MFD Printing with PaperCut

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When I arrived here we had at the time, PCounter with Toshiba Printers using Biometrics.  Not bad setup but sadly had many issues, reliability, half setup and effectively no control or limiting.  This meant a Printer built to do 10,000 a month maximum was in fact producing 50,000 a month and believe it or not the majority wasn't Students.  Although there was a fair share of "Personal" printing going on.  Also materials not built for the huge MFDs was being used e.g. Acetate.  I can't remember the amount of times I had to argue with Staff who insisted they can use these materials and wonder why the melted inside the very high temperature printers.  The software wasn't logging everything  with photocopying so Departments were not being billed, our printers had done well above their mileage in a short time and the server required daily reboots to keep it going.  This system also effected the biometric/cashless catering areas.


So what did we want?

• A clear system that worked and is reliable.
• Printers built for the amount we printed.
• Limits to prevent all users from doing what they wanted.
• Mentality change for users.
• Large jobs sent to our office area for printing on machines built for it and cheaper costs.
• Default Mono.
• Default Duplex.
• Preventing Student Photocopying.
• Clear budgets being charged.
• Department Heads, Head Teacher and Finance receiving monthly Printing Reports.
• Notices to Staff to show what was being printing site wide.
• Email to Print reliable.
• Email to Print Default Mono.
• Cost cutting for Printing.

As a result of budgets being squeezed, we are simply not able to ignore what is being printed.


The hardest part was the mentality of change but if you are being supported by the majority of management this makes the tasks much easier.  Our Head is very Pro Money saving, especially when it is her neck if the School has any kind of financial difficulties.  When some Staff have that attitude of "I should print what I want, when I want and how I want" you will find that is one of the worst things to hear in regards to costs/printing.  It shows a lack of care towards the School budget, lack of care about redundancies made and I can tell you now that the person will care if it impacted on their department.  If it's a Head of a subject, they lose a member of Staff permanently - we all know the reaction.  If that person lost their job or had to take a pay cut to save money - we all know the reaction.  When you see peoples lives heavily impacted due to Government Cuts which are not changing at the moment, you have to care for money saving.  Otherwise you should not be working in a professional job where money is a big deal.
Personally I find it a disgusting attitude to have.


So back to the topic -
We currently have the majority of that setup with PaperCut, new Printers and big high volume machines down our Office area.
Still have some issues to resolve which are being looked at:

• Limiting Mono Student Photocopying - They can no longer Photocopy Colour.
• Staff Department Account billing and not Personal Accounts for Photocopying.
• Once funds gone, Accounts can no longer print but small overdraft allowed.
• Limits on current Photocopying for Staff can't be breached.

Our next step would involve the possibility of all Staff being emailed what they print/photocopy monthly.  We also have additional Support Staff involved in saving printing, questioning large jobs, possible alternative solutions.  With the BYOD Scheme being scrapped we are considering other options.


Don't agree? Suffer the same? don't be afraid to comment!