Foremost Farms is implementing a print management system to reduce printing costs and environmental impact. By replacing individual printers with multi-function devices, the company expects to save over $300,000 annually in equipment, supply, and maintenance costs while cutting paper usage and emissions. The new system will require employees to print documents from shared devices rather than personal printers, encouraging electronic sharing and processing of information to boost efficiency and sustainability.

1. Managing What You Print
You just might save a tree!
Foremost Farms is rolling out a cost-
saving initiative that will have you
seeing green in more ways than one.
From now until the end of 2010, the
Baraboo office will convert individual
printers to a system of print
management.
“Right now we have 453 printing
devices throughout the cooperative
that are eight to 10 years old,” said
Karen Semonson, operational services
manager. “Replacing them would cost
about $800,000, but converting to a
print management system will cost
about half that much. We use the
average printer less than 4% of its
life.”
The idea began with a challenge a few Foremost Farms President Dave Fuhrmann is one of the
years ago from Dave Fuhrmann, first to give up his office printer. Fuhrmann (right) is
president, to investigate alternatives for shown handing his printer to Linda Hinz, team lead SOS.
slowing the growth in the number of
technology devices across the
organization. In response to this
challenge, Information Services launched a “Green IT” program in 2008.
“An objective of this program was to increase the utilization level across technology
devices through process improvements, use of new innovations and retirement of aging
equipment,” said Matt Messmer, director of information services. “Program results to-
date have provided savings in energy consumption, employee efficiency and reduced
maintenance and support costs. This print management initiative alone has the potential
to return savings of over $300,000 annually over the next five years.”
What it means, for the most part, is there will be no individual printers in offices, but
work rooms with printers that will have many functions including copying, faxing,
printing (color or black and white) and scanning.

2. It will be a culture change, but I believe it will be one for the better,” said Semonson.
“And there are some hidden benefits to loosening our grip on personal printers. We will
have fewer printers, faxes and copiers to service and our cost per page is actually going
down.”
Documents should be easier to scan and although faxing will not be eliminated, its use
should diminish as electronic copies of information are easier to manipulate.
The IS Print Management Team, composed of Linda Hinz, Mark Beda, Dan Nicol and
Semonson, identified savings on printing devices, fax phone lines, copier expense, paper
and ultimately, trees. There are also additional future costs savings that have not yet been
identified.
When Not to Print
“There are 500 sheets in one ream and 1.687 reams of paper per tree,” said
Semonson. “We used enough paper in 2009 to eliminate almost 12,000
trees.” Print management will encourage employees to think before they
print and stress that employees ask “Do I need to print this or can I scan or
paste data from another source?”
To help answer that question, some work stations, will utilize dual screen
technology so there is less of a need to print information and re-enter data
into the computer. The hope is that cutting and pasting electronic data will
simplify the whole data entry process and maybe even increase accuracy.
“It really ties into Foremost Farms’ new business and social responsibility policy
development,” said Semonson. “We are striving to be socially responsible by exercising
good practices on the farm, in our plants and by limiting our use of environmental
resources.”
Semonson says that the shift to print management will not prevent anyone from doing
their job and some exceptions may have to be made if print volumes prove to be too
heavy. Hinz says IS has a good window on how much printing is going on and managing
that capacity is a key part of the project.
There will still be secure ways to print documents for those employees who deal with
confidential information. Employees will be trained to use the new print management
system in the upcoming months.
The rollout has begun with executive staff and the corporate finance department. The
Baraboo office should convert to multi-function printing by the end of the year. The
balance of Foremost Farms’ locations will convert in 2011.