Once you are running more than one site, the problem changes. It stops being "which machine" and becomes "why is every site doing this differently, and what is it costing us?"
Most multi-site fleets were never designed. They accumulated — a device bought here, one inherited there, three different suppliers, four consumable accounts, and no single view of any of it.
This page is about turning that into something you can see, standardise and govern.
The fleet you have is rarely the fleet you would design
The pattern is consistent. Sites that joined at different times run different equipment on different agreements. Departments that shouted loudest have the newest devices. Consumables are ordered locally, at local prices, in quantities nobody tracks. Somebody has a spreadsheet that was accurate eighteen months ago.
The first useful piece of work is almost always an audit of what is actually installed, what it costs, and what it is used for. That is a reasonable first request — it does not commit you to changing anything, and it is difficult to make good decisions without it.
Consistency across sites
Standardising is not about making every site identical. A head office print room and a two-person satellite branch should not have the same device.
It is about making the experience identical: the same panel, the same way to authenticate, the same scan destinations, the same supplies process, the same route when something fails. That is what removes local workarounds and local support burden.
Standardising on a common platform also means the accessories, consumables and driver estate stop being per-site problems.
Visibility and reporting
At a single site, someone notices when the machine is struggling. Across ten sites, nobody does — until an invoice arrives.
The questions worth being able to answer without ringing round:
- what is installed where, and on what agreement
- which devices are heavily used and which are idle
- where colour volume is concentrated
- what each site, department or cost centre is spending
- which devices are consistently failing
Where costs need to be attributed rather than just reported, allocation per user, per department or per client is a software capability rather than a hardware one. Legal practices billing back to matters and organisations apportioning budgets across departments are the common cases; the platform we deploy for this is described on the apps and software page.
Security and audit
Larger and multi-site organisations usually have to demonstrate control, not merely assert it.
The controls that may be available, depending on the model, licences and configuration supplied, are described on the print security page and include:
- user authentication — every job is tied to an identity before it reaches paper
- secure print release — the job waits until the named recipient authenticates at the device, so confidential documents stop sitting in output trays
- AES 256-bit hard drive encryption — every job written to the device’s internal storage is encrypted at rest
- automatic data overwrite, with an audit trail
Two points that matter across multiple sites specifically. First, uncollected output is a physical exposure that grows with every additional site you cannot see. Second, the device’s internal storage is a data store, and its end-of-life handling belongs in your data-disposal process, not in the facilities budget.
We do not make claims about your compliance position. What we can do is describe the controls precisely and let your own risk and audit assessment decide which of them you require.
Coordinated support
A fleet spread across the country needs support that behaves the same way everywhere.
Service calls are triaged the same day they are raised, and resolved by phone, remotely, or by a site visit depending on the fault. Our service-system data records a 4-hour average response time across service requests; the nationwide service and support page explains how service response works.
If your sites span the country, the locations pages show where cover sits relative to each of them.
Scaling in both directions
Fleet decisions are usually framed as growth, but consolidation is at least as common: sites merge, hybrid working reduces volume, a floor of desktop printers gets replaced by one properly placed multifunction device.
The useful question at review is not "do we need more?" but "is what we have where the work is?" That is answerable once the reporting exists, and largely guesswork before it.
Rolling it out
Multi-site replacement is a logistics exercise as much as a procurement one. Sites go live in sequence, not at once. Old devices have to be removed, and their stored data handled. Users need the new panel to behave like the old one wherever possible.
Easy Bathrooms is a published nationwide deployment; Harrowells, a regional law firm with over 130 staff across eight sites in York and Yorkshire, deployed Toshiba multifunction devices across all eight locations. Both case studies set out what was done in their own terms.
Both of those, and every other case study we publish, are Toshiba installations and we describe them as such. Develop is part of our current new-device range, but we have no Develop case studies to show yet and will not imply otherwise.
What we supply
New Toshiba e-STUDIO and Develop multifunction devices across A3 and A4, mono and colour, refurbished equipment where it fits the requirement, and accessories matched to specific models. Where the workflow needs more than the device — scanning into SharePoint or OneDrive, cost recovery, cloud print — see apps and software.
Equipment can be paid for over an agreed period; the variables and the questions to ask are on the finance and leasing page. That page states plainly that it is general information, not an offer of finance, financial advice, or confirmation that finance will be available.
Next step
The most useful first conversation is about your current estate: how many devices, across how many sites, on how many agreements, and what you can currently see about their use.
Request a quote or send an enquiry. If your requirement is sector-specific, the sector pages cover the pressures particular to your industry.