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Print Management Program

Northwestern University is partnering with Ricoh as the single provider for multi-functional devices (MFD) to implement a Managed Print Service (MPS) across both the Evanston and Chicago campuses. The new service will be branded Northwestern Print and will provide unified print services across both campuses for faculty, staff, and students. By implementing a Managed Print Service, Northwestern will reduce costs, improve printing, and copy services across both campuses and offer a consistent, user-friendly experience for all users for faculty, staff, and students. Ricoh has been working with schools and departments for the past two years replacing equipment as leases expire in preparation for this new service. The replacement of MFDs across campus will finish up in 2024.

Northwestern Print is a comprehensive print management program across both the Evanston and Chicago campuses for the use of faculty, staff, and students. Rioch will manage hardware (multi-functional devices (MFD) and Single-functional devices (SFDs) as well as the software, repairs, maintenance, installation, consumables (excludes paper), and related management & support services for the Northwestern University print output environment.

Benefits to the Northwestern Community

A campus-wide Managed Print Service will improve print and copying services across campus. Implementing Northwestern Print will provide:

• Improved printing and copy services
• Offer a consistent, user-friendly experience for faculty, staff, and students 
• Print anywhere—release a print job at any available Northwestern Print device across campus
• Alternative print options, including email-to-print capability and mobile printing
• Touchless print job release - Tap to Print with Wildcards and mobile devices using QR codes
• Provide better reporting for schools / university around printing costs
• Improving the quality of service while reducing the costs
• Vendor support of all Ricoh Multi-functional Devices and printer hardware
• Secure printing – users must authenticate to release prints
• Secure printing reduces waste around jobs, supporting sustainability campus efforts
• Ricoh MFD cost advantage over local or networked devices in dept / schools

Project Objectives

• Provide Northwestern University with a fully centralized and optimized Managed Print Solution (MPS)
• Standardize costs and equipment across the University
• Ensure all Northwestern employees have access to print devices to meet the business needs related to printing, copying, scanning, and/or faxing
• Reduce total life-cycle costs by right-sizing our fleet of copiers and printers and identifying opportunities to reduce the number of print devices in the fleet
• Improve support and maintenance for print and copy services across both campuses for print devices based on service level agreements
• Create a centralized billing program based on a standard cost per device and a cost per page printed.
• Implement a process for university departments to acquire, install, operate, retire, and maintain multi-function devices
• Reducing the quantity of printing to lower overall costs and the environmental impact associated with excess paper usage
• Ensure data security configurations meet or exceed the minimum-security requirements set forth by the University
• Implement a process for university departments to acquire, install, operate, retire, and maintain multi-function devices

Project Status

May 2023: Work has progressed steadily over the winter and spring with Northwestern Print. Ricoh is building out the solution in the cloud and configuring PaperCut to function as how outlined in the various technical and functional planning documents. We expect to have a fully functioning Managed Print Environment by very early June. The final hurdle will be the testing phase to confirm the solution is functioning as required. This will cover all aspects of the printing, copying, scanning functions for faculty, staff, and students. It will review back-end processes and procedures necessary to maintain the services. The testing phase will provide a working environment to finalize training documentation, campus communications, and necessary support documentation.

 A great deal of other work is occurring at the same time. Ricoh continues to install new equipment across campus and to work with units when their current devices need to be replaced.  Teams are working on finalizing training documentation and options. The communications group has developed a communications plan and communications for campus. Support processes and procedures are being finalized. Ricoh is planning out how their deployment process will onboard schools and units into Northwestern Print.

We now expect that the faculty and staff from the Pritzker School of Law and the University Libraries will join Northwestern Print in late June. NU Print, the current solution for student printing at the libraries will migrate over in early July, followed by other schools, departments, and non-academic units through the rest of the summer. We expect the onboarding into Northwestern Print to continue well into the fall.

Project Timeline

The target dates on the following timeline are subject to change as the project progresses. The table shows a list of phased of the project from March 2021 through August 2023 and their status.