The Situation “No coordination” is the best way to describe Lincoln County’s old approach to managing its printers and copiers. Many of the County’s 28 departments did their own thing – they worked with diff erent vendors, secured diff erent equipment, and ordered and warehoused their own supplies.
The result was astonishing – spread throughout the County were: • 170 printers – of these there were 54 different models using more than 54 diff erent cartridges. The average printing speed was 15.181 prints per minute (ppm) and only 50 percent of the printers were on the network. • Of the printers deployed, a sizeable number were color ink jet printers printing color at high cost. • 30 copiers – 24 different models all using different toner cartridges. • 18 fax machines – 15 different models all using different toners.
The situation could best be described as chaos, both from a purchasing perspective as well as for the IT department that would often be called upon to fi x problems. With a department of only three full-time technical people and one part-time, it was a challenge for IT not only to provide the service when needed but the expertise on the many diff erent models.
Understanding true costs was impossible. “There wasn’t any individual accountability for printing,” Don Schlising, IT Director for Lincoln County, said. “We had no way to know what the individual County departments were actually printing so no way to track costs. And, because they just ordered the equipment they thought they needed, we had no idea what their printing needs were and if they had the right equipment to meet those needs.”
Waste of stocked supplies when equipment was replaced was also a problem. With so many diff erent models, quite often when a machine was replaced its stocked supplies were unusable.
This year over 1.2 million office multifunction systems will be installed in the United States and the movement continues to grow. These systems provide printing, copying, faxing, and scanning features in one cost-effective device.
The basic logic behind these systems is obvious: it is just practical to combine these similar functions for cost savings and fewer devices to supply.
However, some of the largest reasons behind the rapid implementation of these systems extend beyond cost savings.
The Situation . . . The printing and copying needs of Olmsted County’s 20-plus departments range widely. From departments with very sophisticated printing needs to those that only need basic printing functions, Olmsted County’s challenge was to meet the needs of each department accurately. “Unless you really dig in and have meaningful discussions with departments identifying their real printing needs, you might as well be working off wish lists from those departments or lists that generalize all function,” stated Debbie Palmer, Purchasing Manager for Olmsted County.
With numerous County buildings spread out geographically there isn’t a great deal of opportunity to share equipment. Factor in limited budgets and the need to be vigilant in spending taxpayer dollars, and the need for absolutely pin-pointing individual department requirements is critical. “Our biggest challenges are always going to be money and resources,” Palmer said. “So it really is all about getting the right machines in the right places and then monitoring them to make sure they are doing the right job for us. The key is having a competent partner you trust, and we have that with EO Johnson.”
The Situation 
The Situation . . .