Re-inventing Print at an Educational Institution

A college attacks uncontrolled

printing waste with print

management solutions

GENERAL OVERVIEW

This case study profiles a college in an urban setting that offers Bachelor’s and Associate degree programs in the areas of business, healthcare, information technology, and legal studies. Located in the heart of a bustling northeast U.S. city, this four-year college is dedicated to career-oriented education for working adults in a personal and supportive environment. The college, which spans one city block and is seven stories high, operates on a rolling, seven-week course schedule. It also supports 2,300 students and approximately 150 faculty/staff and adjuncts professors.

The college needed to gain control of an unstructured print environment. Waste reduction, constant uptime for critical applications, and security for sensitive documents at the printer were critical objectives for enhancing its print environment.

CANON SOLUTIONS

Canon imageRUNNER® ADVANCE MFPs and Embedded Print Management Solutions

CANON SOLUTIONCASE STUDY

CUSTOMER ISSUES

The non-traditional student profile of the college created a higher-than-average level of operational complexity, especially for admissions, financial aid, and information technology (IT). In addition, the institution had an uncon-trolled printing infrastructure, with 50 to 60 stand-alone printers spread throughout the institution’s seven floors, along with 15 MFPs. Across this installed base of printers, IT estimated a waste factor of 30-50%, based on the amount of paper left in recycling bins and on paper trays. While it was assumed that most of the waste was generated by students (who had no limits on printing), IT had no definitive way of confirming the source.

There were also significant concerns about the security of printed information with no secure printing technologies in place. The college must comply with regulations, such as FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and Gramm Leach Bliley Act, which are designed to safeguard personally identifiable information. This includes the many forms that are printed with regularity by the financial aid and admissions offices, including FAFSA financial aid applications, W-2s, 1040s, transcripts, and other documents associated with enrollment or financial aid. While there had not been any issues with data breaches, the college wanted to limit the potential of printed documents triggering a chain of events that might cause one.

As a starting point for gaining control over the printing environment, the college’s IT group issued a Request For Proposal for new print hardware and print accounting software. The college had identified the need to manage printing and conducted research to find potential print accounting solutions based on ease of use, granularity of print tracking, reporting, and shared administration. Key criteria for the selection of print hardware included performance, reliability, and uptime since, due to the college’s existing infrastructure, printer downtime in admissions or financial aid could be catastrophic.

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“The high level of involvement from stakeholders in developing the new printer strategy was critical.”

Chief Information Officer

CANON SOLUTION OVERVIEW AND COMPONENTS

The college ultimately chose to replace its print infrastructure base with 20 strategically located Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE MFPs. These were equipped with embedded print management software and card readers to better manage printer access. The imageRUNNER ADVANCE Series MFPs can output letter-sized documents in color and black and white. They also support paper sizes of up to 11’’ x 17’’ and are built on Canon’s Multifunctional Embedded Application Platform (MEAP). Through Canon’s Developer Program, partner company Nuance Communications, Inc. leveraged the Canon MEAP platform to develop its Equitrac Express software as an embedded solution that’s accessible via the user interface panel of the imageRUNNER ADVANCE MFP. With no external terminal required, the embedded Equitrac solution can help reduce equipment costs, enable greater productivity, and provide for a truly enhanced user experience.

The college found specific print management capabilities to be attractive. These included background processing, ease of use (for both users and administration), greater security, and user mobility. Holding documents in a secure print server until users authenticate themselves at the networked printer of their choice protects information and helps reduce waste.

According to the CIO, users were particularly pleased with the ability to release a job from any device. “Not only has this increased security around the printing of sensitive documents, but users can now easily move their printing to another printer if their usual printer is down, eliminating any inconvenience or delays in getting their work done.”

Another waste-reduction advantage of the new solution is a six-hour expiration on jobs sent to the print queue. If a job is not picked up within six hours, it’s deleted. Automation of print queue management and a reduction in print-related help desk calls have also contributed to overall cost savings.

“The financial impact of the consolidation is impressive,” the CIO remarked. “In our previous configuration, we had no color capability. Even with the addition of color printing, we are saving a minimum of $150,000, despite the 1.5 million pages we print annually.”

These cost savings, while impressive, were not the college’s only concern. In order to better control printing, IT first needed to understand the source of the waste. To achieve this goal, IT generated helpful print reports and shared them with management and department heads. This allowed stakeholders to have conversations with those students or staff members who were printing too much, allowing them to create awareness of print behaviors and help drive change.

“The bottom line is the institution has taken ownership in controlling printing costs and can now project accurate expenses. That’s huge for the college.”

Chief Information Officer

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SUMMARY

The college has been able to achieve its goal of optimizing document printing and eliminating waste.

“The transition was seamless.” said the CIO. “Even though there was some initial resistance to giving up desktop printers, the college community supported the value this transition brought to the institution. Evangelizing the cost savings and compliance aspects of the change was an important element of our implementation strategy.”

“For a project like this to be a success, it needs to be a true, institution-wide initiative with senior management support, not an IT project. The driving factors need to be fiscal responsibility and compliance, and it needs to be deployed quickly.”

The results of this project included:

• Annual savings of $150,000 due to reduced printing costs

• Greater security for sensitive documents

• Convenient access to multiple printers to reduce the impact of downtime

• Remote access to printers by faculty and other authorized users

• Reduction in print-related help desk calls

• Less administrative costs associated with printer queue management

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