Surely these Printing costs are wrong....

Well one thing i noticed when i started my role in my secondary school was the awful state the printing systems were in. Currently we have unrestricted access to photocopiers, mfd's, deskjet and network printers. No management software, no pin code machines etc. Its a long story why this is the case but its been like this since July '09.

We have 140 staff, 1500 students. At the moment we have 6 MFD's only used for photocopying and printing booklets with 3 in the repro room (open access to ALL) 1 in Geog area, 1 in science area and 1 in reception. These are paid for quarterly on lease and with a volume meterage agreement as well.

For these we pay £4,200 per 1/4 lease and £4,000 for current usage. Last quarter the copy/print output was 920,000.

I also arranged a general site wide Print Audit which involved a company coming round and for half the day going around the site taking details of all the other printers we have on-site and a print count. They then returned 3 weeks later and took another set of readings. They then worked out the costs for that model printer over the 3 weeks and maintenance over the year (10 months for term time) based on catridge costs etc as any print audit would do.

Yesterday we had our results - i was told its the most they have seen for expenditure.....

109 Printers on site (109! not inc the MFD's)
Mono usage 406,920
Colour usage 196,932
Total usage 603,852
Avg cost per page is £0.0439 (4.39p)

Consumables costs per year £26,521.44 (£6630.36 per quarter)

So then after i got back onto my chair i looked into getting a whole printing cost inc what we spend on paper and inc the total mfd's costs. When i looked into the paper aspect i took Apr/May/Jun from this year as my quarterly figure and the total costs of those 3 months on paper was £4504.55. Thats £18,018.20 per year on paper.

So cut a long boring story short these are our quarterly costs for printing

Consumables - £6630.36
Paper - £4504.55
MFD leasing £4200
MFD Metered Usage- £4000

Total quarterly bill is £19,334.91

Thats £77,339.64 per year on printing :sick:

There are already plans for papercut and a few more MFD's to completely replace desktop printers and all IT classroom printers to have tutor PC running papercut to release jobs. I know the staff will be up in arms about losing their printer and having to walk 2mins down corridor at most but im hoping when i show senior management these figures they will back me on it.....

Get a decent VLE and cut printing altogether? (FROG!)

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Originally Posted by Dom_

Get a decent VLE and cut printing altogether? (FROG!)

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That is the aim, but small steps as they say especially with teachers ;)

I will suggest this as an option - no more handouts, booklets, memo's etc. I believe its do'able but i think at moment it may be step too far. Would love fully utilise electronic communications, we currently use Moodle - anyone here use that to cut printing in their school?

Wish we 'only' had 105. 135 network printers + 20odd MFD's here :(

Ridiculous

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Originally Posted by mcnallyfc

im hoping when i show senior management these figures they will back me on it.....

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It is vital that they do otherwise it is a battle you will never win. For more years than I care to remember it has been identified that we print too much and therefore waste money but as SLT won't drive the issue staff take no notice.

Do what we do - make available a very cheap to use 'central' MFD system (we have a Ricoh MP7001 mono copier for our 'main' machine, you'd probably need more), and transfer the running costs of the other printers to departmental budgets.

This will force most printing to be done on the cheaper system, reducing costs. It'll also make those departments that want to use their own still think about replacing their older/expensive machines with something that runs at a better cost.

This way, we have about 16 printers around the school, plus the 2 main MFDs (we have an MPC2800 for colour too). We've only got 600 pupils here, so obviously the number of central machines will differ for you, but the idea remains.

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Originally Posted by localzuk

Do what we do - make available a very cheap to use 'central' MFD system (we have a Ricoh MP7001 mono copier for our 'main' machine, you'd probably need more), and transfer the running costs of the other printers to departmental budgets.

This will force most printing to be done on the cheaper system, reducing costs. It'll also make those departments that want to use their own still think about replacing their older/expensive machines with something that runs at a better cost.

