Enforcement Agency
This law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom, serves and protects a population of around 1.5 million people across 647 square kilometers. Its staff of over 9,000 personnel drives six Basic Command Units, and various other internal authorities and departments across the agency are responsible for and involved in emergency prep, combatting crime, policing at events, firearms licensing and more.
With different units, offices, and staff working daily to keep the agency running smoothly, printing is a key function for the entire system. The agency must print community notices, arrest reports, event records and other backend paperwork, so printing systems must be organized, efficient and of course – cost effective.
Business Problem
With a print volume of 22 million pages per year – 70% mono and 30% color – the printing costs were a significant budget item for the agency. Since printing is a key function of the organization’s daily activities (printers must be available to staff 24/7, all year round) it was no surprise the printing volumes had become sky-high and were continuing to grow. The machines involved included mostly Dell and HP printers, along with multifunction devices.
To make matters worse, the agency realized 30% of its print volume – 6.6 million pages – was being printed as uncontrolled color jobs, which can cost on average 10 times more than monochrome printing.
The Solution – PretonSaver
After installing PretonSaver on their network, the software immediately started collecting information about the agency’s printing patterns. Within four weeks, the police department was presented with a complete picture of its collective printing habits and the associated costs. With the data provided by PretonSaver, the agency had the newfound power to take action to reduce and control the areas where wasteful and inefficient printing was at its highest.
Based on the report’s findings, it became clear that:
A high percentage of printing, 30%, was done in color.
Many of the printing jobs were coming from Outlook.
Only a small percentage of pages were printed in duplex.
There were big differences in print volumes between officers doing the same job.
Using PretonSaver, the agency’s management has implmented several rules on the print infrastructure:
Monochrome and duplex printing for emails: PretonSaver allows only mono printing within email applications, converting the default for these print jobs from color to mono, and enforcing duplex printing.
Duplex printing for specific applications: The system enforces duplex printing only on several speci- fied internal applications.
Internal report audits: Detailed print reports are sent to each department manager with a breakdown of his/her department’s print activities and associated costs.
Toner and ink optimization A toner optimization feature was implemented across the board reducing the usage of toner by 28%
The agency’s print volumes, after enabling the above print rules, saw a decrease from 22 million pages annually to 16.5 million pages. Color printing now represents less than 20% of the organization’s overall print volumes.
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