We are a Championship club, but our document technology was non-league. We decided it was time to consolidate and explore better ways of working. Martin & the DNS team evaluated the whole document production fleet within a day across three sites. They were discreet & courteous, while ensuring they obtained locations, usage, requirements, pain points & user interaction."
Overview
Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which competes in the Premier League, the top division of English football.
They have played home games at Bramall Lane since their formation.
DNS introduced new state-of-the-art copy, print and scan devices across all club sites to help streamline operations, increase visibility, minimize the amount of time and money the business as a whole was spending on managing its print environment & ensuring the latest technology was befitting of a club in The Premier League.
Company history
SUFC formed in 1889, as an offshoot of Sheffield United Cricket Club, and are nicknamed The Blades due to Sheffield's history of steel production.
Location
The club operates from this modern 30,000+ capacity stadium and also has a high spec training ground, with 150 staff working across the two sites plus a modern supported Business Centre near the ground.
Problem
Previously, the club’s mixed fleet of dated devices with different manufacturers maintenance contracts & levels of support, had resulted in a complex set up with no transparency of cost or performance.
Different devices needing different consumables and the problem of not knowing immediately who to call when there was a problem, meant staff were wasting more time than necessary keeping the fleet up and running.
The main supplier was a distant corporate organisation in the South of England with little knowledge of the requirements needed by a football club the size of Sheffield United.
Solution
Once the DNA evaluation team had mapped the current profile including location, specifications, cost, performance & contractual position.
They compiled a solution that not only met the needs of the users, but also maximised efficiency in communication and document workflow.
It saved the organisation both time and money, while also improving the image the club portrayed literally in print and practically in operation.
Outcome
With the new devices offering outstanding reliability and integrated functionality, the club now has:
- Full visibility of print usage and costs across the fleet, allowing them to monitor and allocate funds more effectively.
- Automatic meter readings and toner alerts tell specified staff when and what to restock – reducing waste, downtime and management time in one fell swoop.
- Secure print release is helping cut waste, boost data security and increase staff mobility on-site with print jobs only released when users authenticate themselves at the print point of choice.
- Access to the equipment can be done on screen or via a mobile phone App, providing complete safety of use without the need to sanitize screens.
- Improved scanning functionality means documents are easily digitized, allowing the data they contain to be instantly accessed, actioned and stored within the business. With the OCR capability of the new equipment it allows search modes of just one word and all documents containing that word will be provided in seconds
- Quality of images copied, printed and scanned is far superior to anything previously experienced. By obtaining the very latest technologies environmental savings are also being made on power, paper & particle exposure.
- Sheffield United take their environmental responsibilities very seriously and now they have products that are not only at the cutting-edge technology, but also use fully recyclable parts and toners. DNS provide the facility to recycle as well as the product to minimize that recycling need.
- We conduct regular review meetings and support our customers in any way we can. Including shared business opportunity & projects.
For example, our support and sponsorship of Sheffield United’s Women’s team has delivered benefits for us, while supporting the club’s development and community responsibilities. We support local businesses because we are one.