Park Hill School District, located in Kansas City, Missouri serves 9,995 students and comprises ten elementary schools, three middle schools and two high schools. During annual budget reviews, principals across the district expressed concern over growing printing and copying costs. With access to only general copier readout reports, principals had no way to see what was being printed, the quantity or the frequency, making the justification for the increased printing budget more difficult. With printer/copier impressions reaching 23 million annually, the district needed to decrease printing costs to ensure the availability of funds for other school initiatives.
The district decided to revamp the entire copier and printer program and establish responsible printing policies for its staff of 1,500. It created a detailed RFP based on market research that focused on adopting MFPs and a secure document release solution with Follow-You Printing, a feature in Equitrac Express. An integral part of the RFP was the ability to demonstrate product reliability and integration with Park Hill’s active directory and existing HID card readers.
The local sales team from Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta) submitted a proposal that would replace Park Hill’s existing configuration with an efficient hardware platform and integrated software, allowing the individual schools to track and monitor printing. The representative recommended implementing 42 Konica Minolta bizhub C552 Color MFPs that would be integrated with Park Hill’s existing active directory and HID cards. After seeing the features of the MyKMBS.com site including real-time meter reads, supplies ordering and maintenance management, Park Hill added online support as a requirement for the RFP.
The bizhub MFPs are integrated with Equitrac Express, a print and cost management solution, and include Nuance eCopy ScanStations that allow teachers to fax or scan documents directly to their Microsoft Exchange email accounts. Equitrac tracks and reports usage from all connected devices, as well as enforces print bizhub C552 quotas. The district is able to automate reporting for each of the 15 school principals, who now receive a weekly, detailed report via email with a breakdown of the total "print spend" by teacher and/or department.
With the bizhub C552 fleet in place, Park Hill reduced printing costs to less than one cent per impression. The district has also been able to reduce wasteful printing and establish more responsible printing practices. Follow-You Printing provides a new layer of security for the district, ensuring that sensitive materials are not left sitting on the printer. This has allowed district schools to reduce the number of printers designated for highly sensitive materials and guarantee that special education documents and individual educational plans (IEPs) are only available for approved users.
Konica Minolta’s Optimized Print Services (OPS) worked with Park Hill on four essential areas:
Fleet: analyzed Park Hill’s current print fleet in order to right-size the document output fleet to actual document management needs with optimal fleet support at minimal cost of ownership and environmental impact.
Process: analyzed all relevant document flows within Park Hill in order to increase productivity, maximize savings and design a solution tailor-made to meet the district’s precise daily needs.
Finance: worked with Park Hill by offering different purchasing and leasing options as well as various contract models, and integrating existing contracts into a single transparent financial plan.
Security: designed and implemented an IT and information security solution to fit the district’s needs.
As a result of using OPS, the district was able to eliminate over 35 devices and replace the remaining printers with 33 bizhub 40P black and white printers and two bizhub C35P MFPs with Follow-You Printing and print release stations.
The Konica Minolta solution has resulted in a total print savings of $19,000 across the district by reducing print impressions by more than one million in the first year. Park Hill has also reduced the average number of printers required for student printing from three to one. The district expects to reap further cost savings throughout the Konica Minolta contract as it strategically reduces print impressions.
