Rationalising Printers and Saving Costs - aargh!

[1066girl]

Hi everyone,

 

Last year, we spent £13k on toner feeding very hungry (unreliable & poor quality) Dell printers. This is in addition to the cost of four aged photocopiers/printers.

 

I halved the photocopier contract costs by introducing MFDs (Xerox 7855s) which we have connected the majority of office users to, moving the Dell printers to the skip. We have also got four large capacity Xerox 8050/8070s on an existing (not particularly cost effective imho) contract which was in place when I joined and still has 3+ years to run. We have introduced secure print options for the MFDs and have also reduced the number of printers in residential houses down to one. I have reduced the printers/MFDs down from 75 printers, to 33.

 

However, we have 18 classrooms (over three buildings) and 9 residential houses (we are a special needs school & college with some boarders).

 

We have succeeded in putting two printers into shared resource rooms which straddle some of the classrooms, this leaves me with 14 classrooms and 9 residential houses who all insist they need their own printing facilities - so a total of 23 printers (including desktop MFDs for the houses).

 

Our students range from 7-19 years and, as the 6th-formers and older have some independence, we are looking at connecting the college classrooms in one building to one of the MFDs when their current Dell printers finally die. However, we are left with a total of 12 classrooms in three buildings and 9 resi houses who insist they need their own printers as "students can't be wandering outside of class unaccompanied to pick up printing".

 

I calculated that last year, the Dell's cost £200 each per year to run (toner and ICT repair time as printing issues are responsible for 30% of our calls).

 

I have £3.5k budget this year for toner (outside of the MFD and Xerox leasing contracts above) and one less member of staff, so I am keen to try to rationalise a little more and push the printing onto these cheaper per-copy options. I will need to apply for funding for the new printer solution, so this budget excludes that also.

 

How do other schools deal with classroom printing? My background is corporate, where 100+ staff share one MFD per floor, so I have little comparison to make!

 

Are there any suggestions for cost-effective, bomb-proof (pref laser) colour printers?

 

Thanks everyone

[localzuk]

We deal with classroom printing by limiting it - pupils are only able to print a certain amount per week. We have mono printers in each ICT suite, but none in any other classrooms (except Art/DT). All other printing is done to the main copiers here.

 

At my last school we moved most of the printers out to the corridors - positioned in strategic locations, with follow me printing. So, if a kid wanted to collect a print they swipe their ID card and out comes their print jobs.

 

For a site of around 1300 kids, we had about a dozen printers total.

[robjduk]

We currently spend about £900 a month here and it needs to stop. Staff just use them as photocopiers and complain so much if i even turn duplexing or eco modes on.

 

My plan is to wait until our current photocopier rentals are up and get some people in to audit and push a unified solution.

[bladedanny]

We are/were in a very similar situation. We had Dell 3110s in each classroom that were costing far too much. We've just started a pay-per-print contract with Konica for three MFDs, one per floor, with follow me printing.

 

So far seems to be working well. The calculated savings are quite high.

[pcstru]

My background is corporate, where 100+ staff share one MFD per floor, so I have little comparison to make!

Welcome to the nightmare "I SIMPLY MUST HAVE my very own printer OR THE WORLD WILL END" that is schools printing!

 

First you need the support of SLT. Second, if people are to understand the costs, they should a) be paying for their own printing from their own budget and b) be confronted by the cost of a print when they send it.

 

Our strategy is :

 

1. Delegated budgets for printing.

2. Central print management system, in our case papercut.

3. Convenient MFD placement and follow-you printing (you can pick up a print from any MFD).

4. Get all personal printers onto the papercut system. Supply consumables for these 'personal' printers but charge it back via papercut.

5. Appeals for new or replacement personal printers go to departmental budget holders.

 

I expect it to take a few more years before we approach reasonable levels of personal printers (when I came here, one office with 4 people in it had 5 printers) but we are now at least moving in the right direction.

