Major Southeastern Bank

Challenge

As enterprises grow, keeping track of printers—both quantity and location—often takes a back seat to more pressing business needs. At this major American institution, more than 30,000 desktop printers were supporting 33,000 employees, a ratio of nearly one printer for each person. “More than 30 percent of our entire desktop budget was taken up maintaining these printers,” said the bank’s manager of client-server standards. “We had 17 different printer vendors. Providing support for all of these devices was a nightmare.”

Maintenance was equally problematic for this diverse and aging fleet. Determining which parts needed replacement gave way to an often lengthy and unsuccessful hunt to find those parts. Help desk personnel were overwhelmed with the need to know every model.

The proliferation of dozens of printer models led to the bank keeping a $2 million inventory of toner cartridges on hand, a sobering discovery made during the early days of planning for fleet modernization. “We had all this toner on hand and then the printer breaks and suddenly we’ve got toner sitting on the shelf that we can’t use,” the client-server standards manager said. Though its intentions were good, the bank had made it easy for end users to order toner cartridges, leading to an unanticipated stockpiling of cartridges at a significant cost to the corporation. To cut costs and regain control, the time had come for drastic action—a complete rethinking of the bank’s output strategy and total replacement of its infrastructure.

Key goals included slashing the size of the printer fleet, simplifying management, cutting paper consumption and waste, and reining in runaway toner inventory expenses.

To achieve these goals, the bank’s team developed a request for proposal (RFP) encompassing many requirements. Chief among them was implementing departmental printers based on demand, outsourcing day-to-day printer oversight, automating replenishment of toner and eliminating paper waste caused by unclaimed print jobs. The team charged with the project was aware that moving from a printer on nearly every desktop to shared departmental printers would not be easily accepted.

“Our biggest challenge was our culture. Users did not want to give up their personal printers,” said the client-server standards manager. That challenge was overcome with new technology, far faster print speeds, new document-handling capabilities, security and document confidentiality—and the environmental conscience of all employees.

In developing a forward-looking output strategy, the institution sought a single, scalable technology platform that presented a consistent user interface across its products, even when different models were chosen based on output speed or other features. “We wanted users to walk up to machines at the low or high end of the spectrum and have those units all function the same way. It was important in moving from 17 different vendors to just one that the products operate the same,” the client-server standards manager said.

Solution

After analyzing several options and proposals, this major institution chose Lexmark as its supplier of output technology and services. The most important criteria was vendor support, followed by selection of devices. The bank also opted to outsource complete oversight and maintenance of its output fleet to Lexmark under a managed print services agreement.

Every one of its 30,000 personal desktop printers is being eliminated, replaced with 13,000 strategically located highcapacity departmental printers and MFPs. Lexmark field engineers handled installation of the new devices and removal of all the old ones for environmental recycling.

To free itself from managing its new output devices, the bank outsourced fleet management to those who do it best—Lexmark. With managed print services, Lexmark engineers monitor fleet performance continuously, perform remote diagnostics, dispatch on-site service when necessary and identify additional opportunities for cost savings and process improvement. Genuine Lexmark toner cartridges are automatically shipped in response to low-toner alert messages, avoiding the costly buildup of toner inventories. “One reason we decided to go with managed print services was for automatic shipping of toner,” said the client-server standards manager.

To eliminate the mountains of wasted paper from jobs printed but never picked up, the bank implemented Lexmark Secure Print Release, a solution that queues print jobs and releases them only when job owners authenticate themselves at selected Lexmark devices connected to the network. Using an employee’s PIN or identification card for authentication, print release releases jobs only when the document owner is at the printer. Print release eliminates the time gap between printing and pickup, ensuring that forgotten print jobs do not pile up, avoiding paper and toner waste. Jobs not printed within a specified timeframe are deleted from the queue automatically. To further reduce paper consumption, the bank is enabling two-sided duplex printing as its standard.

Results

When implementation is complete, this major institution will have cut its printer headcount from 30,000 to just 13,000, a 56 percent reduction. The bank expects to see a corresponding decrease in electrical consumption. Lexmark manages all 13,000 devices, maximizing device availability, analyzing performance, replenishing supplies and dispatching onsite service when needed. By freeing itself from day-to-day device management, the bank is able to redirect the efforts of its IT and help desk staffs to other projects.

Printers and MFPs from the same product families, carefully chosen to match device capacity with user demand, all feature Lexmark’s eTask™ touchscreen user interface. The fully customizable eTask interface guides users through operations, simplifying use. “We installed a device in one department and without any formal training employees were able to copy, scan paper documents to email and print in a very short period of time,” the client-server standards manager said.

Businesses learn that while they can buy printers and MFPs from many different companies, working with Lexmark is a unique and productive experience; A partnership. “I’ve dealt with a lot of print vendors and no one has come to the table like Lexmark,” said client-server standards manager. “The ability to access high-level people when needed is unmatched. We’ve dealt with other large print vendors and not had that support. It’s a great business relationship we have with Lexmark.”

Organizations large and small are working feverishly to rein in spending and consolidate IT infrastructures. Updating the output infrastructure is accomplished easily and returns enormous benefits with virtually no impact to existing applications. For one of America’s largest financial institutions and its 1,800 locations, choosing Lexmark and moving to a managed print services approach is paying enormous dividends and generating savings worthy of any bank account.