Olathe Public Schools Reduces Waste and Saves Millions with RICOH

About Olathe Public Schools

Olathe Public Schools is the largest school District in the Kansas City metropolitan area, serving more than 30,000 students in 35 elementary schools, 10 middle schools, five high schools and seven alternative & technical schools, along with several support buildings. As the district grows larger each year, Ricoh has been a partner with Olathe Public Schools for 20 years to implement new technology and hardware to improve their digital environment and the overall standard of education.

Challenge

• Inefficient 1:1 desktop printers; Intent on moving toward a managed print environment
• Small break-fix team to service thousands of printers
• Under utilized Central Print Services Center
• Budget cuts in providing adequate funding for public education
• Expensive costs associated with producing paper copies

The school board was unsatisfied with the high cost of their previous vendor. With a one-to-one printer to teacher ratio, the district had over three thousand printers issued to faculty and staff, resulting in too much paper in classrooms. In addition, the school board wanted to improve staff productivity and graphic communications print shop resources. The district found that too much time was being spent on manual tasks, which was time taken away from classroom instruction. The distributed machines were also prone to hardware and software issues — only a small team of three focused on break-fix to try to meet the needs of thousands of teachers. District leaders wanted to reform their learning environment by becoming more cost effective, digital, and less wasteful.

Solution

• Removed 99% of all desktop printers and reallocated district staff supporting the 1:1 desktop printers
• Expanded capacity by transforming the graphic communication office’s print shop for complex print projects
• Over 90% of all print orders placed online through the District portal are delivered to their building the next business day. This site became a fully Integrated Resource Center (IRC) providing improved on-line eCommerce access to print, signage, and clings, along with advanced document color and finishing for the entire staff
• Dedicated on-site technician to oversee print operations
• Defaulted printing to dual-sided printing

Olathe Public Schools issued an RFP twenty years ago to grow beyond the limitations of their previous vendor. Ricoh has been their managed print provider ever since and has helped see them through their digital journey.

Our initial steps included reducing 99% of the printers in the classroom and implementing shared printing spaces, called printing pods, which serve about eight employees per device. Over time, we have modernized the print center with the latest technology, which is faster at printing larger ad hoc pieces with increased quality and overall capabilities. With improved turnaround time and document quality, we have built workflows and processes that the district can rely on to ensure efficiency. Ricoh’s on-site service technician manages the ins and outs of the printers, ensuring that they are running at full capacity so faculty and staff can avoid any downtime.

The software now in place allows for digital sharing and delivery over hard copy production and circulation. When paper copies are needed, faculty and staff now enjoy the convenience and security of scanning their badges to print from walk-up devices.

Results

• 40% print output is now produced at the IRC capable, graphic communication’s production print shop
• Eliminated costly analog lines and replaced with digital fax solutions
• 3,000 reduction of single function desktop printers by moving toward network-zone printing pods
• Reduced paper waste by minimizing abandoned print jobs
• Reduced off site vendor costs
• Improved staff resources and productivity

In the twenty years since the partnership with Ricoh began, the school district has realized over $3 million in hard cost savings, approximately $850,000 in paper savings, and helped improve sustainability by reducing paper consumption by 43% with 2-sided printing and new digital curriculum. Over 65,000 pages have been saved through automatic dual-sided printing. The district has seen an overall reduction in printing and paper waste, with a printer-to-teacher ratio of about 1:8.

Further, over 40% of district output is now produced in the IRC capable print center, while previously only 12% of output was done offsite. Implementing digital fax solutions also brought on more savings by eliminating expensive analog lines. the print process is more streamlined and easier than ever before — staff use their ID card or PIN to release print jobs which are stored securely in a queue. Teachers no longer waste significant time on manual print process. Additionally, a Ricoh member manages all supplies and service requests for the district.

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