bus 597 printer project

Capstone Project Proposal

submitted byIlan Justh

submitted toTaft University

Capstone Mentor:Dr. Pogue

Project Title“…it wasn't quite as easy as Pi …”

Ilan Justh BUS597 Capstone 2 #5954

Project Description

A few years ago I worked at a world renowned art museum in Los Angeles. I was in

charge of their computing assets and tasked with looking for ways to reduce costs. One

of the 'relatively' low hanging fruit I found was in the hardware sector - we needed to get

better control of our printer deployment.

The basic effort was to start by determining how many employers we had versus the

TOTAL number of printers in our inventory. This showed that we were looking at a ratio

of 4:1. It included everything that could print other then blueprint class professional

plotters. My count included local printers, networked printers, lasers, inkjets, dye

sublimation units, and even dot matrix devices. I then needed to determine what our

target was. Visiting various industry related sites - including Gartner - I saw that a target

of 12:1 was both reasonable and a feasible target.

I wrote up a short 2-3 paragraph description of what I intended to do and sent it off to my

direct manager for her approval to move forward. After she approved allowing me to

begin my project I started to put together a project plan that would include step by step

activities, target goals, timeline mileposts, and various budgetary considerations.

The project required gathering the total numbers of printers and from that determining

targeted machines. I discovered we had devices from most of the major manufacturers

… a real menagerie. I categorized the units into black & white or color models. Then I

split them into whether they were networked or local. I created an Excel matrix

document from this gathered data. It was highly granular since it included additional

critical details such as noting the type (laser, inkjet, dot matrix or other) and whether the


unit was networked or personal/individual. Finally, I created pivot tables allowing me to

sort by all category types. I added a tab that cross- referenced the models showing

pricing for consumables. There was a tab for the number of support calls on devices out

of warranty. All these were calculated as extra savings. Lastly I calculated the additional

benefit in freeing up our warehouse space because by removing the consumable ink on

models we would deem obsolete units shelving was made available.

Since I needed senior management's final approval to go ahead I did a sample calculation

from my document using a 10% reduction example that showed what we would

accomplish. I noted in my description to them that 10% was a worst case and I

anticipated at least a 30% reduction. With this number in their head I got the green light

to move on to the next step.

Using various tricks, techniques, and methodologies I determined a 'hit' list of printers

throughout the campus and the manpower needed to reclaim them. I used blueprints of

the floors and walking distances and proximities to the printers (thus circumferences of

circles and thus the name of this thesis). This gave me close to a 'final' number which I

explained to senior management would include removing printers from executives and

staff alike and that there would be pushback. They agreed to provide me with approvals

and do whatever CYA was asked for.

I harvested the printer including dealing with HR and ‘eyes-only’ printing using our

desktop team. This required scheduling and project planning.

We had numerous iterations of phases. After phase 1 we were at better than 6:1. Phase 2

got us over 8:1. After phase 3 we were better than a 12:1 ratio!


Our hard savings were over $100,000 in cost avoidance and reuse but we also

experienced numerous other savings. These included warehouse savings, reduced

support, and improved vision to what we owned were somewhat harder to calculate.

Newer printers use less electricity than old unit so I would expect that power costs went

down. Newer equipment ran faster and jammed less often so there was a productivity

savings (since you didn't need to wait for your output) and less paper discarded as waste.

Our newer printer often had duplexing so we could tell our staff to print double sided.

Finally our printers were smarter and supported web based printing so they could print

from anywhere. True there were people who had to walk instead of leaning over to the

printer on their desk but we told everyone that it would make them healthier and get to

chat with someone down the hall.

Project Rationale

As mentioned above the reasons were numerous. First I was tasked with finding ways to

save the organization money. From previous experiences and knowledge of the industry

I knew that printer deployment was a ripe field for major cost savings.

Next, I knew that, while difficult, it was a visible way to show management the successes

they'd see from my department. This was a great way to advertise our accomplishments.

It would save big dollars and allow our team to work with every department outside of IT

to show how we can deliver cost savings and help our bottom line.

Personal/Professional Expectations

This project was in the past so personally it has been something I have been able to

mention and discuss in both a professional setting and even during job interviews.


Most recently, my current company actually asked me for details on this particular

project and I think it 'sealed the deal' in my getting the job offer.

Project Goals

As I mentioned above, this section will of course cover a project in the past and the

information below explains the goals I set out to accomplish, the process I took, and how

it was achieved.

The goal was to reduce the deployment numbers of printers throughout the campus and

the secondary site that was established while this project took place. It required dealing

with essentially every department in the company from senior management through

facilities and the warehouse team.

After getting a green light to go ahead with a scope and charter of what I wanted to have

happen my work began. I knew that without eventual senior management by-in this

effort could not leave the ground. A brief synopsis was shown to the CIO and other

senior staff at our management staff meeting and they liked the idea. Now I was able to

move on to step two of figuring out my targets.

