How to Know When You Need a High-Speed Copier

Can your business benefit from a new high-speed copier? If you are interested in increasing the speed of your copiers to meet customer needs in a timely fashion, a copier upgrade may be just what you need. Learn more about copier speeds and what to expect to make the right decision.

What Makes a Copier High-Speed?

"High-speed" can be a relative term in the commercial world, based largely on the needs of the business. The typical home printer would consider several pages a minute to be fairly quick, but this is laughably slow for the average office. Printing around 60 pages a minute is considered high-speed for most offices. When considering the right high-speed copier for your company, here are a few important terms:

PPM: PPM refers to "pages per minute," which can also be called "copies per minute." This is the general speed specification for all copiers. Average copiers produce around 40 ppm (black and white), while the fastest copiers produce around 100 ppm. These ratings refer to the copier running at peak performance. Factors like age and the complexity of the copy can make a big difference in speed.

Warm-Up: Warm-up time is another measurement of speed. This defines how long it takes a printer to turn on and prepare before it can make a copy. The shorter the warm-up time, the quicker a copier can start working. The faster versions take only a few seconds to warm up, while the slowest versions can take a few minutes.

First Copy: This is the time it takes the copier to make its first copy. The fastest copiers can immediately spit out a copy within only a couple seconds. This is an important number when companies make only one or two copies.

What Types of Copiers are High-Speed?

Generally speaking, the largest, most modern commercial copiers are also the fastest. These models use laser and toner systems to quickly produce large batches of copies. A look through Canon's copier options shows that the largest versions offer high speed copiers that produce between 70 and 90 ppm.

The smaller copiers may fit better in the office, but you will have to settle for around 40 ppm instead. There are vast differences in printing color copies vs. black and white, so all ratings are typically made for black and white copies, while color copies are more difficult to measure.

Is a High-Speed Copier Suitable for My Business?

What type of business do you have? If you need a copier that produces a low number of high-quality, colored copies for clients at a moment's notice, then warm-up and first-copy times are more important than ppm. Focusing on these aspects can help you save money when shopping. You may also need a copier with better color features and greater accuracy than the sometimes-blurry results of the fastest copiers.

On the other hand, if you run a larger office that needs to produce multiple batches of documents for customers on a regular basis, then a large copier focused on black and white ppm is probably more your style.