Save costs and protect the environment with managed printing services

Shortly before the report, which has to be in the hands of the management the next day, or the seminar, where the participants want a classic hand-out, the printer goes on strike. The printer cartridge has run out and, of course, there's none at hand because the person who used the last one did not reorder. In any company, this is a typical situation. Half a forest has also been wasted as unnecessary paper use because one accidentally hit the printer button while looking through the document. The latter not infrequently leads to embarrassing situations because it happened to be one's own salary overview or highly sensitive data such as the prepared feedback discussion with an employee.

Everyone talks about lean production and lean management, the lean approach of leaving out everything superfluous and focusing on what really contributes to value creation. Printing does not usually count as a value-added contribution, so it is not in the main focus of interest. However, printing is one of the main drivers of redundant costs, holds up employees' time when it does not work, and is one of the security loopholes in the direction of data protection via the small accidents. One solution is «Managed Printer Services», which we would like to call «Lean Printing», as it is the leanest approach to this everyday basic process.

In cooperation with us, companies define what they need in terms of regular printer services and we, as an IT service provider, organize everything behind it to keep it running. On the one hand, this is much more cost-effective, meaning less administrative work and nerves for users and IT managers. On the other hand, we analyze the data so that we can anticipate before printing becomes a problem. We quickly uncover cost traps with data analysis. In this way, we show where companies can save energy. By «pull print» we mean a gain in security. It means that only what is really needed is printed, so that no documents are left in the printer and are not exposed to unauthorized persons.

In summary, our understanding of lean printing is a clean integration into workflows so that printing does not cause unnecessary costs, but performs its service in a safe, lean and environmentally friendly way. It is not part of the value chain, but should support all other activities for value creation without hindering or stopping them.