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UK housing company monitors its way to more affordable printing

Building construction site managers

Cutting to the chase

Problem

Find a way to reduce printing overall and identify anonymous heavy users


Solution

Implement PaperCut tracking, monitoring, and policies to get printing under control


Outcome

Closely monitor printing to cut costs and drive budget-conscious behavior

Bullock West Midland (BWM) is a leading service provider in the UK’s social housing sector. Operating for over 50 years, their bread and butter is delivering new build and refurbishment projects in line with the UK Government’s affordable and decent homes initiatives.

A player in construction, BWM is no stranger to printing. But when a restructure meant going from eight branches to 40, things got a bit unruly – especially when it came to the cost of consumables, and some heavy users who needed reining in. Luckily we had the answers.

We’ve learned to look at the ‘whole package’ – product, service levels, and people. PaperCut definitely shines with its product, but it’s the people and personal touch that really make a difference."

- Greg Morley,

ICT Coordinator, Bullock West Midland

Problem

Find a way to reduce printing overall and identify anonymous heavy users

A bunch of new offices meant BWM had a bunch of new site-specific budgets for purchasing paper, toner, and other printing consumables. But to the dismay of BWM’s ICT Coordinator, Greg Morley, all of them were constantly blowing.

Greg knew an effort to crack down on excess printing wouldn’t be enough to curtail costs. Rather, they’d need a print management solution to do two things: uncover detailed insights around what’s being printed; and identify high-volume users.

After some research of their own and an audit into each branch’s print activity, Greg and the IT team had a few candidates on their print management solution shortlist. And PaperCut turned out to fit the bill perfectly.

Solution

Implement PaperCut tracking, monitoring, and policies to get printing under control

In a brisk five weeks, BWM had PaperCut fully deployed across its 40 branches with the same template configuration. In a matter of weeks, Greg and the team were able to collect valuable print data and insights – something they previously didn’t have.

With newfound findings under his belt, Greg finally had the information to implement necessary tracking and policies: size-based paper pricing, discounts for grayscale jobs, printer load comparisons, and more were able to take center stage.

Best of all, BWM could finally see every individual’s printing activity via detailed monitoring, identifying heavy users and dormant profiles. Monitoring was also made aware, which influenced more mindful, cost-effective printing branch-wide.

Outcome

Closely monitor printing to cut costs and drive budget-conscious behavior

PaperCut began paying for itself immediately after rollout, with monitoring having an invaluable two-fold effect: users now thought twice before printing (and printed less), and BWM could now pinpoint and address problem areas/excessive printing.

In one case, a high-volume user was found to be printing dozens of physical certificates to hand-deliver them to clients. BWM issued a simple instruction to instead email certificates, and that was that. Problem solved.

Rounding it all out? Greg’s overall satisfaction with PaperCut: “Over the years, we’ve learned to look at the ‘whole package’ – product, service levels, and people. PaperCut definitely shines with its product, but it’s the people and personal touch that really make a difference.”