Client Profile:

Formed in 1850, Solano County serves seven jurisdictions – Benicia, Dixon, Fair¬field, Rio Vista, Suisun City, Vacaville and Vallejo – in addition to the unincorporated areas.

  • The City of Fairfield is the county seat
  • Population Ranking: 21st out of 58 counties
  • There are 2,600 people employed across 30 departments

With regard to document management, workflow and related expenses, the County Administrator had recommended to the Board that Single Function Printers (SFP) give way to newer, more efficient Multi-Functional Devices (MFDs), seen as a way to save cost in operations as well. Improved workflow and technology integration would bring value and answer the clients technology needs, and provide a significant cost savings.

Background:

Solano County was an RMC customer in a limited way. We had placed a few systems but had been unable to expand service markedly for a number of years. In May 2010, David Dale came to work at RMC as an outside sales specialist. In his former employment he had become familiar with several principals within Solano County government. He had developed a rapport and relationship with the Central Services Manager, Diane Koutz, and Buyer Karen Poole. After two years calling on the County and keeping RMC visible in the account, opportunities to compete for two contracts emerged: one, a bid to manage the fleet of printers, and the other, an invitation for proposals to serve the District Attorney’s office.
The District Attorney’s bid approach was to engage five select vendors—RMC, Xerox, TaylorMade Business Systems, Toshiba and Discovery (the incumbent). Each company was instructed to do a complete assessment and make recommendations based on their workflow requirements

Assessment:

Karen Poole, Central Services Buyer, sent out an invitation to all vendors to attend a meeting with the District Attorney. The meeting included a three-hour walkthrough of the department, meeting with each sub-department. Three staff members organized and executed the meeting and the walkthrough, making it clear they required a vendor capable of delivering relevant solutions in a timely and cost-effective way. The listed their requirements as follows:

  • Workflow Solution involving
    • Scanning integration into Documentum, the County’s Document Database
      Distribution via Email / Fax
  • Printer Reduction Strategy (shifting prints from Printers to MFDs)
  • Specialty Printing involving Macro’s written for Complaint Printers

RMC’s David Dale and Erick Miller asked about a number of issues and capabilities including fax traffic. Although the County had purchased RightFax as a pilot program, it had not been fully implemented.
D.A. staff provided detailed reports including document workflow diagrams, printer /copier inventory and usage trends, recommendations for transitioning printers to MFDs, and a floor plan showing all equipment locations

RMC Solution:

Following all data capture and receipt of internal reports, Dale and Miller analyzed the entire system and consulted on solutions, concluding both cost savings in printing, and workflow improvements through integration were achievable. D.A. staff expressed primary interest in technology integration to improve efficiency. Consequently the proposal contained all elements with an emphasis on solutions, focusing on value rather than price. A central feature of the proposal involved workflow enhancements, especially Miller’s ability to show the client how to fully integrate fax server capability already resident in the system, taking that capability from limited use, demanding each user go through a four-step process, and expanding it to full usage throughout the department, requiring only a one-step approach.
The RMC Solution was comprised of:

    • UniFLOW providing
      • Statistic Reporting on Usage by Device & User
      • Proximity Card Login (utilizing their existing Building Access Cards)
      • Send To Myself Scanning (to email & Dynamic Home Folder)
      • Scan to Folder is utilized for Documentum integration
      • Secure Print (Follow-me Printing used to eliminate the need for personal printers)
      • Fax Server Integration (leveraging the County’s investment in fax server technology providing an easy one-step process to fax paper documents thru the fax server). In addition Erick Miller was able to help salvage a failing technology adoption due to a poor deployment strategy.
    • 13 Canon ImageRUNNER Advanced MFDs in 3 offices (Fairfield Main Office, Vallejo Office and Fairfield Crime Lab) all UniFLOW enabled and equipped with Proximity Card Readers. Macro support was also offered for the specialized printing requirements.

Cost justification was provided thru the shift of printed pages from Single Function Printer to the Canon ImageRUNNER Advanced MFD’s. The savings virtually paid for the solution.

Implementation:

Installation of UNIFLOW complete with Workflow, Secure Print, Mobile Print and Fax Server Integration was installed along with 13 Canon ImageRunner Advance Series MFD’s equipped with Proximity Card Readers at the end of November. The implementation was preceded by a pre-implementation planning meeting with David, RMC Pro IT, the DA key contacts—Jason Aguirre, Daylyne Noguchi and Tony Wong—and Solano County IT. Equipment locations and deployment schedules were completed and adhered to. The implementation went smooth and an Implementation Report Card was submitted to the customer to grade RMC on its performance and the VALUE RMC brought to the County with its Solution and as a Vendor/Partner.

Summary:

The Solano County District Attorney narrowed the bid responses from the 5 submitted to 2 vendors: RMC and Discovery (the incumbent). The 2 finalists were invited to present their solutions in a 1 hour meeting at the DA’s Office. RMC went first and they were so impressed they asked us to stay for an additional 30 minutes keeping the other vendor waiting in the lobby.
A few days after the presentation meeting, David initiated another meeting with the DA and Central Services to close the sale. Cost objections were successfully handled and the sale was closed at that meeting. David was able to add 5 additional MFP devices to the solution which started out at only 8 for a total of 13 MFDs. This happened because David was prepared and persistent at the meeting.
The DA ultimately chose RMC as its vendor of choice based on the value of the solution proposed and the confidence they had in our company after our presentation where David Dale presented the analysis, the solution overview while Erick Miller impressed the customer with his knowledge and expertise of how our solution would integrate with their existing technologies and improve their workflow. They told us that RMC was the only company that listened to what they wanted and responded with everything they had asked for in a clear and concise manner.
The District Attorney’s Office will serve as a showcase for RMC within the County, and our “Workflow Solution” will serve as an alternative for other departments to piggyback as an option to the MPS Solution the County is offering thru another vendor which is strictly cost savings based and has no real “Workflow” or “Integration” associated.
One of the principals remarked: “Yours was the only company where people actually listened to us and came up with solutions to problems we thought unsolvable.”

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