Customer Testimory
West Central Electric
Who is West Central Electric?
West Central Electric is located in central South Dak0ta, with its main headquarters located in Murdo. West Central Electric was incorporated in November 1949.
Today, West Central Electric Cooperative, Inc., carries on the tradition of providing affordable electrical power to remote areas, with the addition of the most modern equipment available to provide reliability. West Central serves electrical power to more than 3,660 members located in nine towns throughout five counties in the central part of South Dakota. The Cooperative maintains approximately 3,573 miles of line in an area of more than 7,000 square miles, much of which is to serve developments outside city limits, farm houses, barns and wells. http://www.wcenet.com
The Need
Whenever WCEC had to perform large-format scanning or replicate plans and CAD drawings, a WCEC employee had to drive 50 miles one way to the nearest town that offered reprographic services. This was both inefficient and costly.
The Solution
With the high cost of fuel and labor to send someone 100 miles roundtrip, WCEC investigated the cost and convenience of owning its own large-format scanner. WCEC already had a large-format printer so it needed to get a scanner that fit with that printer. By investing in a large-format scanner, WCEC realized it would have a great tool for archiving all of its maps that were not already in a computer database and for replicating drawings that had not been done before. WCEC purchased a GTCO Calcomp ScanPlus 6 LF436 scanner from The Other Solutions, Inc.
The Result
WCEC scans a variety of different drawing sizes equally split between E-, D- and C-size drawings. Of those scans, 90% are in color between 200-300dpi scanning resolutions. With performing approximately ten scans per week, the purchase has resulted in reduced labor cost and improved operational efficiency. The scanner compliments WCEC’s existing large-format printer so that the LF436 scanner can both scan to file and scan to print operations.
Why GTCO CalComp Scanner?
When WCEC originally investigated large-format scanners, it browsed the Web and found GTCO Calcomp scanners through the Google search engine, along with several other companies with scanners. The Other Solutions was the quickest to respond and it was the most helpful when selecting the type of scanner the company needed.
As WCEC states, “We simple told The Other Solutions what we were looking for and they recommended to us a ScanPlus 6 LF436 scanner for our type of needs, which is an excellent scanner. I would recommend to anyone that if they’re looking for a large-format scanner, they should check with The Other Solutions first.”