Print Management Creates Order and Savings

THE COSTS of everyday office printing, scanning, copying and faxing can add up in a hurry, especially if there isn’t a plan in place to make sure the equipment used is cost-effective and consistent. When organizations allow unmanaged acquisition of standard office printing equipment, they typically end up paying for more print devices than they need and for extra functions they don’t use.

The Washington State Department of Printing has expanded and evolved its print management program significantly over the past two years. The program is so successful it is saving one department $11,000 per month.

As many in-plant managers know, having no print management plan in place can lead to numerous problems. Ordering and maintaining an inventory of toner and consumables for a multitude of models creates a drain on administrative support. Technology support for the quantity and variety of devices is also overly complex.

Many organizations’ budget structures unintentionally discourage cost-effective printing. If localized copiers and printers are paid by an overhead budget, but use of the in-plant is charged directly to each division’s budget, those divisions lack any incentive to use the in-plant—even if it is more cost-effective.

Conversely, when departments pay for their own copiers/printers, they may be unwilling to share their devices with co-located individuals or programs of a separate budget unit. This contributes to equipment over-placement and underutilization.

The Value of Print Management

Print management helps organizations manage their print costs by looking at printing, copying, scanning and faxing as functions of a single integrated service for an entire organization, instead of as a series of separate equipment leases or purchases supporting individual users, single divisions or programs.

One of the biggest print management success stories at the Washington State Department of Printing has been its partnership with the state’s Ecology Department. Ecology’s original print management contract was due to expire in July of 2005. As an agency with a mission of sustainability, Ecology recognized the efficiencies and benefits of print management through the first contract.

Printing and Ecology jointly believed they could bring significant cost savings to other government organizations. They developed a request for proposal and contract that would result in the working model they envisioned.

The new contract for managed print services was implemented in September 2005. Ricoh Business Systems is the service provider. The print management service provides scanning and faxing, as well as convenience printing and copying in both color and black and white.

These services are now available to all 1,500 Ecology staff statewide in 26 locations with the use of only 163 total devices. Ecology has been saving in excess of $11,000 per month on overall printing costs.

The contract is strictly a cost-per-print service contract, which provides an on-site vendor technician at Ecology’s headquarters building. The technician can remotely monitor all devices on the network and replace toner before the machine actually runs out.

Expanding the Scope

Once the new contract was in place at Ecology, the contracting work group was broadened to a diverse group of government organizations, including community colleges and county governments, to ensure the model would work for all. Technology, contracting and print professionals applied their expertise and developed a model to make print management available to any agency/organization seeking it.

The group ended up with a two-phase model for implementing print management.

Phase 1: The Print Assessment

The initial step is an accurate physical inventory of all printing devices (copiers, scanners, faxes, printers and multi-function devices). Map the locations of all devices, who is using them and which are shared versus standalone.

Installation of monitoring software on the computer network enables collection of accurate usage data on each device. Interviews with primary work groups and individuals with unique printing requirements provide the data necessary to establish the functional requirements.

One critical result of the print assessment is identification of opportunities to use the in-plant more effectively and bring to light the true cost of convenience copying. This doesn’t eliminate convenience copying, but educates in-plant customers so they can make better informed decisions about using the in-plant.

The print assessment provides a recommendation for the ideal functional configuration, without any manufacturer, make or model specifications. It should also establish the current overall cost to maintain the total print environment—not only equipment, service and supplies, but electricity, office space and the administrative and technical support required to keep everything working.

The assessment should provide some initial and immediate cost-cutting adjustments, such as cancelling devices on month-to-month contracts and redirecting users to other existing equipment or cancelling low-value maintenance contracts. Most importantly, though, the print assessment provides the necessary data to move to the next and most important phase.

Phase 2: Managed Print

While the ultimate managed print environment may be a completely outsourced one, as Ecology has done, size or physical locations may dictate a smaller scale adoption of print management. The Department of Printing engaged Lexmark to provide a print assessment of Printing’s administrative support areas—approximately 50 staff. Using the placement recommendations in the findings report, we opted to acquire our own devices and support them with an existing in-house technical resource.

Access to color printing for all staff, as well as scanning to the desktop and faxing was added even though the number of devices was reduced from 43 to 9. That reduction has slashed both administrative and technical support cost requirements. Managed print is not a “one size fits all” solution. It is a set of principles.

What Can You Do?

Most organizations can benefit from taking some of the following actions immediately. First, stop buying devices. This can be somewhat painful for organizations accustomed to decentralized or unmanaged purchasing.

Such was our case at Printing, while we were in the process of laying out the device maps and testing equipment. There were some dire needs for new equipment, but we recognized that premature purchases could take us down the wrong path or limit our choices going forward.

Assign a good project manager to the effort or someone who understands change management. Get sponsorship at a higher level. The significant cultural adjustments associated with giving up desktop printers and unmanaged acquisition methods will not be possible without support at the right level of the organization.

Have your print assessment done by an outside party that has nothing to gain from their recommendations. The Washington state work group established a contract for the print assessment phase with multiple vendors, rather than allowing organizations to perform self assessments or letting a single vendor do it. That contract is now available for use by any Washington government organization. There is currently a contract being developed by the Western States Contracting Alliance (WSCA) which is anticipated to be available to all members by January 2007.

Finally, communicate the existing problem clearly and often to end users before you begin to implement the solution. While participation in print management is not mandatory in Washington government organizations, the Department of Printing is being inundated with requests from organizations that are aware of the potential benefits. IPG

Pam Derkacht is Chief Information Officer at the Washington Department of Printing, in Olympia, Wash., and has worked in state government for almost 17 years. She led the enterprise committee to develop the Print Management Program. You can contact her at: PamD@prt.wa.gov