THE CLIENT
Cardinia Shire Council looks after a rapidly developing municipality on Melbourne’s south-east fringe. The area has 6,590 businesses, and its 2015 population is 90,325 – tipped to rise to 174,993 in 21 years.
Elected Councillors determine the Council’s direction at a global level, while the Chief Executive Officer guides it operationally. The organisation is divided into an Organisation Development department plus four key divisions, under which 24 business units sit.
THE CHALLENGE
Council has a strong environmental focus, including reducing greenhouse gas and carbon emissions, retrofitting roads and council facilities with energy-efficient fixtures, developing a new five-star “green star” Civic Centre, as well as helping residents to reduce their environmental footprint via workshops and programs.
Council was keen to reduce its print output from both an environmental and cost viewpoint by “printing smarter”. The same view of “working smarter” has driven improvements to service delivery through innovation, rather than employing more staff.
Cardinia Shire also wanted to implement Activity Based Working (ABW), which creates physical spaces that facilitate relative work activities, rather than people having a fixed workstation.
“We’re now also a successful ABW, which would have been very difficult to achieve without Viatek’s solution of Follow Me Printing [FMP]. Mobility and paper independence are two keys to achieving ABW. I think everyone acknowledges a completely paperless office is not going to occur, but you certainly can reduce paper use. What we have is “paper independence”, freeing our staff from the burden of excessive paper, by having the paper they need, when they need it. FMP has been a very important technical component of achieving both those technical aspects.”
THE SOLUTION
Viatek worked with managers and team members across all Council’s five sites to determine print use and needs. Some areas were well served by the number and position of existing printers, although in some cases the units were upgraded to multifunction devices (MFDs).
In other areas, the printer position was changed (so areas shared a more central MFD), the unit was removed altogether, or a new MFD was installed. Overall, the number of printers was reduced. Viatek Print Management Software, which tracks and reports printing, was trialled successfully and installed on the MFDs, along with Follow Me Printing (FMP).
"Along with the reduction in printing is the fact we are able to print from any printer and in any location. It means staff are not bound to a certain area because “that’s their printer”. Staff take the solution for granted. If they thought for a moment, they would realise the benefit of not having to connect to every printer, but it is now an expected outcome."
THE RESULT
Cardinia’s overall aim to reduce print volumes has been achieved. B&W prints have more than halved, from 250,000 a month down to 100,000; while at 25,000 prints, colour is now a quarter of its previous 100,000 monthly level. This has slashed costs by $30,000 and allowed the Council to achieve its environmental aims as well as lead by example to residents.
Print management is centralised in IT using the Viatek Print Management Software, which tracks, manages and reports copying and printing. Exception reporting allows IT to monitor usage, and efficiently and effectively inform staff of excessive use.
MFDs no longer print each time someone pushes the print button. Follow Me Printing (FMP) enables a single, easily manageable print queue, by requiring staff to swipe their building-access card at the printer when they physically collect their print-outs. This prevents accidental printing and has cut down on wastage dramatically. Once Cardinia had moved to an ABW workplace, the flow-on effect of being able to print from any location (which was initially a bonus) became an essential requirement.
![photo_n00118_s1 125 [CUDA=medium] 1920x1200](/wp-content/uploads/elementor/thumbs/photo_n00118_s1-125-CUDAmedium-1920x1200-1-p90ncblb5vzhsq16uslt2impnjmfq8tp0v36rqu9iw.png "photo_n00118_s1 125 [CUDA=medium] 1920×1200")