Purchasing Office Equipment

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Neg Covenant

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Can anyone suggest the best way or source for finding out what office equipment is reliable and who offers the best maintenance service?

For example, I used to purchase one type of printer until that brand had a lot of driver issues making the printers very unreliable.

Similarly, we used to purchase a different type of photocopier but that type of copier is now unreliable.

I am now probably looking at buying a heavy duty colour copier/scanner/fax/printer. These cost around €6,000 last time I checked. This will be the main machine for a number of people. My office cannot afford to purchase a dud.

Thanks for any help.
 
We use a Nashuatec copier/printer/scanner/fax in our office (3-4 people). The one we have isn't colour but I'm sure they do colour ones as well. Never any problem with it and would recommend it.
 
We have a Canon 2022, combined copier, network scanner (with feeder) and printer. V reliable but we also have a contract with Cantec (Limerick based company) that covers repairs & maintenance + all of our toner. I would recommend a similar contract as we have reduced our down time to almost 0, whilst before I would spend an age with toner & biting/kicking the machine in frustration if it didn't work!
 
The machine I am looking for is really a photocopier. The scanning, faxing and printing are ancillary. I want to be able to feed in big bundles of documents for rapid copying and collating. We currently have an Olivetti MF45.

It was great for a few years but now it is totally unreliable and it takes a day or more for the maintenance people to come out when we call them. I think it is the end of the road. I don't want to get the same brand as I feel that would be only rewarding poor performance.
 
Neg Covenant said:
I don't want to get the same brand as I feel that would be only rewarding poor performance.
Click to expand...
You might be cutting off your nose to spite your face here. Wipe the slate clean. Put together a 1-page spec of your requirements - how many pages per day/week will you be doing? will the input pages be single or double? Will the input documents be fresh and clean, or used documents with crumpled bits? What functions do you need by way of stapling, collating, duplexing etc? Consider opportunities to use technology to change the way you do business, e.g. can you scan and file digital copies instead of filing paper copies? can you network PCs so that they can all use the same device?

Then go out and talk to a few sales folk about how they can meet your requirements.
 
Why are you buying it, would it not be better to try and enter into a lease agreement with built in maintenance.? It may cost a bit more, but you wouldn't be shelling out a large sum in one go and it's easier to replace if it goes wrong
 
@mpsox

The advice we received previously was that buying was more economical if you intend using the machine for a good few years. That has been our experience to date. It is one of the reasons why reliability and service are major issues for me.

@Complainer

I know what I want in terms of spec. (The existing machine is networked and is used extensively for scanning to PDF.)

Every supplier/vendor will have something to sell you. All the big brands will have a product for the spec. My problem is that I find copiers and printers less and less reliable, especially compared to machines we have 10+ years ago.

Reliability and maintenance service are key for me. It is no good having a brilliant machine if it goes down for 2 days at a time.
 
Have you considered reliability through redundancy?

I.E, you'd buy two or three cheaper machines, one of which will always be up.
 
@Joe

We already have a certain amount of redundancy with lower capacity desk-top machines. These can get you through a crisis but are not adequate otherwise. We do not have the floor space to house multiple large machines.
 
Mpsox said:
Why are you buying it, would it not be better to try and enter into a lease agreement with built in maintenance.? It may cost a bit more, but you wouldn't be shelling out a large sum in one go and it's easier to replace if it goes wrong
Click to expand...

In my experience, it is not worth entering into such an agreement unless you are a very heavy user. You are going to get a standard bill every month regardless of how many copies you print.
If it is a new machine that you are getting, you are generally going to have a two year manufacturers warranty, so it could be more cost effective just to purchase the toners on a need be basis
 
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