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Local government|

A Canadian provincial government uses PaperCut to cut waste, cut costs, and increase security

Lighthouse

Cutting to the chase

Problem

With 2,800 printers, an inefficient printing system was costing money.

Solution

PaperCut significantly reduced waste and offered additional benefits.

Outcome

Cost savings, better printing habits, and improved security.

The Nova Scotia Government (NSG) oversees a Canadian province that stretches across more than 55,000 square kilometers. With departments covering education, agriculture, public works, justice, community services and many more, the NSG serves the diverse needs of a population of over one million Nova Scotians.

Rick Cluett is an IT Specialist at NSG and was instrumental in bringing PaperCut to be at the heart of a new approach to print management for the government. It solved several issues with their previous system while bringing benefits that they hadn’t even expected.

“We’re saving about $6-8k a month in printing and paper costs [with PaperCut]… Management’s really happy.”"

- Rick Cluett,

IT Specialist, Government of Nova Scotia, Canada

Problem

With a wide variety of government departments, across multiple locations throughout the province, Nova Scotia’s printing needs were huge. The network included more than 2,800 printers, with 840 of those being multi-function devices. And, naturally, with that much printing occurring day-in and day-out, the potential for waste was significant.

As Rick recalls, “We were in the process of signing with Xerox and had a print management system in place that wasn’t fully meeting our needs. We wanted to be at a point where we didn’t have unnecessary print jobs, could save some paper - and realize some cost savings.”

Along with these needs came a desire to have the NSG become a more digitized workplace. Rick went looking for an answer.

Solution

Rick soon discovered that PaperCut offered all the features that the NSG was looking for. Find-Me printing allows users to release their jobs at the most suitable printer – whether it’s one right beside them, or another that they’ll be passing in a few minutes.

Rick is a big fan. “If there’s a malfunction on one device, people can easily select another. It’s led to some serious productivity efficiencies.” At the same time, Secure Print Release combined with swipe cards means jobs can only be released when the user is waiting at the printer – which is vital for privacy and dealing with sensitive documents.

Another advantage was PaperCut’s vendor neutrality. “PaperCut being compatible with multiple vendors was a real drawcard for us. Our current contract is with Xerox, but if we ever need to change in the future, we know we have that flexibility,” explains Rick.

And PaperCut’s ability to be cloud-based also made things easier. “It [being cloud-based] gets us away from server clients that need to be installed – it also lets us manage things from any device, or be anywhere when we print,” points out Rick.

Outcome

PaperCut’s comprehensive reporting allows Rick to obtain detailed print tracking across the NSG’s vast network. He can drill down on usage on any level – from single users to entire departments. “We can now log every transaction to see where jobs go, and better understand the volume we’re printing.”

And the system has led to major cost-cutting behaviors. The entire province has adopted duplex printing, significantly reducing paper usage. While forgotten or erroneous jobs are no longer printed needlessly, which also saves paper and money. According to Rick, the NSG is saving between $6,000 and $8,000 a month.

Beyond features and functionality, Rick was mighty impressed with our in-house support network, and just how easy it was to get PaperCut up and running quickly. “It took me and a support engineer about 1.5 hours [to install PaperCut]… I’ve also had some queries about new upgrades or custom scripts, and speaking to support has been issue free”.

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