The OEM gave a case study of its MPS in German furniture business Hardeck.
OKI stated that Hardeck is a “family-owned retail furniture business currently in its fourth generation”, and a “focus on taking an innovative, dynamic and sustainable approach to business”, with its store in Bochum “Europe’s first ever zero-energy furniture store”. It also employs over 1,400 staff across six stores in Germany, and “for many years” handled IT “in-house”, but began expanding three years ago with new stores.
This growth “presented a number of new challenges to the IT department”, managed by Joachim Barthel, with stores using “their own IT systems and equipment” and staff using the in-house services seeing a “sharp increase”. This meant that the IT team was “spending an increasing amount of time resolving issues across the new chain”, including needing a software solution, where it used “thin clients that can be administered remotely” as alternatives to PCs.
The printers were controlled by thin clients, connected by USB “and not present on the network”, so IP addresses “could not be selected”, though this would “prove to be crucial for the contractual implementation of a flat-rate printing package”. After consulting with IT partner Sinell EDV Zubehor, the company “conducted a comprehensive review” of its “diverse print infrastructure”, with an “initial concept” put together for a single system, with OKI eventually chosen.
The solution saw a “complete replacement of all the company’s legacy systems” with the OKI Executive Series of printers and OKI’s MPS, with staff “impressed” by the “strong price-performance ratio”, having been “already using” OKI products. Sinell and OKI analysed the “specific requirements”, including individual salespeople, who were provided with a printer each so they “would never have to abandon a customer before the contract had been signed”.
Next was the marketing department at the Hardeck headquarters, who create POS (point-of-sale) documents, and “considerably more powerful OKI devices were chosen” to be “better suited to the high print volumes and professional quality required”. After the project was completed, the company benefited from “new, standardised equipment” and “significant investment in improved IT equipment”, with over 500 OKI devices used within the company.
The thin clients were also programmed with “tailored drivers”, with the “international cooperation” said to be “very positive”, Barthel adding that “we were very impressed with how willing OKI was to respond to our specific needs”. OKI added that the end result “was a solution tailored to the very specific and changing needs of the company, with a standardised service concept and a high level of service performance”.
In turn, “work processes have been optimised, internal processes have been simplified and costs have been greatly reduced”, Barthel adding that “our IT resources are once again free to be used for more demanding work that needs to be completed. Even our finance department has recognised the increased transparency in printing time and costs as clear signs of progress”.