Choosing the machine that prints the question papers
A coaching centre prepares weekly test papers for 12 batches. Each week it needs 30 test papers of 8 pages, 40 copies of each, and twice a year it prints 300 colour admission brochures. That is roughly 4,800 copies a month of question papers alone. Question papers must stay secret until the test begins, and a leak would destroy the centre's reputation. The present copier is eight years old and has broken down three times in two months; each breakdown delays printing to the morning of the test. The quotations received are: a plain-paper photocopier at ₹1,10,000 plus ₹0.90 per copy; a digital duplicator at ₹1,60,000 plus ₹0.25 per copy for runs above 20; and a desktop inkjet at ₹18,000 plus ₹2.50 per copy. A computer with word-processing software is already available. The owner has ₹1,20,000 of own funds, can borrow, and wants the lowest total cost over three years.
1. Work out the three-year cost of each option and recommend a combination. Your answer must deal with factors other than cost.
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Three-year arithmetic (4,800 copies a month = 57,600 a year):
- Photocopier: 1,10,000 + (57,600 × 0.90 = 51,840) × 3 = ₹2,65,520.
- Duplicator: 1,60,000 + (57,600 × 0.25 = 14,400) × 3 = ₹2,03,200.
- Inkjet: 18,000 + (57,600 × 2.50 = 1,44,000) × 3 = ₹4,50,000.
The inkjet is the cheapest to buy and by far the dearest to run; at ₹2.50 a copy it is disqualified by volume alone. The duplicator beats the photocopier by ₹62,320 over three years. The capital gap is ₹50,000 and the monthly saving ₹3,120, so the extra outlay returns in about 16 months - well inside the owner's horizon.
But cost is not the whole decision. A duplicator needs a master for each original and only pays for itself on runs above about 20; single copies, copies from a book and urgent one-page notices are awkward on it, and the photocopier is more flexible. The inkjet cannot produce 4,800 copies a month without constant attention, and its colour brochures - 600 copies a year - are better outsourced to a digital press.
Recommendation: buy the duplicator for bulk question papers, keep the repaired old copier or a small cheap machine for odd single copies, and outsource the colour brochures.
2. How should the machine be positioned and operated so that secrecy of question papers is protected? Give practical controls, not slogans.
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Secrecy fails through small, ordinary acts, so the controls must touch each of them.
Physical control: house the duplicator in a room that can be locked, with an access list of two named persons. The machine should not sit in the corridor where any visiting parent can read a page left on the glass.
Control of masters and proofs: each master and each spoiled proof copy must be counted and shredded immediately after the run, not dropped in the waste basket. A single discarded master is a full paper.
Control of the run: print a numbered quantity, count the copies out against that number, and hold them in a locked cupboard until distribution. Distribute to the invigilator only a short time before the test, and record to whom and when.
Control of the computer file: the question-paper file should be password-protected on a machine that is not shared with students, kept off any common folder or messaging group, and backed up so that a crash does not force a last-minute retype.
Control of people: the operator should be a trusted employee, told in writing that unauthorised disclosure is a disciplinary matter. The three recent breakdowns show that the present single machine is already a secrecy risk, because a panic reprint on the morning of the test is when papers get left lying about.
3. The owner asks whether a computer replaces the duplicator. Explain what computerisation does and does not change in this office.
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A computer changes preparation, not multiplication. It replaces the typewriter and the hand-drawn diagram: papers can be typed, corrected, reformatted and stored as templates, and last year's paper can be edited into this year's in minutes instead of being retyped. It also opens the door to storing a question bank, tracking which questions were used in which batch, and e-mailing papers to a branch. That is a genuine gain in speed and accuracy.
What it does not do is produce 4,800 copies cheaply. A computer must still be attached to a printer or a duplicator; the printer's cost per copy is the figure that decides the printing budget, and the arithmetic above shows that the desktop printer is the most expensive way to make 4,800 copies a month. Purchasing a computer is therefore not an alternative to choosing a reproduction method; it is a step before it.
It also adds obligations. Word-processed files need backup, access control and a naming convention, or the office acquires a new kind of unfiled paper. Staff need training. And the office should retain one manual fallback - a photocopier or a spare printer - for the morning the computer or the network fails, because a test cannot be postponed for a hard disk.