all over the building. Employees can click on the map and know exactly where they are to install the right printer. We can even add descriptions, like whose office the printer is in at our corporate offices, for example,” Rachel says.

 

The logistics company includes the Vasion Print client on the image that comes from their vendor, so they don’t even have to install Vasion Print themselves anymore. “It just comes on every new PC right out of the box,” says Rachel. “I don’t have to worry about printing anymore. It’s one less thing to have on my mind.”small

 

The logistics company has been happily using Vasion Print for the last six years. They’ve completely eliminated print servers from all locations, saving at least $120,000 every five years in replacement servers—and that’s without counting the additional costs of maintenance and updates.

 

But that’s not what Rachel and the rest of the IT team are most excited about. For them, it’s the time savings that has made the most difference.

 

“I would recommend Vasion Print to anyone in my position for the time savings and ease of use alone. It was a no-brainer for us as soon as we started looking into it,” she says.

 

They’ve been able to put the hours they used to spend on print management to good use.

 

Now that the support desk team is no longer submerged in printer tickets, they’ve been able to learn from other IT teams so that they can handle more advanced tickets themselves instead of escalating them. “They’ve been able to get additional training and gain experience in additional systems, which they couldn’t do before,” Rachel adds.

 

The IT department has also been able to complete a series of projects that have improved warehouse operations and made employees’ jobs easier. For example, they recently made an update to their RF systems that allows forklift operators to contact the shipping office by pushing a button without needing a radio. “We’re constantly looking into ways to make work easier and testing out different things. We didn’t have the time for that before. Now, we’re rolling out new features for our employees constantly,” Rachel says.