All levels of government have paper documents that need to be secured and shared. Despite the increasing flow of information being accessed via online and digital channels, paper is still being printed, copied, faxed and scanned in huge numbers – in fact, according to worldwide industry statistics giant, Print Is Big, 45 trillion pages are printed annually. The total costs of printing include the most obvious: printers, paper, toner cartridges and IT support costs; but there are also hidden costs such as misprints, abandoned pages, and energy consumption associated with printing. Gartner research estimates that active print management initiatives can decrease office print costs by up to 30%. The need for a secure and cost effective print strategy is clear.
The City of Brampton is Canada’s ninth largest municipality with a diverse population of 500,000 plus residents and 8,000 businesses. Over 5,000 dedicated city employees work tirelessly to maintain and grow Brampton’s national reputation. One of their mandates is to reduce their environmental footprint by decreasing energy costs and consumption. The City conducted an evaluation of their existing print strategy, and the results were staggering:
- They were only using 30% of the total capacity of their printer fleets.
- Keeping existing devices on in sleep mode used more energy than actually printing documents.
- Unclaimed print jobs created tens of thousands of pieces of paper that went straight from the printer into the recycling bin each month.
- Lack of security of information – any employee could pick up any print job putting sensitive or confidential information at risk.
The City of Brampton recognised a need for change. With extensive experience in providing print management solutions across numerous industries, Ricoh worked closely with the City to understand their specific challenges, goals and priorities. From there, the solution was clear: secure, Swipe and Release technology would leverage the City’s existing infrastructure, secure the printers and the City’s information while increasing convenience for the City’s employees. The new solution involved:
- Deploying a new fleet of efficient and secured printers that leveraged the City’s existing ID card technology.
- Enabling City employees to swipe their ID cards to release their job at any networked printer at any time, instead of immediately printing documents at the nearest device.
- Virtually eliminating abandoned print jobs destined for the blue box.
- Delivering unlimited training sessions to facilitate education and adoption of the solution.
