Your business probably employs a wide range of single-function print and imaging devices to support all of your document creation and control needs. If you make your leasing or purchasing decisions without a careful examination of the actual usage and expense of these machines in the workplace the results can be costly. You end up paying for what you don't need and not getting what you pay for.
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How much does printing really cost? |
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To answer this question, you need to think about the total cost of ownership of your print, copy and fax infrastructure not only in terms of the hard costs associated with buying and maintaining the devices, but also in terms of the productivity costs like the time it takes employees to produce a document. The following lists detail the hard costs and productivity costs associated with every printer, copier or fax machine that you have:
Hard costs
- The costs of acquisition (buy or lease)
- Additional memory, disk space, input trays, and print servers you choose to add to the device
- Software
- Paper, toner, ink cartridges, maintenance kits, and other consumables
- Fees for the office space the device takes up including rent, electricity, heating and cooling, and insurance
- Annual service visits and technical support contracts
- Employee training on device usage
Productivity costs
- Time spent retrieving copies from printers, copiers, and fax machines
- Time spent clearing paper jams, resending faxes, and performing other troubleshooting tasks
- Time spent changing cartridges and performing other routine maintenance tasks
- Time lost working with difficult to use devices
- Time spent duplicating, collating, and binding documents
- Time spent walking from one device to another to copy a printed or faxed document.
- Time lost due to device down time
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Under-used assets cost just as much |
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While the amount you pay for consumables and some maintenance may fluctuate the more a device is used, the other hard costs associated with the device don't change regardless of how much usage the device sees. When you under utilise devices, you lose money because you are paying for systems you simply aren't using. If you can pay less for fewer systems that better meet employee needs, then you've not only saved money in hard costs, but have also made your employees more efficient which saves in productivity costs.
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How does your staff really use printers, copiers, and fax devices? |
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To begin to design the best print, copy and fax infrastructure ask yourself and your employees the following questions about all of your print, scan and fax devices, leased or purchased:
- Does your office have a device that seems constantly under-utilised? Alternately, does your office have a leased or purchased imaging device that seems constantly over utilised?
- Does your office have a device that seems to require a larger share of IT time and resources than others?
- Does your office have a device that constantly generates user complaints?
- Do users spend a lot of time taking a document from computer to computer or device to device in order to work with it?
- Do you have problems managing supply use and inventory?
- Are your devices taking up space that could be put to better use? How might you use the space you save by reducing the number of devices to be more productive or cut costs?
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What a typical print, copy and fax infrastructure really costs |
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Typically, an office of 50 employees uses up to 18 devices to manage print, copy and fax activities:
- 11 printers -- 1 for every 4.4 employees
- 2 copiers -- 1 for every 24 employees
- 5 fax machines -- 1 for every 10 employees
On average, this typical setup costs $1,722 per month in hard costs, and that doesn't include the associated productivity costs. To compound the pain, this setup isn't necessarily balanced and may not meet employee needs.
- Do every 4.4 employees really need a printer or is one for every 8 or 10 enough?
- Is it less expensive to have 1 high-output printer than 2 lower-output ones?
- Is there enough large-run copying going on in the office to justify 2 heavy-duty copy machines?
- Would 1 heavy-duty machine be enough if it were supplemented by lighter-weight machines perfect for making 4 or 5 copies at a time spread throughout the office?
Typically devices in a print, copy and fax infrastructure are deployed to meet a single need - like printing -- instead of considering all imaging needs together. Of course, given that traditional devices only support one functionality, this has been a sensible approach. However, if a single device supports more than one function, then you can invest in devices that serve more than one need and begin to reduce the number of devices you support and subsequently reduce your costs.
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