This way, we have about 16 printers around the school, plus the 2 main MFDs (we have an MPC2800 for colour too). We've only got 600 pupils here, so obviously the number of central machines will differ for you, but the idea remains.

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This is kind of the initial idea i have - departments will be resposible for any printers they want. We wont provide IT support and we will also make them aware (pop-up when printing to it and label on printer) how much it costs per page for this printer in comparison to the central MFDs)

We are hoping to utilise 4 of the MFD's we have already (2 massive machines will remain in repro) around the site and plan for how many others we need so that all staff have an MFD within 30m and dont have to travel up/down stairs to get to one.

As 36degrees says though it will all mean nothing if SLT dont back this fully. I'd go as far as banning all deskjet printers, and only network printers allowed (min of 3 users) and departments covering costs for them.

Although it looks bad i think we can make a real saving if done properly and save the school thousands which in turn will make my dept look good :)

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Originally Posted by sidewinder

Wish we 'only' had 105. 135 network printers + 20odd MFD's here :(

Ridiculous

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Ouch - how many staff/students?!?

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Originally Posted by mcnallyfc

Ouch - how many staff/students?!?

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150ish staff, 1700 students

I dread to think what the consumable costs are..

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Originally Posted by sidewinder

Wish we 'only' had 105. 135 network printers + 20odd MFD's here :(

Ridiculous

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Thats an insane amount of printers!!! I reduced my printers from 40 to 30 by moving around the lasers and removing all inkjets!! Has saved me thousands in the 6 months since i did it!

A few years ago we spent £15k on ink, this year it shouldnt be more than £4 hopefully. No print management software either which would decrease it even further.

This doesnt include photocopiers though as there on a lease and managed by the reprographics lady.

80 staff 700 students.

Good work. Your school are lucky you are taking the time and effort to work this out. Most schools are oblivious to the fact they could save enough money each year so as not to have to sack several support asistants.

Butuz

We put paper cut on the system and gave all staff and students a credit limit and that halved our print costs for the year (£50000 to £25000). Paper cut paid for itself inside the first month.

Students get 25 credits per week
Staff get 60 credits per week (400 on the photocopiers)

B&W costs 1 credit
Colour costs 2.5 credits

Staff can increase student's credits when needed.

Just discovered one department plugging their laptops into the USB port to get around the credits system........it has stopped working suddenly and no-one can figure out why ;)

Oh and we saved some jobs with the money saved, SLT may be interested in that dimension.

Introduced papercut here 18months ago, and reduced my toner bill from around £18k to just 5k in a year. It came as part of a network overhaul, so I just did it and introduced it to the staff. It got complaints, but overall people have accepted it now. Unfortunitely print costs are starting to rise again this year, but we have got more teaching staff and an increased role so it's expected. I also scrapped all inkjet printers and re-distributed what we had more effectively round the building - in 18 months I've only had to buy 1 new printer.

For copiers, we tend to buy them and then pay maintenance on them on a per copy basis which is about 0.4p per page for B/W and 4p per page colour. This covers parts, labour and toner and is from a local firm just down the road so if we need service they're usually here the same day. :)

Maniac & Skunk - thanks for info, figures look good with the system in place.

The main issue for me is the existing printers. 50% will be inkjet/desktjet that we wont support or buy an cartridges for so they can go. Once the MFD's are in place what did you do about admin offices etc where there are 3+ users in a room with a decent laser printer. Were card readers put on these? or were they just networked between the users and they have unrestricted usage? With the idea of slowly pushing them out so that the MFD's are used.

Also how did you manage the credit system - our departments buy toners/cartridges out of their budgets. Did SLT reduce department budgets accordingly to use the credit system?

I did the maths last year, with paper, ink. toner, lease costs, costs per page for leasted copiers etc I stopped counting at £45,000
Thats for 1300 pupils and around 120 staff

Oh and thats WITH Print Manager Plus controlling the curriculum printing!