Mass Transition

FY2009 marked the first year in which Metro's in-plant produced more than one million color copies. As copies rose, costs plummeted. Swagler calculates that the shop's per-click charges for color decreased from 10¢ on the old printer to approximately 4¢ on the new systems.

"In addition, instead of setting an average and charging for overages, IKON just said 'pay for what you print,' which saved us a lot of money," Swagler reports. "As a result, we were able to recover our costs [in December 2009], reducing an expected five-year payback to just over two years."