Saving money in office printing

by 16 replies
19
Hi all,

First post here - be kind.

We have an office of about 12 people. Right now, we all have our own printers. They are all different, so we have to keep track of all different ink cartridges and printheads, and we all print in color, so it becomes both expensive and time consuming (and moderately irritating).

We've been tossing around ideas of how to save money. Talking about getting everyone the same B&W printer - a small laserjet. Have one or two central color printers.

Not interested in CISS. Or refillable ink cartridges.

Wondering what everyone does in their office? Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Jon
#off topic forum
  • Banned
    I would have everyone on a B&W laserjet an only print in color for finals that need to be in color. That would save a lot no doubt.
  • Hi Jon, welcome aboard!

    Uness all the staff are printing constantly, I'd question why you need to have individual printers. Perhaps get two or three central color printers and set them to print B&W as default.


  • Having only 1 or 2 printers shared in a fast network is definitely the most cost-effective way to go.
  • Banned
    Why not have two B&W printers & two color printers that all 12 people share? That gives you one backup printer for each in case a printer is down. Pick one dependable brand for all four printers.

    Are you doing enough printing to justify everyone have their own printer?
  • Thanks for the ideas, folks. Reason we have individual printers is more about convenience. The 12 people are spread out across 3-4 rooms, depending on how you look at it. So rather than getting up and walking over to the printer every time you print something, you just swivel your butt around and pick it up, and swivel back.

    But it sounds like B&W laser is the way to go. Or a color laser, set to B&W as a default, and set it to color only when needed. Yeah?
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      The laser cartridges cost less than cartridges (even black) for a color printer, so I would go with laserjets for draft and B&W documents.
  • May I ask why the office needs to print so much at all?
  • We print a lot. We have lots of paper trails and filing systems. It's not just marketing that is in the office, it's sales, accounts payable/receivable, production, and so on...
    Thanks!
    Jon
  • Just a thought that almost all of that can be done without paper, (with all due respect). You have a dozen people who can all put their heads together in a meeting or two to find ways to move their collective workflow into the 21st century. Save money, save the environment.

    If you centralize all of your printing to one small area, you'll automatically save money because it will force your crew to think whether something needs to be printed at all. Four rooms is really not a big deal at all, unless someone is physically handicapped, in which case, their desk can become the central point.

    That convenience of which you speak is contributing to your costs, precisely because each print job is only a butt-swivel away.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • It isn't a healthful situation to just sit all day. The small bit of exercise going to the printer is good for people. Two printers make more sense financially as well. Your printing can be set to always print a banner page for each person so no one's printing gets picked up by the wrong person.

      It may also make sense to invest in a system(s) to computerize all your forms and information--with appropriate back up systems.

      Look into some alternative methods to what you are now planning and discuss it with your personnel to see where you can save and what makes sense to change for your business needs. It would seem to me that getting input from at the least the people working could open up some new and more time and expense-saving ideas.
  • Yes, cut back on printing and color printing.
    Use something like dropbox or carbonite.
    We picked up an old Brother machine that uses toner - very cheap.
    Minimize the quality/pixel count of the copies as much as you can.
  • One nasty little secret is that ink in ink jet printers tends to become unreliable after 2-3 weeks of non use. Toner,for laser printers is stable for FAR longer and in theory forever.

    SO, if a toner cartridge can print 5000 sheets, it can print 5000 sheets. The truth to that depends ONLY on density and coverage. An ink cartridge that can print 1000 sheets may only reliably print a few.

    The last printer I bought was a laser printer, and I bought it primarily to avoid the problem of finding that I can't print without a lot of false starts and cleaning to get things to work long enough for a copy.

    Steve
  • Jon,

    First of all, welcome to the forum.

    Regarding the printer situation, it looks like the primary motivation is to reduce expenses. Let me mention a couple of points to consider:

    If the personnel are spread out but are in small groups, maybe 1 printer per group might be a consideration.

    If it were me, I would impose 2 conditions: All printers would have to be of the same model or model family. The reasoning is that all printers would use the same ink or toner as appropriate. AND!!! They would all use the same software drivers. <--Huge

    The second condition would be that personnel change their own ink or toner when needed. No calling the IT or help desk person just to change ink.

    Hope this helps.

    Joe Mobley


  • We are going laser! Thanks to everyone for their input. I really appreciate it.
  • Banned
    There are two important factors to remember for each separate print request sent to your office printer:
    • Laser printers must warm up.
    • Inkjets lubricate print heads.
    You will use less power and ink/toner if you send print requests through together, instead of forcing the printer to run numerous start-up and cool-down procedures.
    Additionally, certain printers perform print head cleaning every time they turn on, which wastes ink. If your printer manual lists this attribute, either limit how often you turn it off or only turn it on when you need to do groups of printing.
    • [1] reply
    • I always print in draft mode (for B&W). I actually like it better than normal mode... it just looks nicer, not as 'heavy'.
      Jenny
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
Join the discussion

Next Topics on Trending Feed