The Four Phases of Print Cost Savings

By Mark Altman - CEO, Altman Integrated Technologies Ltd
Many organisations have been aware for some time of the need to control the costs of print and copying. Usually this includes applying limits and rules around what some users can do and making everyone accountable. This typically re¬sults in a dramatic reduction in the number of printed pages by eliminating the waste associated with unwanted or acci¬dental printing.

This is good – but it’s only Phase 1 of the cost saving approach.

Some have jumped into using a managed service or click-charge based contract on their copiers and printers. The advantages are new equipment (faster, better quality output, more functional¬ity, lower cost per page) and more certainty on pricing and expenditure on consumables.

This is also good and we would refer to it as Phase 3. This is where

most people stop, thinking that the problem is solved, but you’ll notice

we’ve not covered Phase 2. So what is the missing phase? And what

additional phase is there beyond Phase 3?

PHASE 1 – Reduce the amount of pages produced

PHASE 2 – Reduce the amount of toner, ink and colour used

PHASE 3 – Reduce the amount of devices and reduce cost/page

PHASE 4 – Optimise your print and copy fleet
Let’s take a look at these phases in more detail...

PHASE 1

This is about reducing the amount of pages we produce, not by stopping legitimate printing, but by eliminating accidental or unwanted jobs. Ultimately making people more accountable for, and aware of, what they printing. Typical initiatives to support this include:

• Monitoring individual users print volumes and costs incurred

• Stopping accidental duplication of printing (repeated clicking of the print icon)

• Warning users what they are about to print before it goes to the printer

• Restricting the number of pages or copies that can be produced at one time

• Restricting the output of colour print jobs

• Restricting the types of documents being printed

• Enforcing the correct paper size and type of printing the printer understands

• Enforcing quotas based on value over a period of time

• Charging for printing, either entirely or on an excess basis

• Hold the printing in the queue until the user is ready to release it


PHASE 2

Once you have reduced the amount of pages being produced, the next phase focuses on reducing the amount of toner and ink that is used on each printed page.

As we know, so much of the output we generate is for internal use, individual use and often for draft purposes, so the potential to reduce the cost of each page we produce is significant. Ways to support this include:

• Specifying the amount of toner to be used for each printed page

• Enforcing the use of mono and/or duplex

• Enforcing policy by user, by device or by type of document

• Specifying different toner saving for text, graphics and images

Here’s some examples of policies that might be typically considered and enforced:

• Output on all but one or two selected devices to be forced to be printed in duplex

• All emails to be printed in duplex, mono and at 50% toner saving

• PowerPoint presentations printed on ink-jet devices to be forced to mono and at 30% toner saving on all content

• Smaller volume printers to be forced to use 40% toner saving on text content and 20% saving on images and graphic content

The latest technology can now deliver this functionality, providing savings of around 20% on standard text output without any perceptible difference. Because strict quality is not required on so much of what we produce the potential for reducing the use of toner, ink and colour is huge.

And because you can set policies based on different users, types of documents and devices – this flexibility ensures that where the highest quality of output is needed, this can still be achieved.

The key with this phase is that it is best done before Phase 3 – so that when you opt for the managed service approach your pricing will be lower and your savings amplified beyond what was previously possible. Remember once you are signed up for a managed service, the costs are fixed. You will pay for the wastage and overuse of toner that was in existence previously!

PHASE 3

This phase is about rationalising the number of devices, consolidating copiers, printers and scan¬ners and reducing your cost per page produced. This is achieved by utilising the latest technology for copying, printing and scanning. Replacing low volume, higher cost devices with larger capac¬ity, faster throughput and lower running cost devices. Usually this is achieved using the latest print engine and scanning technology and therefore provides an additional benefit of increased quality of the output.

This solution is often sold as a “managed service” where there is a fixed cost per page with dif¬ferent rates for mono and colour and different paper sizes. This is attractive as we have a known budgetable cost that includes no surprises – all hardware, software, toner and maintenance costs are generally included in the fee.

We’ve now reduced the amount of pages produced, we’ve reduced the amount of toner and col¬our that’s used, we’ve fixed the price at a lower level and improved the speed and quality of the output … what more can we do? The next step is Phase 4.

PHASE 4

This is about optimising your fleet of printers and copiers by monitoring and reviewing how all your devices are performing in your organisation. Taking a centralised view across all devices enables adjustment of your fleet capacity and location of devices in line with the changing trends within your business.

The technology in this area uses a network based software agent that collects device statistics using SNMP, periodically uploading the data into a hosted “cloud” application that then provides access to the analysed data via a secure web based, end user management portal.

Through the portal you can report on device usage and costs – but also see where some devices are being used beyond their stated capacity or where some are under utilised. The optimiser feature then reports on where some printers can be switched or replaced by others at lower cost taking into account purchase and running costs.

Through the contract management capability, you can set up your managed service contract pric¬es and it will provide an audit of all costs which can be used to compare with your provider’s bill¬ing information, and against other known contracts available from other vendors and suppliers.

This is an excellent way to gear up for the negotiation of your managed service renewal fee – or give you a great starting point for evaluating managed service providers.

AND BEYOND …

The Phases outlined address the scope of how much is printed, what is printed, the quality of the output and the speed and efficiency of the devices. Beyond this scope we advocate building on this further with the following initiatives:

• Scoreboard who is printing the most by user/department, mono/colour breakdown, A3/A4, duplex/simplex etc to increase accountability further, drive cost-awareness and achieve environmental targets.

• Examine the document workflow in your organisation – explore the provision of elec-tronic document management and job submission.

• Execute an awareness and training programme for staff on document management and encouraging scanning and electronic faxing.

• Explore the use of tablet devices for reading documents.

SUMMARY

By taking the FOUR PHASE approach, you will save significant volumes of output and associated costs of producing them. The Four Phases are sequential and inter-dependent – you need to do each one in order to achieve the maximum benefit.

If you’d like more information on any of the technologies referred to in this document, you can contact the author directly: Mark Altman – mark.altman@altman.co.uk – t: 0113 273 0300.

About the author:

Mark Altman is CEO of Altman Integrated Technologies Ltd, a UK based software house specialising in delivering cost savings in various areas of a company’s IT infrastructure and operations – including print, copy, email, web and voice.

Web site: http://www.altman.co.uk/.
Blog: http://www.altman.co.uk/blog
Green policy: http://www.altman.co.uk/files/greenpolicy.pdf

Blog’s view on Mark Altman’s paper above.

Mark has some very good points and suggestions for more efficient use of resources. These tend to use the software and systems his company sell, which are well proven. However similar results can be obtained from other software and systems.

Mark will agree that greater and more substantial savings can be obtained with an organization document strategy, including printing and photocopying procedures that is endorsed by the senior management of the company.