CASE STUDY

Lufthansa Technik AG

Migrate 12,500 employees from Novell iPrint transparently while eliminating print servers with Vasion Print (formerly PrinterLogic).
lufthansa-technik

Challenges

  • Migrate 12,500 users without disrupting print services.
  • Identify and implement one simple solution for end users.
  • Reduce print-related help desk calls.
  • Maintain the simplicity and performance of printing without a single point of failure.
  • Enable centralized management of printers across 10 distributed locations.
Results
  • Vasion Print enabled a two-person team to easily migrate Lufthansa Technik AG’s 12,500 European employees from Novell print servers without disruption.
  • With Vasion Print, Lufthansa Technik AG employees can quickly and easily set up and print to the closest printer, no matter where they are, all without print servers.
  • Vasion Print provides Lufthansa Technik AG with a unified platform for managing all of its printers across all European locations.
Lufthansa Technik AG is the lead member of the Lufthansa Technik Group, encompassing 30 subsidiaries and more than 26,000 employees worldwide.
The company’s staff works at 60 line maintenance stations worldwide and handles nearly 1,700 aircraft inspections daily. When Lufthansa Technik AG decided to migrate from Novell iPrint, their IT team required a solution that enabled seamless transition while ensuring cost-effective future scaling.
“With so many employees and printers distributed across Europe, we needed to find a print management solution that enabled centralized management,” said Manfred Lapp, Project Manager at Lufthansa Technik AG. “And just as important, we needed a solution that wouldn’t disrupt our users’ regular print routines while we were migrating.”
Lufthansa Technik AG determined that it needed a print management solution that was:
  • Centrally managed
  • Simple for end users
  • Able to reduce print-related help desk calls
After evaluating nine solutions, Lufthansa Technik AG created a shortlist of Microsoft’s native printing tools: Cirrato’s OnePrint and Vasion Print. Vasion Print emerged as the clear winner, and Lufthansa Technik AG selected Vasion Print as their Enterprise Print Management solution throughout their European locations.
CHALLENGE #1
1
Seamlessly Migrating 12,500 Users Without Disrupting Print Services
When Lufthansa Technik AG decided to migrate away from their Novell print environment, they knew they required a solution that would limit disruption to the print environment. Novell migrations typically require significant project time for adding printers into the new environment, and Lufthansa Technik AG needed to ensure this project did not disrupt business operations.
“The end users don’t care about our decision to migrate away from Novell—they just need everything to keep working,” said Lapp.
Solution
Vasion Print eliminated migration headaches by importing Novell printers directly into its management portal. This seamless process migrated all printers without consuming significant time or resources, and users experienced no service disruption.
“It was truly a seamless process,” said Lapp. “Our employees don’t even know that this huge migration project even took place, and that’s exactly how it should be.”
CHALLENGE #2
2
Maintaining Simplicity & Performance Without a Single Point of Failure
With 10 distributed locations throughout Europe, Lufthansa Technik AG needed a simple solution that would enable any employee to print quickly and easily from any location.
They needed a solution that would ensure consistent print performance and guarantee a superior print experience for the end user.
“Managing a print server migration is one thing, but ensuring that the new print environment makes it dead simple for users to print anywhere, anytime—that’s a whole new challenge,” said Lapp.
Solution
Eliminating print servers removes the downtime caused by server failures, resulting in consistent and reliable printing across all locations. Vasion Print’s simple user interface makes it easy for any employee to select and print to the nearest printer at any time, regardless of technical knowledge.
“Vasion Print’s solution is so simple, literally anyone can use it,” said Lapp. “And eliminating print servers not only eliminates the single point of failure, but it has also dramatically increased our print performance by eliminating long print queues.”
CHALLENGE #3
3
Enabling Centralized Management Across 10 European Locations
Lufthansa Technik AG needed a solution that would enable them to manage more than 2,500 printers without requiring frequent visits to each location. Since printing has a direct impact on Lufthansa Technik AG’s the need to centrally manage their print environment was paramount.
“So many print management products still rely on distributed print servers, which introduce a single point of failure for print services,” said Lapp.
Solution
Vasion Print enables Lufthansa Technik AG to manage all 2,500 printers across 10 European locations via a single platform. This provides a unified solution for managing its entire print environment and ensures print performance and reliability across all locations.
“To have a single view of our print environment dramatically simplifies our lives,” said Lapp. “And knowing that there’s no single point of failure gives us peace of mind.”

Conclusion and Savings Summary

With Vasion Print, Lufthansa Technik AG could quickly and seamlessly migrate their entire European print environment from Novell iPrint without any service disruption to end users. Lufthansa Technik AG was able to increase their printing performance while making it easy for employees to print from any location, resulting in a significantly improved end user experience. Most importantly, the company gained simple, centralized management of all its printers.
By eliminating the need to deploy new print servers during its Novell migration, Vasion Print saved Lufthansa Technik AG a significant amount in hardware costs. The ongoing reduction in time and expense of dealing with frequent help desk calls adds to the rapid ROI.
“After evaluating nine competitive solutions and completing our migration, we can clearly say that Vasion Print’s solution is the best on the market,” said Lapp. “It saved us money, time, and frustration all while improving print services for our employees.”
Lufthansa Technik AG | Vasion | Vasion