The true cost of printing in your company

A study by Lawrence Berkeley Labs shows that the typical office worker uses about 10,000 sheets (20 reams) of paper per year. The cost of the paper is about £40, ink/toner anything from £200 while the total printing costs are estimated at £350. Included in the £350 figure is:

FinePrint and pdfFactory can significantly reduce all of the above by reducing the number of pages needed for a document or replacing it entirely with an electronic PDF version. The almost universal use of the office PC has led to the advent of electronic document distribution. The basic philosophy of this is to get away from a "print and distribute" model of communication and move to a "distribute electronically and print" model, where the individual is responsible for printing. While electronic document distribution decreases distribution costs, this method can increase printing costs because of higher costs associated with low-volume printers and the additional time required for users to print and retrieve the document.

FinePrint keeps a log of pages printed compared with the original page count. I.e. a 20 page document is counted as 20 pages but if printed as a booklet only 5 sheets of paper are required. Most of our PCs show saving in paper of around 50%. A further benefit of this paper saving is that significantly less ink is used and printing speed is improved - 20 pages per minute equates to 40 A5 booklet pages per minute.

By reducing the amount of paper flowing through an organisation, efficiency is gained in all of the areas mentioned above. Paper is far too useful and satisfying to get rid of completely. Paper efficiency acknowledges the usefulness of paper while trying to reduce the amount used.