Why multitasking is so important

Most vendors now offer what are called multifunction office machines – devices that have the capability to perform the functions of copying, network printing, scanning and faxing. That’s a good thing. It allows for consolidation of those functions into one device and the possible elimination of many of the old, single-function machines that were in the work environment.
What many of those machines don’t have is the ability to multitask – the ability to do more than one thing at a time. All Xerox floor model machines and some desktop devices have that ability. Why is that important? If you have a device that can send a fax and can print (or print copies) wouldn’t it make sense to be able to send that fax while the device is printing? After all, the fax only requires the scanner portion of the machine and the ability to use the phone line and process the fax. Xerox multifunction devices can do that. Most other machines can’t. See the graphic below to “see” the difference that this makes in your day-to-day work flow.

What this all means to you is that your people can get more things done quicker when they don’t have to stand around waiting for the multifunction machine to finish whatever function it happens to be processing at the time. There is only one print engine and only one scan engine, but the ability of them to work independently of each other can make a big difference.

A real life example might be that you or someone else has just started a big copy or print job, say 50 copies of a 20 page document; and now you want to scan in something else to email or maybe use the fax function to send a fax. On most competitive machines you just stuck waiting for that big copy/print job to finish. On a Xerox multifunction machine, because it is also a multitasking machine, yo can go ahead with that second job. The scanner and the fax functions have their own processors and can operate independent of the print engine.