I utilized information acquired from a prior project that was tasked with determining

ownership of all IT related assets. Thus I knew at least the EXISTENCE of all printers in

the company. This data was used to sort the equipment into various categories and types.

It included black & white versus color as well as networked versus single user. It was

further broken down into type such as laser, inkjet, dot matrix or dye sublimation. Lastly

we even looked at faxing/scanning/copying. If there was a dedicated fax machine or

copier it was also eligible for removal or incorporated into a multi-function device (MFP)


that would of course handle those processes (those machines tended to be on lease so

there was a potential saving from that standpoint of course of we could return them).

One of the goals was to remove based on age and the other was to try and remove inkjets

due to consumable costs.

Once I had a target list I could create not only a cost savings analysis but a work plan. I

was able to calculate the labor, time, and effort to get the work done. I put the project

together and showed it to management again now showing values and expected results.

I got approval to move forward and worked with the desktop team to formalize the

process steps and a schedule of work. Phase 1 was to remove the oldest machines as well

as however many inkjets as we could. Phase 2 involved removing other printers based on

various criteria mentioned in the description.

After the work was completed we did an analysis of the accomplishments and cost

savings. Using the criteria established I was able to show that we had reduced costs,

avoided downtime and basically saved the company about $100k.

Timeline

1 week: Preliminary work to define the steps I took and both identify and include

all needed details

2 day: Submission and acceptance of the study proposal

1 week: Research, data collection, creating an outline and writing a basic study

document and creating the outline for the PowerPoint effort

1 week: Final writing and review then submission of the completed study TEXT

3 days : Finalizing the PowerPoint and adding any needed detail


Literature Review

In a quick review of this type of project most literature is focused on cost savings for

paper flow. While this is an adjunct of what this project was about it was only a small

part of my work. These links below are sample referential sources I will explore. The

one in bold is perhaps the closest to what I focused on accomplishing.

http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/PM/Info/Lifecycle/PrinterRefresh.htm

http://www.netaphor.com/products/Netaphor%20SiteAudit%20NHS%20Customer

%20Story.pdf

http://www.rstpm.com/docs/casestudy2.pdf

http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles

%2Fp2925%2F10p25%2F10p25.asp

Procedure

A few years ago I worked at an art museum in charge of their computing assets. I was

tasked with looking for ways to reduce costs. One of the 'relatively' low hanging fruit I

found was in the hardware sector - we needed to get better control of our printer

deployment.

The simple math I used was to determine how many employers we had versus the

TOTAL number of printers in our inventory. This showed that we were looking at a ratio

of 4:1. It included everything that could print other then blueprint class professional

plotters (and we even had plenty of those I must add). My count included local printers,

http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2Fp2925%2F10p25%2F10p25.asp

http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2Fp2925%2F10p25%2F10p25.asp

http://www.rstpm.com/docs/casestudy2.pdf

http://www.netaphor.com/products/Netaphor%20SiteAudit%20NHS%20Customer%20Story.pdf

http://www.netaphor.com/products/Netaphor%20SiteAudit%20NHS%20Customer%20Story.pdf

http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/PM/Info/Lifecycle/PrinterRefresh.htm


networked printers, lasers, inkjets, dye sublimation units, and even dot matrix devices. I

was actually shocked to still find these old dinosaurs but surprisingly enough we still had

people printing multipart carbon as well as printers hard attached to both lab and facilities

equipment such as metering tools and HVAC type devices.

Step one was make sure I had the initial approvals of management to search around

everywhere and do what was necessary to gather data. After speaking to my manager

and also the CIO this nod of the head was granted.

Step two was to gather the total numbers of printers and make sense of what we owned.

Luckily we had very good inventory management in place. This meant that I had

excellent insight into what we owned. The reason I can make this claim is because we

had recently completed a campus wide inventory of EVERYTHING we owned. Let me

add that I was the project lead so I was intimately aware of both the process and data

accuracy. Upon completion of this project we accomplished a 99.7% accuracy rate

missing only 6 devices out of over 6000 inventory items. Reviewing our records I saw

that the majority of our printers, as you can expect, were HP products but we had IBM,

Epson, Okidata, and Xerox units… a real menagerie.

Finding the data was easy, categorizing and then using it was hard. The first split I used

was whether the units were black & white or color. Then I split them into whether they

were networked or local. Note that I used the criteria of whether they were actively

USED as local or networked and not if they had that capability (however that factor


would come into play later). Eventually, I created a Excel matrix document indicating

what was out there sorted into black & white and color tabs the sub categorized into

network and local, then finally showing the type (laser, inkjet, dot matrix or other).

