“UniPrint created a reliable, trouble free printing environment for us almost immediately. Its scalability will accommodate Sonoco-Alcore’s growth strategy as it continues to expand across Europe.”

– Marc De Schryer, Manager of Computer Services and Infrastructure, Sonoco-Alcore

Sonoco-Alcore Finds the Complete Printing Package with UniPrint

The Organization

Founded in 2004, Sonoco-Alcore S.a.r.l., Belgium is a wholly owned subsidiary of US-based Sonoco, a multi-billion dollar global provider of consumer packaging, industrial products, protective packaging and packaging supply chain services.

The company operates six paper mills, 32 converting plants, a recycling division, and is the largest producer of tubes, cores and core boards in Europe. Sonoco-Alcore’s main European data center is located at its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

The company deploys the Microsoft Navision ERP platform and Citrix to centralize the management and distribution of applications to thousands of users in offices and production plants across Europe.

The Challenge

A decade of growth and acquisitions across Europe created a highly complex and hard-to-manage IT environment that included multiple isolated data farms and disparate systems.

In order to standardize the systems, Sonoco-Alcore deploys Microsoft’s Navision ERP platform with Citrix to centralize the management and distribution of applications to its workforce.

Although the company was successful with its system consolidation, it quickly found out that there were critical printing issues.

While Citrix provided an integrated universal printing driver for enterprise environments, its compatibility with Sonoco-Alcore’s underlying ERP platform was limited.

Its auto creation of printer drivers for hundreds of different printer makes and models across the company’s network caused incompatibility issues and impacted the network’s bandwidth consumption.

Prints poolers crashed constantly and resulted in a time consuming and frustrating process of system reboots which increased help desk calls. Printer availability became unpredictable and erratic and the network suffered performance degradation.

“We needed to consolidate the disparate systems we had inherited from our acquisitions,” explained Marc De Schryer, Manager of Computer Services and Infrastructure at Sonoco-Alcore.

“This necessitated a specialized printing solution capable of universally supporting our complex IT environment and providing seamless printing to our workforce in highly dispersed locations.”

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The Solution

After evaluating multiple printing solutions, Sonoco-Alcore chose UniPrint because of its simplicity and reliability in solving printer driver issues within the company’s Citrix environment.

The company deployed UniPrint Gateway Edition, which negates the need to install multiple manufacturer printer drivers on the application server.

UniPrint’s universal printer driver simplifies printer management and eliminates incompatibility issues and other challenges, enabling the IT department to spend more time on other mission-critical issues.

The UniPrint solution integrated easily with the company’s existing infrastructure and the initial implementation took less than 30 minutes.

UniPrint also enables Sonoco-Alcore’s remote and onsite employees across the continent using PCs, thin-client or mobile devices to print quickly and seamlessly to any printer.

The German offices, for example, used different kinds of printer drivers which caused print spooler crashes and generated frequent help desk calls.

Once these printer drivers were replaced by the UniPrint solution, the number of printer-related help desk calls decreased by 90%.

“From the start, UniPrint was exactly the solution we had been searching for. The set-up was uncomplicated and fast, and the product is an extension of our existing system, making its integration effortless. UniPrint Gateway is exactly how we had envisioned our printing system,” noted De Schryer.

Specifically designed for Citrix/Terminal Server environments, the UniPrint solution created a reliable, trouble free printing environment for Sonoco-Alcore almost immediately.

By introducing UniPrint’s patented universal printer driver, printer administration issues were dramatically reduced.

Now Sonoco-Alcore’s diverse worker base is more productive without having to waste time on printing problems.

Furthermore, the UniPrint scalable solution will accommodate Sonoco-Alcore’s growth strategy as it continues to expand across Europe.

De Schryer concluded: “The UniPrint solution fits in perfectly with our existing systems and did not disrupt the user environment. Printing is mission critical whether the user is based in one of our offices, a sales person working from home, a frequent traveler or a thin-client user. UniPrint supports all of them and provides a seamless user environment. That’s how it should be, a quick solution that helps you, and that’s exactly what Sonoco-Alcore received from UniPrint.”

UniPrint Benefits

Sonoco-Alcore has deployed UniPrint Gateway Edition to simplify printer management and reduce support costs, provide users with anywhere, anytime, any device printing, and enable accurate and stable printing from centralized applications.

Key benefits include:

• • • Ability to easily transfer application printing functionality into a Citrix environment
    • Solves all printer driver incompatibility issues with one universal printer driver
    • Simplifies printer management issues, enabling reduced support costs
    • Enables fast, reliable and accurate printing for all clients from any application to any printer
    • Enhanced user experience, including access to multi-function printer features and PDF email and archive functionality