Annodata saves £1m for London research institution
Bespoke Print Management Solution
Key points
- £1m cost saving predicted over next five years.
- 50% reduction in number of troubleshooting calls.
- Reduced its existing 450 printing devices, to 84.
- Energy efficient software .
About the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is a world-leading centre for research and postgraduate education, with more than 4,000 students and 1,200 staff working in 100 countries across the world.
The challenge
The School operates as a collection of project teams and departments, individually funded by a wide variety of government agencies and other collaborators. Traditionally, this led to an inconsistent approach to IT procurement as each project team would purchase equipment, including printers, to service their office. With no oversight from the IT management, the project teams purchased far too many printers with a wide variety of suppliers and models.
Jon Faulkner Chief Information Officer, at the School, identified some of the challenges that arose from this approach: “With almost one printer for every three members of staff, we had to manage and maintain a vast array of devices. Each model of printer required a different toner cartridge, a different driver and, although most printers could take standard paper sizes, we were faced with the additional challenge of ordering paper for so many different project teams spread across the organisation.
“The amount of printing that we were doing each year was also far too high. Staff were printing documents and then forgetting that they had printed them, or printing a 25-page document when they only required one of the pages, which was resulting in a huge amount of waste and had significant cost implications on the budgets of the research teams. We believed that if we consolidated the number of printing devices, removing the high volume of printers at the end of everyone’s desk, that we could significantly reduce the total print load. A core aim of the School was also to improve its environmental footprint, and reducing the amount of printing could make a significant contribution towards this.”
Following a rigorous tender process, Annodata proved to offer the best value for money while also providing a detailed analysis of the estate, assuring the School that they could help them take full control of their costs
“We are truly delighted with how the innovative Annodata solution has enabled us to improve our service, as well as generate huge cost savings for the school.”
Jon Faulkner, Chief Information Officer at The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
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The solution
Annodata’s inhouse Professional Services team was tasked with creating a bespoke print management solution to consolidate the School’s printing hardware, reduce the total print load and improve the School’s environmental footprint.
To consolidate the print hardware, the Annodata Professional Services team introduced centrally-managed Kyocera MFPs to carry out the bulk of the School’s printing, removing the burden of print management from the various project teams. This reduced the number of devices down from over 450 to just 84 and ensured that each MFP was the same model.
Annodata’s Professional Services team installed PaperCut software as part of the tailored print management solution. The School was printing approximately 7 million sides per year, so it was crucial that this vast quantity of printing be analysed properly to ensure the optimal print management solution. Annodata used the PaperCut software to monitor printing activity and accurately estimate how many printers would be required to service the School. The School has continued to use PaperCut to monitor print load and which printers are being utilised more frequently. It also allows individuals and project teams to monitor their own printing usage and how much money they are spending on printing.
“One of our key objectives was to reduce the total printer load and eliminate wasted and unnecessary printing,” said Jon Faulkner. “As part of Annodata’s print management solution, the ‘follow-me’ functionality of the PaperCut software played a central role in helping us to achieve this. The two-stage confirmation process ensures that staff can cancel a print job more easily, and that they only print the documents that they need. In addition, PaperCut optimises printing for cost and environmental efficiency, printing in black and white, and on low cost paper, unless specified otherwise.”
“Traditionally, project teams had to spend money from their research grant on IT infrastructure, including printer, paper, toner etc. However, the bespoke and innovative solution that Annodata created for us has enabled us to manage the printing centrally and accurately bill project teams for just the printing that they have done, removing the cost burden of buying their own equipment and incentivising them to do less printing,” commented Jon.
The result
Jon concluded by discussing the benefits that the new print management solution has delivered for the School.
“Annodata took the time to understand the challenges we faced and, through working collaboratively with its Professional Services team, we now have a solution that caters to our specific needs and has revolutionised our printing infrastructure.
“The use of PaperCut software has enabled us to optimise our printing, generating significant reductions in both the cost per side and the total print load. In total, we are expecting to save approximately £1,000,000 over the lifetime of the five-year contract with Annodata, a phenomenal saving that is enabling our various project teams to devote more of their budgets to research activities, rather than spending it on IT services. In addition, the reduction in print load has made a huge impact on our environmental footprint, as we use less paper and ink. Furthermore, Kyocera’s hardware is exceptionally energy efficient.
“The Annodata print management solution has also been critical to improving the user experience of IT at the School. We received more calls from staff to the IT Helpdesk about their printers than anything else and one of our ambitions, which we successfully achieved, was to significantly reduce this.
The introduction of the Annodata print management solution has enabled us to successfully reduce the number of calls about printers by over 50%, which is an incredible achievement. We are truly delighted with how the innovative Annodata solution has enabled us to improve our service, as well as generate huge cost savings for the School.”
Aside from the huge capital expenditure reduction achieved by cutting the number of devices, Annodata’s solution brought significant savings for the School by also improving print service and monitoring. Annodata’s solution also helps the School with its sustainability goals. Energy-efficient Kyocera hardware combined with a reduction in paper usage goes a long way in lowering the School’s carbon footprint.
