Issue #0605/1 - Do you think about the space taken by your printers and copiers and the cost of that space? For those who have not, we offer some thought-provoking facts and figures that could help in reducing the Total Cost of Printing.
TCPglobal has, in the past, run articles entitled ‘Forgotten Elements of Total Cost of Printing’. Although covered in part within articles with another focus, the issue of space consumption, or hardware footprint, has not previously been tackled in its own right.
Printer footprint may at first seem to be largely irrelevant. However, although it may be irrelevant to a degree for individuals or small organisations where a small number of printers are involved – simply because some printing capability has to be provided and there is little scope for avoiding the space overhead required – where large companies are concerned the scale of costs builds to a level where purchasing decisions can make a significant difference.
Although printing capability is also a requirement in larger organisations, the dynamics change with a larger number of individuals and a larger number of printers. What Hewlett-Packard refers to as ‘Balanced Deployment’ kicks in, where numbers of hard copy devices of different types should be balanced with numbers of employees and hard copy requirements.
Let us look first at how the size and configuration of a printer may affect the effective footprint and therefore the total cost of that machine.
Taking extremes, we can compare a colour printer from Kyocera Mita with one from Samsung (with an engine that was also used by Xerox).
Kyocera MitaFS-3830N
Kyocera Mita succeeded in building an A4 single-pass colour printer into a footprint that is little larger than a compact A4 mono printer – the FS-C50XXN series. This printer measures just 13.6in by 18.5in (345mm by 470mm). However, just as significant as the basic dimensions, is the fact that the paper tray opens to the front (typical of most printers) and consumables are access solely from the top.
By contrast, the four-pass colour engine designed by Samsung and used in the Samsung CP5XXN series, and sold to Xerox and used in the Phaser 6100 series (as opposed to the latest Phaser 6120), measures 20in by 18.5in (510mm by 470mm). However, there are other reasons for this printer requiring rather more space than one might at first imagine.
Samsung CLP500
In practice, this means that the effective width is more like 39in (1000mm), resulting in an effective footprint in the region of 5sqft (0.41sqm) instead of the basic 2.6sqft (0.21sqm) of the hardware itself and compared to the 1.7sqft (0.16sqm) of the Kyocera Mita FS-C50XXN. This represents a handicap of almost 300% - and some extra space may need to be allowed at the left hand side of the machine to accommodate the person replenishing consumables.
If we then consider the two basic configurations commonly used in the design of inkjet printers, we again find considerable differences in effective footprint.
At this level of hardware, the differences are more practical than cost-based, having the greatest effect on where the printer can be located rather than on how much it costs to allocate that space.
Here we find the industry divided into two camps, with Hewlett-Packard almost on its own with a front feed paper path and the rest of the manufacturers preferring the rear feed approach. There are two exceptions to this rule: firstly, the small number of machines built by Xerox and Sharp about five years ago, that fed paper from the front, and; secondly, one of the new generation of All-in-One devices specified by Dell and manufactured by Lexmark, that also has a front feed.
Perhaps the biggest surprise here is that Epson has focussed so strongly on the rear feed mechanism. Epson is well aware of paper feed issues, having manufactured dot matrix printers for decades with front, rear, top and bottom paper paths. In the light of this experience, one would have thought that the benefits of the front feed system for personal printers would have made its mark on the design team.
Lexmark P707 folded
… ready for use
The P707 asLexmark sees it
and showing approximateposition of stacked paper
However, therein lies the difference, a high-level sophisticated MFP is capable of serving more users than a small personal device or mid-range workgroup devices, yet for the same functionality consumes relatively little extra space. Certainly if the space consumption per user is considered rather than total space consumption, then the high-level machines are far more space-efficient.
There is no ‘right answer’ to the question, “how many heads per printer?” – but it has been known for the equation to be ‘printers per head’ rather than ‘heads per printer’! The heads per printer ration will inevitably be lower in a smaller company where a mono printer, a fax, a colour printer and a copier may all be required for just a few employees. But, even here, one device could potentially handle the entire heard copy and communications requirement rather than requiring several machine allocations.
Suppose a company with two thousand employees in one complex has a ratio of one printer per five employees, plus copiers at a ratio of 1:20. This would make a total of 400 printers plus 100 copiers.
If each printer were the size of the Samsung colour printer or a sizeable workgroup mono printer, we would be looking at an average footprint requirement of five square feet (0.47 square metres) per printer, and of about 13.5 sq ft (17.25 sq m) for each typical copier with output finishing option – making a total footprint requirement of about 3,500 sq ft (330 sq m).
Taking a conservative office rental cost of (say) £25 per sq ft per year, the total cost of providing the floor space for the hard copy equipment would be in the region of £87,500.
Bringing that back down to a single machine basis (for a printer), printing 60,000 pages per year, the cost per page of a mono workgroup printer would not be the typical 1.4 pence per page involved in buying the machine and feeding it with toner for three years but 2.02 pence – representing an addition of 45% to the direct visible cost.
For the colour printer in question, the increased cost of 0.62 pence represents only 24% of the 2.62 pence per page associated with running the machine – pushing the effective cost per page up to 3.24 pence.
Sizeable Colour MFP with finishing unitNow suppose that the company undergoes a rationalisation process at the time of rolling around the hard copy equipment and decides on a ratio of 1:15 for printers and 1:50 for high level MFPs. It is quite likely that the MFPs would have a larger footprint that their predecessors but that there would be fewer of them. However, it is very possible to choose colour printers that are considerably smaller than the one considered earlier – such as the Kyocera Mita FS-C5030N. Here we not only reap the benefit of smaller printers but also of having fewer of them, at least partly because they are much faster single-pass machines.
We might then end up with just 40 MFPs, with an average effective footprint requirement of about 20 sq ft (1.92 sq m) per machine, and 133 printers with an average effective footprint of 1.7 sq ft (0.16 sq m) each.
Looking at it on a per printer basis again, this adds 0.21 pence per page to the direct costs over three years, or 9.5% on the Kyocera Mita colour printer. For an equivalent sized mono printer the cost increase would be 15% of the basic direct cost per page.
For the entire fleet though, this computes out to a floor space requirement of just over 1,000 sq ft (97 sq m) at a cost of a little over £25,000 per year – a massive saving of 71%. This either represents space saved and costs reduced or it represents space more efficiently allocated to productive and maybe revenue-earning activity.
Obviously, these calculations merely represent illustrations of extremes in space consumption but the basic premise is valid, ‘space has a cost and the use of that space should be assessed carefully’.
There is no doubt that an organisation can achieve efficiencies by making proper investigations during the hardware selection process. This not only involves ensuring that the balance and distribution of hardware is designed efficiently but also that the actual hardware selected provides the right balance of performance against efficient use of costly space.
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