Where a multi-function machine was available that was uniquely tagged too since these

would be able to handle more than one type of work. Finally, I created a pivot table

showing counts by category type. The final tab cross- referenced the models showing

pricing for consumables and number of support calls so I could calculate extra savings.

Let me add that we calculated the additional benefit in freeing up our warehouse space

since we could remove ink that was no longer needed for obsolete units along with being

able to reduce service issues in maintaining old products out of warranty.

Step three was to show what a 10% reduction in our deployment would accomplish. I

needed to show senior management what a conservative effort would deliver so I could

get this project off the ground. This didn’t involve in-depth analysis but was a simple cut

across the board for hardware and ink. This number was shown to senior management

with the additional information that with a conditional go-ahead, I would be able to not

only provide a much better reduction, but a significantly better cost savings. I got the

green light to move on to the next step.

Step four was to now seriously look at what we could remove. I obtained blueprints of

every floor on our campus. I first had to get approval from plant security (as can be

imagined I had to explain why I wanted blueprints of an art museum) as well as let them

know we would be exploring all over in search of equipment. I then got access to the

CAD server to work with online images. I literally walked through each building

indicating what device type was in place and then where it was located. I knew each


printer had been located (due to the campus wide project mentioned above) so I only

needed to place the item on a map. I placed icons on the blueprints by both model and

category (B/W, color, laser, inkjet, etc.). I noted the locations of all the MFP units.

It was now time to enjoy my Pi. Speaking for myself, the last time I had to use this

number or play with a protractor was in high school math. The industry standard for

proximity to a printer is a 30 feet walking distance. The blueprints of course had a scalar

setting so I used 30 foot circles laid out on each floor plan that helped me to figure out

how many printers would be used. This had to take into account that some printers were

hard attached (lab and plant management units for example were excluded) and had only

one function and supported only one thing. I also needed to factor in local and network

units, and color versus black & white. I drew circles with my protractor on a 1 inch to 1

foot scaled map. In doing it this way, I could visually examine where every printer was

located as well as what type they were. It was immediately obvious where we could start

our reduction efforts. We had printers that were literally side by side. Some were a

combination of color and black & white. Others were networked printers ‘belonging’ to

different departments- each group printing to one machine rather than sharing a single

unit. We had printers that were network models but were used by individuals. I

discovered that there were printers allocated to individuals that were not considered

senior staff or not staff printing sensitive documents (such as in H.R.).

Ahh the joys of politics … I got the network guys to grant me access rights to the printer

management software (HP and their Jetdirect product was a godsend). I was able to log

into every networked printer and determine the name of every print queue and even more

importantly to my project the numbers of pages that the printer handled. The information


showed total print over the lifespan and printouts per month. That gave me information

not only about maintenance but also page counts I could expect on that machine in the

future. I could easily see units that had low usage as well as areas of major use. Using

all of these factors I was able to determine a target list.

Step five was to get buy in from my senior staff. I spoke with my manager and we

agreed that it would be easiest to accomplish this project using smaller steps and first

grab the lowest hanging fruit (the 10% target mentioned). We wanted to replace old

printers first and get rid of as many inkjets as we could. These had not only costly

consumables but were prone to more support costs. The second round would remove

excess printers within the 30 foot walking distances and produced overlap. I had access

to a custom written program that allowed me to calculate exact walking distances but

found that just looking at a map would suffice.

As part of my plan I was able to determine that we could have people print black and

white images on our newer color devices. When I contacted HP, they told me that the

cost per page, using standard coverage rates, on these new units was comparable to a pure

black & white printer. These new units do not create black by mixing all colors. They all

have separate black toner cartridges and this keeps the costs down. We knew that our

final round would be the toughest nut to crack. We'd need to get our individual printer

counts reduced. Users that printed sensitive documentation were indicated as such and

placed on a master list. We added to this a report, with data provided by the HR

department, crossing referencing everyone with an individual printer against their title.

Based on this matrix, senior management gave me a list of everyone that they determined

was below a certain rank and thus a person from whom we could harvest their printer.


To help solve the problem with HR and ‘eyes-only’ printing, I contacted vendors with

solutions for printing sensitive documentation. These included password protection,

dedicated queue devices and other options. I finally had a phased master list of targets

along with a project plan. The desktop team manager was notified of this upcoming

major project what was their contribution. We worked to gather print queue names and

users that would need changes. We also discussed the units to harvest. including location

and counts I worked with the team leads to schedule their groups potential manpower

hours and set them up for working either off hours or weekends. We arranged that there

would be dedicated technicians assigned to this project and they would work a building at

a time and a floor at a time. Security was notified of the possible project so access would

be covered. The plan was ready for green lighting.

