A strategy for saving money

A new printing strategy at Caerphilly County Borough Council has slashed the Authority’s print costs dramatically. However, the success of the project was thanks to the right solution – and the right supplier.
Spending the public’s money wisely is vital for Caerphilly County Borough Council. So discovering a new printing strategy could slash the Council’s print costs was exciting for network development officer, Wayne Turner.

He explains: “It’s already showed a significant saving. Statistics show that we are saving an average of 42,524 sheets of paper per week. This equates to a saving of £8,800 per annum on paper alone.”

The reduction was only one part of the overall cost savings enabled by the new strategy – which has completely changed the Council’s approach to printing, copying, faxing and scanning. The solution, delivered by IT provider XMA, initially saw Caerphilly replace its historic fleet of 300 printers with just 36 multi-function printers. These were brought in to serve the council’s 750 workers, who had moved from four other sites to a single, new headquarters.

The solution chosen combined HP multi-function printers (MFPs) with Safecom software. Mr Turner says: “It is the start of electronic document management. We consolidated the printers to create a centrally managed, secure printing solution. That initially provided us with significant savings on electricity costs. However, the real saving came when we configured our MFPs to use both sides of the page and print mono as a default option.”

Now, staff must present a chip and pin ID card at a printer to authenticate the job before printing. Users can delete any unwanted print jobs which has reduced the amount of printed pages.

The system is also configured to delete uncollected jobs after 48 hours and early indications show that for Caerphilly, once installation is complete, over 4,000 unnecessary pages could be deleted off the system each week. And, with less printing, the Council has also reduced its toner use. Mr Turner says: “Budgets for every local authority are extremely tight. This really helps with finding efficiency gains.”

“We must be succeeding because around seven or eight other Welsh authorities have visited us to see how the project is running and to find out about the efficiencies we have achieved. We are proud to be sharing our best practice".

The project is now being expanded. Mr Turner says: “It has been running in our HQ for nearly 18 months and is now being rolled out across every site in the Authority except for schools. We will then implement rules based printing to enable us to do things like re-route print jobs to the most cost efficient printers and also convert jobs into black and white where necessary. That will save more money and the MFPs will also replace our 122 photocopiers.

We will also centralise our management of paper and toner so we can process orders and invoices more efficiently.”

The ongoing project will see 900 printers consolidated to 200, with fax machines and local scanners no longer needed, saving considerable costs on buying and maintaining hardware. “The project has already brought us significant cost savings, and we believe there are more to come,” says Mr Turner.

A host of advantages

As well as the savings, the reduction in paper usage and hardware has also had a positive impact on the Council’s sustainability agenda, reducing the organisation’s carbon footprint.

The council has also benefited from the solution’s extra security. Mr Turner says: “Every argument about confidentiality has gone out of the window. That’s very important in a large open plan office with sensitive information coming out of printers a little distance away from individual desks.”
Finding the right solution and the right supplier

With such a large project, the right supplier was essential. According to Mr Turner, the Council chose XMA because it felt the company could offer the best solution. He says: “XMA had been one of our partners for more than ten years and we knew we could work well with them on the design and implementation.

“They provided a very cost effective solution but it was not purely down to cost. Quality was also important. We felt they had the skills and knowledge to fully support us. It has been challenging and XMA has adapted as the project has grown. I’m sure we’ve got the right solution and the right supplier.”
Sharing best practice

The strategy looks set to continue saving money for Caerphilly. Mr Turner explains: “It’s the first time we have carried out a detailed review of our printing output. Now, it can be tracked down to individuals. This data can be passed onto departments to analyse their print requirements and find potential savings. As a Council we want to look at why people are printing so much and how we can reduce it further to save more money and be kinder to the environment.”

“This has become a major project for us but XMA has been very responsive and taken the time to adapt their skills as our deployment expanded.