Pen To Paper - Spring 2018

14 | P2P Magazine | Spring 2018 01732 759725 saver. They remove the need for manual feeding so you can get on with other tasks. To ensure confidential information remains safe, choose a device with a lockable auto-feed tray that lets you ‘stack, lock and go’. Rexel SmarTech Paper Shredders have a stack capacity of up to 750 sheets and come with a convenient SmarTech app that provides real-time updates and notification once a job is complete. Administrators benefit from information on the operational status of a shredding fleet, including alerts in the case of a full bin, low oil levels or paper jam. 4 Paper keeps getting jammed in the shredding mechanism Paper jams are one of the most common shredding problems, perhaps because there are so many potential causes, including over-feeding, mis-feeding and speed-feeding. Modern shredders boast various features to minimise jams and the effort required to clear them, from jam prevention technology that stops users from feeding in too many pages in the first place to an auto-reverse capability for quick and easy jam clearance. Another way jams can be avoided, says HSM’s Harper, is by choosing an appropriate model for the type and volume of documents you expect to shred. “If you are regularly shredding lever arch files with 300 or 400 sheets of paper, you probably want quite a substantial machine that will shred 30 pages or so at a time. For this type of job, Cut to the chase Shredding clearly has an important role to play in preventing data breaches, but according to a recent Rexel whitepaper 1 , even when workers have access to shredders, operational problems can be a barrier to best practice. If shredding is difficult or time-consuming, the risk is that employees won’t make the effort to dispose of documents properly. So what are some of the most common shredding problems, and how can you avoid them? 1 The bin is always full People won’t use the shredder if every time they go to use it they have to empty the bin. That’s why it is so important to choose the right shredder in the first place. “Often, people buy the cheapest machine they think they can get away with instead of talking to their dealer about their real requirements,” explains Mark Harper, HSM Head of Sales UK&I – Office Technology. “For a normal office shredder, you should look to buy a machine that only needs emptying once a day, ideally at night by the cleaners. With P-4 cross cut, a 50-litre bin holds around 600 shredded sheets and a 100-litre bin around 1,200.” He adds: “Don’t be tempted to push down the shredded paper in the bin rather than emptying it. Paper can get caught and taken back in the cutting head from underneath. This can cause a paper build up and damage the machine, bedding the cutting head or forcing the top off the machine.” 2 Paper is not sufficiently shredded Shredding is no guarantee of confidentiality and, with a little time and effort, a determined thief could reassemble shredded documents – especially ones cut into long strips.When choosing a shredder, it pays to consider a device’s security rating and the types of document you will be destroying. “No one should be buying a strip cut machine these days for normal office shredding,” warns Harper. “A P-4 cross cut provides a good level of security and cutting performance and, for sensitive personal or commercial information (i.e. finance or HR documents), many organisations are now using the higher P-5 to make sure that documents are very securely destroyed.” 3 Shredding is labour-intensive and takes too long Standing next to a shredder with a huge stack of paper to get through isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. So, as well as bin capacity, it is worth considering a shredder’s feed capacity and shredding speed. Auto-feed shredders that automatically pull in pages from a stack placed in a hopper are a useful time What to look for when choosing a new shredder With the implementation date for the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) just weeks away, maintaining the security of printed documents has never been more important. SHREDDERS HSM Securio B32