Newcastle, February 16, 2005 – The Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Councillor David Slesenger, has officially opened a new Océ Print Centre that will maximise return on investment through convergence and lend to improving services, ultimately saving money for council tax payers. The performance-enhancing technology from Océ, a world leader in digital document and management solutions, has been introduced into the council’s document management centre in Dinsdale Road, Sandyford, in the City. Océ’s convergence solutions are about exploring how to enable its customers to make the best use of the company’s technology to enhance productivity whilst leveraging investment. The solutions are generally based on the principle of bringing together processes that were traditionally done on separate pieces of equipment onto a single platform. This is done through the use of pioneering software solutions to simplify workflows and high quality hardware capable of multitasking. In Newcastle City Council’s case, the primary areas of convergence bring together transactional printing, such as council tax bills, and document printing , such as meeting minutes, allowing it to deliver higher quality, flexible solutions more efficiently. Océ, a Dutch-based multi-national company employing 24,000 people worldwide, which has its UK headquarters in Brentwood, Essex, beat off 11 other companies to win the rights for the document management contract. The partnership involves full colour, highlight colour and mono printing on a number of high-specification machines will reduce the amount of outsourcing in the future. Newcastle City Council needed to improve the logistics of the document management for digital and hard copy work, increase full colour productivity and improve on operator time setting up jobs. It also wanted to promote the print services to secondary schools and provide a more cost-efficient alternative to directorates currently outsourcing print. Océ clinched the business through a "Business Partnership" approach, offering state-of-the-art software and hardware products, as well as providing an ongoing solutions-based attitude to help grow the potential volumes. Newcastle City Council produces 19 million digitally printed documents a year. Océ has provided Newcastle City Council with a VarioPrint 5160 with Duplo bookletmaker, two VarioPrint 2110s, one Watkiss bookletmaker, a VarioPrint 2090, two CPS800 full colour production printers, two high-speed colour scanners and a range of software including Prisma Pro, DocWorks Pro, DocSetter and Document Manager. Councillor Slesenger, Lord Mayor of Newcastle said: “We value having a supplier that not only provides high quality solutions, but works in partnership with us to help grow and further develop our printing capabilities. As a local authority, we aim to manage our resources in a co-ordinated, cost effective way and focus upon continuous improvement in the pursuit of excellence.” Graham Lumsdon, Data Centre Manager, Newcastle City Council, added: “We chose Océ as our partner as the complete package it offered, both in terms of hardware and service, was the best suited to our business. The new Océ printing systems will revolutionise the ways we handle print and the services we can offer. We anticipate that Océ’s innovative convergence solution will not only allow us to do more work with less equipment, it will realise cost and time savings. The Océ printing systems will enable us to offer a fully automated digital print service, from design and photography all the way through to printing, finishing and mailing.” Roy Bartholomew, Océ UK’s National Sales Manager for the Public Sector, said: “We are delighted to be working in partnership with Newcastle City Council to further enhance its capabilities in the print room. The state-of-the-art technology that has been installed will give the council’s print room the ability to produce black and white, full colour and highlight colour printing and copying in-house, and this work can all be channelled to the print room online. “Newcastle City Council is the latest to benefit from Océ’s commitment to deliver a professional print room strategy through convergence, particularly in the public sector where there is such a diverse requirement on its print rooms.”