by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
It doesn’t happen very often but here’s a case when the best plan is to “put all your eggs in one basket.” In this case, we’re not talking about eggs, we’re talking about photocopies, about 2 million of them, the number of duplicated documents generated each month by all City departments and offices combined.
It may save $400,000 a year.
In April 2006, the City issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) seeking to identify a vendor that could provide office machines that could make copies as well as fax and print in an effort to make operations more efficient and reduce the operating costs.
At that time, City departments, including the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, operated 288 copiers in 165 locations at a total cost in FY 2005-06 of $2.89 million. The City sought to reduce that cost by having one office machine lease that would be billed on a cost per copy basis.
What had happened: as City government grew and needed more office machines, leases were executed to provide the additional equipment, creating a situation that was difficult and costly to manage, said Gena Coursen, budget manager for the City’s Information Technology Department.
“We had lease agreements with several providers,” she added. “Some provided maintenance and supplies and some didn’t. We were working with more than 10 copier companies and had dozens of lease agreements and they all expired at different times. Every month, we’d have a lease or a maintenance agreement expire.”
In June, 2007 the City entered into a contract with Xerox to provide the equipment, training, maintenance, service and supplies (excluding paper) to meet the document duplication needs of every office in every department. Xerox billed the City $69,400 per month based on 2 million guaranteed monthly impressions. Additional impressions are billed at 3.47 cents for black-and-white images, 97 cents for color.
“Now we have management oversight and performance requirements. The consolidation also really simplifies our budgeting and accounting, but most important it’s the way to make sure the City doesn’t waste money on copies,” said Coursen.
Xerox is now completing the installation of the new equipment.
The previous equipment is either going back to the leasing companies, being sent to City surplus or, in the case of machines the City owns, being redeployed to other departments.
The City’s Information Technology department has been supervising and monitoring the project, which has been as popular with the office workers as it has with the auditors, said Kevin Holzendorf, ITD director and chief information officer.
“At first there was a little resistance to the all-in-one machines that combine a copier, fax and printer. But, after the units were installed, people got to like them,” he said. “We are deploying them department by department with a 30-day evaluation period. After that the department head either signs off on the installation or we consult with Xerox to resolve any issues.”
In addition to the reduction in cost per copy, the units are programmed to print on both sides of a sheet of paper and not print the cover or banner page, thus saving on paper cost as well. The new units also employ advanced technology compared to the previous inventory. They use and waste less toner and also consume less electricity. In other words, he said, the new equipment is “greener” than the old machines.
Holzendorf estimated the total cost saving to the City at $400,000 per year. “That’s a good estimate,” said Coursen. “But all the new equipment won’t be deployed for a couple of months so we won’t get a full fiscal year of data until 2008-09 is over.”
356-2466