Can Managed Print Services Rise to a Presidential Level: Will the "O" Implement "behavioral modification" software? Hide the toothpicks.

The private sector is losing jobs every, single day. Here in the US, we lost some 550,000 jobs last month - this is considered good news because we didn't lose 600,000+ jobs.

And as much as I think most Public Sector minions couldn't hold a position in the "real world", they do enjoy the comfort of never needing to worry about losing their job.

Additionally, from my experience, most forms of government bureaucracy are stellar examples of waste - waste of intelligence, waste of manpower, wasteful processes, waste of tax dollars.

In a recently released report from Lexmark International Inc. and a survey conducted by Alexandria, Va., marketing firm O'Keeffe & Co. it is revealed that the government is wasting millions of dollars in useless printing. (no way!)

The study, which is based on a survey of 380 federal employees, found that the U.S. government spends nearly $1.3 billion annually on printing.

Of that, about one third, $440 million, nearly $1 million a day, is wasted on useless pages.

"It makes way too much sense," said David Williams, vice president of policy at Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington-based think tank.

"We see a culture of bureaucracy. When given a choice, even with these huge technological advantages, you don't see the government taking advantage of this. Private industry and business has taken advantage, but this government hasn't," Mr. Williams added.

What is more interesting is the dollar amount wasted, $440 million, is more than four times the amount President Obama recently asked agency managers collectively to eliminate from their administrative budgets.

On average, federal employees print 30 pages of paper every work day and respondents say that they discarded about 35 percent of the pages the day they printed them.

Ninety-two percent of respondents acknowledged they did not need all the material that they printed, and more than two-thirds said they could print less if they tried.

"Printing at work is made very easy, so I tend to print without thinking about it," one respondent said.

Lexmark recommends that federal agencies have a comprehensive printing policy in place, including how to better use digital documents.

"Agencies need to look at how to deploy and manage technology, not just from the perspective of putting a printer out there to be used, but around really understanding it as a service to your employees," said Brian Henderson,Lexmark's federal information solutions director. "How is printing strategically going to enable your mission?"

All is not lost, as 10 percent of survey respondents report a working under formal printing policies, and 20 percent said that their agencies had restrictions on color printing.(LOL)

Additionally, the Homeland Security Department expects to save more than $40,000 in part by printing fewer copies of the fiscal 2010 budget- posting online.(LOL, 40k savings?)

The Agriculture Department is developing a Web-based utility billing system that could save more than $670,000 annually.

"President Obama has called for fiscal responsibility, and identifying and eliminating unnecessary printing is a simple first step," said Marty Canning, a Lexmark vice president.

"Clear, standardized, and enforced agency printing policies, as well as increased reliance on secure digital records, will help change the employee printing habits that have become so ingrained in the government 'corporate culture' and enable agencies to decrease their carbon footprint," Mr. Canning added.


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All well and good.

But if I were Lexmark, I would stay clear of the Obama Public Sector Gravity Well - else, Mr. Canning could find himself working for Olivetti or in line with the ex-CEO of GM.

Articles, sources:

Federal workers throw out millions of pages a day.

Report recommends crackdown on excessive printing.

Olivetti

Wednesday Morning Federal Newsstand

Survey: US government could save millions on printing

The Lexmark report


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Xerox Color Cube: Broken Down by P4P, Art Post

Art has an excellent break down of the Xerox color Cube. And he has a nice "10 Commandments" post.

I am re-posting here. If you are not part of Art's 2,000 world-wide membership, go here and become one.

Xerox launched the world’s first A3 color wax MFP, the ColorQube 9200 series formerly codenamed Jupiter.

Details:

- Advertised as offering full color pages at 85ppm for $23,500

- Called “Solid Ink” technology, it was first developed by Tektronix Corp. of Wilsonville, Oregon, in 1991, in its original Phaser 300 and 500 series of desktop A4 color printers.

- Xerox bought Tektronix’s color printer division in 2001 for $925 million

- Uses 4 colors of wax chunks (cyan, magenta, yellow & black), which are placed into holes in the top of the unit.

- Each color is a different shape, so you can not put the wrong color in the wrong hole, similar to the Fisher-Price Mailbox toy.

- The machine can hold enough wax to generate up to 58,000 pages based on 5% fill per color per letter size page.

- The wax chunks/crayons, each fall into their own cast iron bathtub, where an internal heater warms up the tubs until the wax melts into a liquid state.

- The hot, liquid wax is then sprayed onto a large metal drum.

- The metal drum then rolls over the sheet of paper applying the 4 color image.

- The wax cools and solidifies before the paper exits the machine.

- If the machine is bumped while the wax is hot, the wax can splash out of its cast iron tubs inside the machine, causing damage. Therefore, machine must be unplugged, and allowed to cool down before it is moved. This is also true if technician is going to service the device.

- The machine must stay on all the time. While it does have a lower power mode, it must still generate heat to keep the wax liquid, otherwise if it hardens, the machine must purge itself of the hardened wax. This purging can use up most of the wax loaded into the unit. This purging is also done during the units cleaning mode, and puts unused wax into an end user replaceable cleaning cartridge, and this is not reusable.

- From a cold start, the machine has a very long warm up time, up to 20 minutes.

- As the unit keeps generating heat all the time, it most likely will not earn the federal government’s Energy Star certification as it still uses 360 watts in standby mode.

- When warm, and not in lower power mode, its first copy out time is 7.2 seconds.

- From sleep mode, it takes 3 and ½ minutes to warmup.

- Unit uses wax spray print heads with 900 nozzles per head, with each nozzle is only 37.5 microns wide.

- Xerox spent 5 years and $24 million to build plant to make the wax for this unit.

- Xerox claims that in 4 years the unit will produce only 88lbs. of packaging waste versus the average color laser MFP which supposedly generates 815lbs. of waste. Since most packaging and cartridges used by color laser printers are recyclable, this is very misleading.

- Xerox claims that it will save a customer up to 62% over using a traditional color laser MFP.

- Image quality is advertised as offering 600x600dpi, but high quality only achieved when engine slows way down and does not offer true 8 bits per pixel.

- Since the device uses wax, instead of toner, the output can have a waxy look and feel which may be less than desirable. In addition, there is the risk that the wax could re-melt and cause pages to stick together, for example, if the pages were left on the dashboard of an automobile.

- The waxy pages may also stick together if too much pressure is applies, perhaps in a large ring binder.

- Pages that come in contact with the vinyl cover of a folder or ring binder may also stick to the surface as well due to the waxy image.

- Image is not permanent any may smear (in a review of the Phaser 8400, PC World magazine said; “gave the printers a Poor rating as the waxy, solid ink scratches off more easily than does plastic toner fused to paper”.

- May have trouble getting waxy pages to run through the document feeder of a copier/MFP.

- The waxy pages may also cause difficulty with mailing, handling, archiving, recycling or writing notes on pages.

This feed was supplied to me by a p4photel remember, do your research and collaborate on all of this information. There's an old saying "believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see"

-=Good Selling=-

If any of the above details are incorrect, I suspect your comments will enlighten me.

If you're looking for information about managed print services, come on over to Walters & Shutwell.


 **** UPDATE ****


- It has been suggested that the ColorCube does not need to be on continously and that it possess a feature called "Intelligent Ready" and learns when to turn itself on in the morning.
- The unit is 2009 Energy Star Certified.

- The melting temperature of the wax is the same as the boiling point of water. So unless you are in the practice of holding your prints over your oven, I wouldn't be too worried about it.

- Pages printed on a Color Cube will pass through any mfp on the market today.

Original Post.

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