Philadelphia-area school district reins in print costs with streamlined, upgraded fleet and improved management, freeing up funds for educational investments
Ricoh USA, Inc. today announced that its partnership with Hatboro-Horsham School District to enhance its printer fleet has resulted in new opportunities to invest in its students. The district, which has saved $90,000 over the course of its 15-year partnership with Ricoh, once again turned to Ricoh's experts to help reduce print costs, establish centralized monitoring and management, and re-allocate resources to core educational needs.
Hatboro-Horsham School District, located in suburban Philadelphia, has a strong history of academic excellence. Serving approximately 5,000 students, the district provides education to students from grades K-12. It has received blue ribbon honors from both the Pennsylvania and United States Departments of Education. Eager to serve students of diverse backgrounds, Hatboro-Horsham decision makers wanted to find ways to reinvest funds in a variety of programs to make its schools a more effective and welcoming learning environment. This required looking at its overall operations to uncover ways to save more.
To accomplish this, Hatboro-Horsham turned to a proven partner: Ricoh. The company's experts conducted an in-depth, holistic analysis of the district's printing fleet. Ricoh discovered that the heart of the challenge was lack of centralized monitoring and management. Over the years, printers had been added in a piecemeal fashion, and it became difficult to tell who was printing what and why, or to conduct day-to-day analysis of device utilization across the fleet. The district needed to eliminate underutilized devices, implement upgraded multifunction printers (MFPs) to serve diverse needs at lower costs and create transparency throughout the fleet.
With this in mind, Ricoh designed and implemented a bold solution. First, the fleet was reduced by 150 devices, including the elimination of under-utilized single-function desktop printers. Then, the schools' existing PaperCut™ MF authentication software implementation was expanded, leveraging MFPs' newly added card readers to collect usage data that could be used to make informed decisions about fleet optimization going forward. Ricoh took over basic maintenance, which had plagued the IT staff with high volumes of break-fix and routine maintenance for the aging fleet. Now, the Ricoh Managed Services Support Center (RMSSC) would automatically replenish toner as needed, in addition to providing analysis and support. This allowed IT staffers to focus their efforts on core tasks and continual improvements. Perhaps most importantly, the expanded, centralized monitoring and management would allow Ricoh and Hatboro-Horsham to gain insights into device utilization and uptime, helping to intelligently shape decisions about print policy long after initial rollout.
At the same time, mobile printing for tablets and laptops was rolled out at the high school, with implementations at the middle and elementary schools soon to follow. This demonstrated the district's responsiveness to the changing ways students, faculty and staff work. Ricoh also provided change management services, engaging with the community to explain the changes and teach users to make the most of their upgraded, optimized fleet.
"It's been a total win-win with Ricoh," said Robert Reichert, Director, Business Affairs, Hatboro-Horsham School District. "We've been able to improve our services and the functionality is so much better – and our costs went down. In the past, we had copiers all over the district, but we didn't know if they were utilized properly. Now, we have the right devices with the right functionality in the right places. And we can say that with confidence, because we have the transparency and the expert management to make sure things stay optimized, even if our needs change."
This high-touch, adaptable methodology speaks to Ricoh's Dynamic Workplace Intelligence approach. Ricoh creates stronger, longer-lasting relationships with customers to drive continual success by streamlining processes, then going a step further and increasing visibility and control. By empowering organizations to see how their solutions are performing, Ricoh enhances mutual trust while collecting the information needed to help customers continue to adapt and thrive even as their needs evolve.
"A good education, accessible to all, creates a brighter future for everyone. At Ricoh, we have utmost respect for educators and their mission, so when we have a chance to help them do their jobs more effectively and efficiently, it's exciting," said John Stewart, Partner Executive, K-12 and State and Local Government, Ricoh USA, Inc. "For years, we've worked closely with Hatboro-Horsham decision makers to meet their district's needs. When they sought a modern, more cost-efficient approach to print, they knew they could rely on us. I am happy to report we have delivered for this district and its students, faculty and staff."
www.ricoh-usa.com
