New large format plotter purchase brought forward to M.D. of Taber
The Municipal District of Taber is exploring the purchase of a new 36-inch wide large format plotter printer with a scanner.
The printer and scanner would be intended to facilitate a majority of the large format plotting and scanning requirements for the M.D. and the scanning is a new feature that will be used by the M.D. to capture digital copies of historic and current hard copy documentation that need to be digitally archived for efficient future access and use.
Council was presented with three quotes at their regular meeting on March 8 and all three were right around the same mark. All three were quotes were for an HP Large Format Plotter\Scanner and three-year warranty with quote one being $14,477.00 plus GST. (three-year HP complete product warranty), quote two is $14,606.48 plus GST. (three-year HP care pack warranty), and quote three is $14,974.99 plus GST. (three-year HP care pack warranty).
The M.D. had budgeted $15,000 for this capital purchase. “This particular item was proposed as a capital purchase. I did list the prices we received, we just followed our purchasing policy and tried to maintain that competitive element that exists for purchasing. You can see the prices are very close in the industry for a product like this,” explained Bryce Surina, director of IT and GIS. “We put weight on the warranty aspect of it. Your distance from the major centres where some of the technicians will come out of can be quite significant in the industry and this is something we historically learned over time. In the years we have maintained a plotter, this can become a very significant cost, so we want to make sure we are protecting ourselves from those costs. A full-coverage product warranty for three years was included in the quoting process.”
With a plotter already owned by the M.D. council inquired to confirm the current one would be relocated. Administration explained that indeed would be the case and it would be moved to the operations centre for daily use and as a backup production machine.
The current machine is seven years old and administration’s report explained it was showing “signs of aging with some additional erroring.” It was further explained to council the older unit would be relocated and would still be used at its new location. It would also serve as a backup unit for the newer plotter.
“Yeah, we plan to provide that secondary system. Some of the resources out at our operation shop have the potential to utilize that service and have gained more potential as we move forward here.
We’ve seen an opportunity there to provide that service there as well without that space trying to drive over here to get it,” stated Surina.
Another question asked by council was around the brand of plotter. With quotes only coming back for HP plotters, they asked why only one brand was asked for by administration.
It was explained past experience was a main factor for trying to source an HP machine.
“We have had a couple that we’ve tried in the past and one of the things we’ve found is the HP plotters are very efficient in the consumables.
From a cost of ownership perspective, we’ve narrowed down the product lines without listing all of the products, but we’ve essentially had Cannons and Xerox machines in here and such,” said Surina. “Through experience, we really found the consumables on this product line have been really efficient and it’s a significant cost in the operating of this particular product. We did a migration back to the
HP plotter from another product that we used in the past, so it’s purely based on experience at this price point.”
A motion approve the purchase of an HP large format plotter and scanner with a threeyear warranty for a total of $14,477.00 was carried unanimously by council.