Community Housing Limited (CHL) is Australia’s largest community housing provider. They manage over 12,000 properties with more than 20,000 customers.

Managing customers and homes on this scale is a large undertaking, and one that relies heavily on technology, including printing. CHL has for many years partnered with print and document management technology experts Toshiba, who meet their demanding requirements.

CHL’s Head of Technology, Ari de Wit, and Senior Systems Engineer Andreas Halkias explain the organisation’s specialised document management requirements and how Toshiba hits the spot on all of them.

A demanding print requirement

“We rely on physical letters to a far greater degree than many other organisations,” says Ari. “A significant number of our customers can only receive printed communication. Also, some of our regulators require official correspondence to be printed and sent by post. We have to communicate about important and time-critical issues such as rent reviews, and produce letters to tight deadlines, meaning we need printers that are fast and can reliably handle large volumes.”

“In addition to printing, scanning increasingly forms a vital part of our document management approach,” Ari continues. “So we need devices that can handle that side of the operation reliably too.”

“The other big requirement is privacy and security. The letters contain personal information and must only be visible to those who are authorised to see them.”

“Of course, as a not-for-profit organisation, we have to manage our budget to ensure we’re always on top of costs and that we’re getting the best possible value for our spend.”

The Toshiba solution

Andreas outlines the solution that Toshiba provides to meet all these requirements. “We have Toshiba Multi-Function Devices (MFDs) in all of our 35 offices, with PaperCut Hive cloud software for managing security and reducing costs. The entire fleet is under a Managed Print Services agreement for cost transparency and proactive management.”

Security, speed, reliability and cost management

“The MFDs are fast and reliable,” says Ari, “and PaperCut Hive has a secure print release function that helps us maintain privacy and confidentiality. Documents are not printed until the owner of the job is physically at the printer to release them using a secure ID card, eliminating the risk of sensitive information being seen by non-authorised staff. It also reduces wasted paper – if someone changes their mind about a print job, they don’t release it and it is not printed.”

“The software has additional smarts that help us manage resources – as part of the print release process, it will prompt the user to convert colour print jobs to mono to save on toner, and larger jobs to double-sided to save on paper. This not only potentially reduces the cost of the job, but helps us to meet our environmental responsibilities too. Because PaperCut Hive is a cloud-based system, it saves a lot of time compared to our previous on-premise version, as we don’t need to do any software updates or server configuration.”

The Managed Print Services contract covers printing costs, consumables, scheduled maintenance and phone and onsite support, and enables CHL to plan and manage their print costs. They pay a fixed monthly price that includes their planned number of pages, plus a per page cost if they go over the allocated amount. The printers monitor the use of consumables, and Toshiba proactively ships toner refills just before they are needed.

“As a not-for-profit organisation, we have to manage our budget to ensure we’re always on top of costs and that we’re getting the best possible value for our spend.”

A valued and long-standing partnership

The relationship with Toshiba goes back more than 20 years and is very much valued by CHL, who appreciate not only the quality of the technology but the ease of having a single supplier, single contract and single monthly payment for all of their 60-strong MFD fleet.

Ari and Andreas sum up the advantages of working with Toshiba: “They are very responsive,” says Ari, “and always willing to help. They even helped us to rapidly replace some MFDs after one of our offices was flooded. If there are ever any issues, they dig into it with us, and don’t let up until we have an answer. The devices are great, and having scheduled, proactive maintenance gives us real peace of mind that our printing and scanning capability, such a vital part of our business, will always perform.”

Andreas adds: “Toshiba’s support is second to none—we have had the same Account Manager, Anosh Nazir, and two support staff, Grant Dihood and Kevin Cheng, working with us for a long time. They not only know the printers inside out, but they also know our environment too. We have a relationship based on two-way trust—not only do we trust them, but they trust us too. We never feel like we’re calling a help desk where someone is just going through a script—they listen to us and provide really expert support.”

Toshiba is a valued partner to CHL and provides the vital print and scan technology that helps them to deliver their essential service of providing homes for 20,000 Australians.