TRUMBULL, CT – The decision to outsource critical tasks or keep them in-house can have direct implications to a company's bottom line. An organization's wide format technical document printing is no exception. Below, Océ, a Canon Group company and an international leader in digital document management, provides a simple cost analysis and outlines the benefits of printing wide format documents in-house.
 
Consider This: The True Costs of Outsourced Printing
 
To compare the true costs of outsourcing vs. printing wide format documents in-house, an organization must evaluate the costs associated with all types of prints it produces. This includes: black and white CAD (lines and text), color CAD (color lines and text), and 3D color CAD and more general large format business graphics.
 
Next, print sizes, quantity of documents printed per month, average cost per document and total cost per year for each type of print must be determined. As a point of comparison, national and regional print providers may charge walk-up customers without pre-negotiated rates the following amounts for a 24" x 36" document:

• Black and white: $2.10- $4.50/document ($0.35/ ft² - $0.75/ft²)
• Black and white with color: $21.00 - $43.50/document ($3.50 ft² - $7.25/ft²)
• Color: $21.00 -$43.50/document ($3.50 ft² - $7.25/ft²)

In addition to the actual costs of outsourced printing, other costs to consider include:

• Shipping and delivery costs to send documents to the outsource printing supplier – and costs to send the documents back to the company
• The number of extra prints that are ordered in case they are needed later, but which end up being wasted
• The amount of time that is spent preparing print jobs to get them ready to send to the outsource printing supplier

With this information in-hand, your organization can form a good picture of its current wide format printing outsourcing expenses. You can then contact various printing equipment suppliers to ask them to estimate what it would cost to print the same documents in-house using a purchased or leased device.  A comparison of the two analyses will indicate whether monthly savings can be achieved by printing in-house and how large the estimated savings would be.
 
Bringing it In-House: The Benefits of on Premise Printing
 
Implementation of an in-house printing solution can result in multiple benefits. Some of these include:

• Reduce printing costs and pay a lower cost per document as compared to outsourcing
• Print only what you need and stop paying for excess printing that you might not need or don't ever use
• Better manage your time and  print on your own schedule and better meet demanding deadlines
• Have more flexibility to make small unplanned print runs and not worry about planning and preparing the outsourcing of your large jobs
• Better manage your schedule and peak printing requirements with the ability to print on your terms
• Eliminate the hassle of preparing a job to send to your outsourced printing vendor

However, to fully realize these benefits an organization must be selective when choosing its wide format printing equipment. It's imperative to look for equipment that offers: low energy costs, the highest print quality, ease-of-use for walk-up users, sufficient throughput, durable materials and a future- ready platform.

There's never been a better time to evaluate your company's outsourced printing costs. For a customized cost analysis that compares the savings to print documents in-house that are currently outsourced, visit www.oceusa.com/compareNB.