[localzuk]

Centralised printing was our overall strategy here. Our toner usage, outside of our main 2 copiers, is £947.55 since February 28th, across a total of 6 printers for our school of 550 kids, as a guide of how successful it is (total of 46,261 pages, out of 771,807 pages printed/copied total). Edited September 18, 2014 by localzuk

[robjduk]

Now google docs is taking off I am going to have a stab at removing some printers again soon. This thread has made me feel not so alone!

[1066girl]

Great hearing some of your ideas (and the posts sympathising - it all helps!)

 

I am still continue to audit actual printing totals, as the majority of classes are not printing sufficient numbers of copies to merit printers in the class.

 

I have already suffered relentless moans from some of the teachers and am refusing to purchase new "cheapy" printers with high copy costs.

 

My printing strategy proposal is almost ready for SLG, this includes actual costs for last year, plus estimated future costs. The way I see it, £10k savings almost covers the cost of a part time INA, so its their choice.

 

Thanks everyone for your posts.

[Markopolo]

At my place we currently have no print monitoring in place and over 40 printers (I keep finding more, including printers that come in from home) across a school with 1300 students. Since starting in September this year I have already spent well over £1000 on consumables for the things. Next week I am going to be bringing in a smaller fleet to replace as many as I can get away with...

[PotNoodleTech]

Got the same problem here - secondary school spread over a large, old site with narrow corridors, very little in the way of offices and store rooms and 15 different buildings.

 

Clearly the only way forward, financially, is to go with a low number of small'ish MFD's dotted around but the logistics of finding somewhere for them to go are difficult, that and no one seems to have any guidance on where we stand with teachers instructing pupils to leave the classroom unattended to get print jobs (teachers are not allowed to leave the class unattended, yet they can instruct pupils to??)

 

It's a headache!

[robjduk]

I love the sound of those printers which store the printout until you goto the printer and authorise it (thumbprint). This way, staff and students alike can have a few print rooms setup around the place and collect it when convenient. I dispute any lesson outside of photography/media which needs a printout of a computer screen during a lesson. If I had my way it would be one printer for the school and google docs for all.

[Meldrew]

I think @pcstru has it right. We used to have over 70+ individual printers. It cost a fortune and lots of time to maintain, order consumables, etc. Nightmare. We got together all the info on possible savings, etc to the business manager. He decided there and then that we were getting rid of all but a tiny few and all others must go. Any calls of 'I need one due to confidentiality, etc' had a chat with him who told them that they do NOT need one and would be losing it when their toner runs out as any replacements will not be authorised via college funds.

 

Get CLT on your side due to cost savings and the rest will follow.

 

Meldrew

[Gibson335]

BM and I put together a plan for more centralised printing - SLT dumped all over it having asked staff for their views...such a huge waste, mainly because staff don't want to wait for photocopying.

[pcstru]

Clearly the only way forward, financially, is to go with a low number of small'ish MFD's dotted around but the logistics of finding somewhere for them to go are difficult, that and no one seems to have any guidance on where we stand with teachers instructing pupils to leave the classroom unattended to get print jobs (teachers are not allowed to leave the class unattended, yet they can instruct pupils to??)

I don't see a problem here. A teacher can't leave a class (they are there to teach that class!) but students can leave the class to (say) go to the toilet or pick up a print.

[Meldrew]

There was a worry here about students wandering the corridors before we got our copiers installed, but its so much of a non-issue when it comes down to it. Actually it reduces printing costs even more as it gives more incentive to students (and staff!) to check their work for errors before trotting off to the copier to get the work printed.

 

Also many times, staff just tell students to print their work now and collect it at the end of the lesson.

 

Meldrew

[Oaktech]

I did this at my previous place and I removed a lot of printers - got our toner cost down to around £500 a month for 3000 users, but it wasn't painless, I wore my tin hat to work for weeks. One woman was in tears because I'd taken away her desktop printer and redirected her printing to the copier on the other side of the room. She actually never spoke to me again. We went with one large colour printer per floor, one high capacity b&w per dept. Where possible we redirected to copiers. My development of this was going to be papercut but the head decided that the cost of papercut for that many users and endpoints negated the savings I'd already made!