Print Management Program
March 25, 2021
As mentioned in our previous newsletter, Procurement and Payment Services recently completed a Request for Proposal process to select a single vendor to implement a campus-wide print management solution. After an extensive evaluation and considerable collaboration with several other schools and departments, Ricoh was selected.
Ricoh will be contacting departments and schools on campus that currently have copiers from our three current preferred vendors (Ricoh, Gordon Flesch, and Regal) to transition them to the new campus wide contract when their current leases expire. Part of this discussion with each department and school should be how to reduce the number of desktop printers currently being used. It is significantly less expensive to print on a multifunction copier as opposed to a desktop printer.
The implementation of the entire program will likely take 1-2 years. The two primary goals for this project are:
- Standardize the copier fleet across Northwestern on one brand, which will achieve a greater economy of scale and significant ‘cost per click’ savings over the current three-vendor model
- Leverage the single-vendor relationship to implement a universal printing infrastructure across campus, with a single chargeback per page.
- Substantially improve the performance of our copier fleet to achieve sustainability goals (such as saving energy and reducing waste and consumption).
This ultimately allows us to dramatically improve the overall print landscape on campus, decrease the amount of staff time needed to manage fleets of copiers, and ultimately save the University considerable from a spend perspective.
If you have questions, please contact Sheila Watkins, Procurement Administrator, at s-watkins@northwestern.edu or 1.8125.