bus 597 printer project

Capstone Project Proposal
submitted by
Ilan Justh
submitted to
Taft University
Capstone Mentor:
Dr. Pogue
Project Title
“…it wasn't quite as easy as Pi …”

Ilan Justh BUS597 Capstone 2
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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

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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!

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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.

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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)

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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

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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,

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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