Step five was final senior management approval - this went all the way up to the CFO

level! They were responsible for making contact with all the parties giving up their

equipment. By now everyone in the affected departments knew what I was working on

and why I was visiting their areas. I became the black hat. They would see me coming

and beg not to have their printer removed. Talk about peer pressure. My boss loved it

since she avoided being the target of all the slings and arrows LOL.

It was finally time to go hunting printers. Those critters don’t come out at night but the

techs did. I knew the targets we wanted. I knew the floors and buildings. I was able to

determine a time to harvest a machine, reset queues and test everything (per machine).

That told me based on labor available how many devices we could gather per session.

That in turn allowed me to create a work matrix so the desktop tech project lead could


allocate resources and show progress and check against milestones. Every night and

every weekend over a period of a couple of weeks our dedicated technician would

remove printers and adjust the queues for people to point to their new printer (leaving

behind a note where it was located). Round one went off without a hitch. Old printers

were a focus of our removal efforts and we were almost able to completely eliminate all

of the ancient models. This brought our ratio up to slightly below six users per printer.

Not a bad improvement but not were we wanted to be at the end.

Round two was essentially the same as round one. I modified my work matrix and

created new plans. In this step we would be removing printers with overlapping

coverage. We were able to juggle printers in this step keeping the newest models out on

the floor and storing the older models as break/fix replacements and covering our

expansion. We were in the process of expanding and some of these excess units went to

the new site and allowed us to avoid spend on new product. This was a nice win that was

not even factored in when we first started this project. The models freed up were able to

also be sold to a recycler in some cases and that too was an unexpected cost benefit.

Have you ever heard the saying, “… not unless you pry it from my cold dead hands…”?

Well let me tell you that politics is an ugly thing when it comes to how office

negotiations work. I am glad that the decision came from the CFO because there were

some very unhappy campers walking around and not too pleased that they either needed

to walk down the hall or even just go outside their office. We showed our secretaries

who printed ‘eyes only’ stuff how to accomplish their tasks. Our security and network

teams were satisfied and so was my team. Managers … well not so much. A personal


printer is a perk but we showed their senior managers the numbers and that they had two

options. Middle management could keep those individual printers and print a page at an

extraordinary cost per sheet (about 10x more than using the network option) or used a

shared device at a tenth of the cost. Multiply those numbers per year times each staffer

(remember that I had usage numbers to back up my data) and I could show that it would

exceed the cost of a small printer. I left the discussion to be between the user and his

manager. We just needed a waiver in writing so that they would be seen as exclusions to

our standards (and something that the CFO would definitely want to review). Amazingly

enough we only had a few departments that were willing to both eat the bill and risk the

wrath of the CFO!

Step six was doing the post mortem. We finally put this thing to bed and I reran the

deployment numbers. We had reach (and passed) our 12:1 ratio! This is at or above both

the Gartner numbers and what HP suggests. We reduced our warehouse and ordering

costs by standardizing consumables. We reduced per page costs and lowered service

calls. HP warranty numbers went down since we needed to cover fewer units and the

units we had in use were only new efficient model. The network guys were happy since

they could piggyback on my maps and develop printer deployment maps. They could

arrange switch over if a printer failed. When there was maintenance issues, including out

of paper or ink conditions, then that could be managed more efficiently since the network

devices now warned of pending issues and they could be proactive rather than reactive.

This map also led to an unexpected side benefit. I was able to import location data into

our asset management system so a device could be shown in its’ physical location so we


could manage resources better in the future. Even the staff was happy since less printers

meant less desk clutter and things to dust and restock.

Our hard savings were over $100,000 but warehouse savings, reduced support, and

improved vision to what we owned were somewhat harder to calculate. True, there were

people who had to walk instead of leaning over to the printer on their desk but we told

everyone that it would make them healthier and get to chat with someone down the hall.

<in the PowerPoint presentation that I will have in addition to this document I will

mention the two anecdotes below>

As an aside a month later I went to a Gartner conference and spoke with the HP

representative about this project. They have a program where they come out to your

organization and put together a plan on printer optimization and hand you a list of what

you can remove. I explained to the HP guy what I had done. After I was done with my

story he told me that the steps I had used were almost exactly the same as what they do

and that I had saved my company tens of thousands of dollars … so I was rather happy.

As a second aside … a month after this project was completed we had our usual IT staff

meeting. My boss got up and wanted to welcome the most hated guy in the company,

introduced me, and then handed me an award for leading this highly successful project.

That is why I was the guy in the black hat the rest of my time there.


Evaluations

What specifically will make your project a success, both to you and to others?

Personally the project was not only challenging but an opportunity to both help the

company save money and also for me to show each department not only how they can

save money but how my department was accomplishing the goal of watching spending

and providing a needed service to the company since the money saved could be the

money used to save a job or buy a needed lab tool.

For others, as mentioned above, the success was the money saved and the efficiencies

that were increased.

Documents

bus 597 printer project