The Print Management Blog

Manatee Schools Save $500,000 with Print Management

  

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"Do more with less" is a phrase well known at schools and universities.  The Manatee School District in Bradenton, Florida, had experienced the budgetary pressures that most school districts are experiencing today. The district had been given a mandate to seek cost-cutting measures, and set out on a mission to gain control of its print environment. 

Managed by Bob Gehle, program administrator, the school began an internal audit of its existing infrastructure, a process which yielded eye-opening information. Not only did the audit reveal that the district had limited insight into its total 'print spend', but it uncovered tedious, inefficient workflows that drained teaching and accounting staff of its time.

For example, teachers were spending an average of two hours per month producing classroom materials. In an attempt to avoid long lines at the copiers, staff would often turn to low-quality inkjet printers, or even outsource jobs at their own expense.

The allocation of print costs proved to be ineffective. In order to charge individual schools or departments for printing costs, school administrators had to manually process carbon copy forms, resulting in frequent errors and delays in accounting.

When measurements were able to be made, it was found that departments and schools were signing contracts for far more copies and prints than they needed.  After the audit was complete, Gehle recognized that he had to implement a solution to automate the print accounting processes, and ultimately manage print costs across the entire district.

Manatee Schools implemented Equitrac Express®, which was integrated with the entire printing infrastructure, including all of the MFPs in each school, and seven devices at the centralized print shop. On the back‐end, Equitrac was integrated with JD Edwards, the district’s accounting system. 

Today, Equitrac monitors, measures and manages all documents that are produced.  Automated reporting saves hours of time for school accounting staff, who now receive a weekly email showing all the costs broken out by teacher or department. From a teaching perspective, the time savings has been dramatic. Examples of measurable results include:

• Reduced costs to yield $500,000 in estimated annual savings
• Recovered 5,000 teaching hours per month
• Leveraged Equitrac's online monthly management reports
• Lower cost of ownership and lower cost per print

The Equitrac print management solution has been embraced at Manatee Schools by both faculty and staff. Click here to listen to Manatee's Superintendent Tim McGonegal describe how his team worked with Equitrac to achieve this success story.