With 170 employees serving over 57,000 members, there’s a substantial amount of paper flowing throughout East Central Energy’s (ECE) offices in a given day. ECE had a mix of about 80 different copy, fax, scan, and print devices scattered throughout their seven service centers.

Some of ECE’s equipment was over nine years old and becoming costly to maintain. In addition, they had to keep track of multiple vendors, spending much time administering invoices and contracts for their various copier, printer, and fax supplies.

Linda LaTourelle, Information Technology Manager, and Kris Pearson, IT Supervisor for ECE, were faced with the challenge of tracking and managing their document environment and making it as efficient as possible. Linda explained, “At ECE we have several service centers in multiple locations. It was hard for us to determine what the need was.”

Ben Drewes, Marco Technology Advisor, proposed using a productivity planning process to help ECE control and manage their organization’s document environment. The plan – called iLink – is a four-step process that helps ECE assess, plan, measure, and manage their imaging and output environment. The process began in April 2005.

Linda said, “Marco came in and did an extensive study of what we were spending on our current copiers, printers, and facsimiles. We were surprised to see how many different kinds of machines we had and what some of the devices were costing us.”

Marco’s iLink process included taking an inventory of all of ECE’s devices and determining the age of the technology, number of unique devices, and the percentage of devices that were networked. This allowed Marco to identify the number of unique devices, supply items, and vendors ECE was using.

Marco also worked with ECE to determine how much copying/printing they were outsourcing.

The next step was to find out how ECE’s employees were currently using their devices and what needs they had to make them more efficient. According to Linda, “Marco provided the legwork in finding out what our employees needed. They interviewed employees in each area, gathered the information, and then put it into a spreadsheet of data that was real easy to understand. Once that was completed, they provided us with a solution for each area based on the data gathered.”

Marco provided ECE with a detailed Document Productivity Analysis including a facility plan outlining where all of their current devices were located. Upon reviewing the report with ECE, Marco then provided recommendations to streamline some of their various copiers, printers, faxes, and scanners into multifunction devices to give ECE’s employees added capabilities.

In October 2005, Marco implemented a total print management solution for ECE which included a mix of 33 new HP, Sharp, and Konica multifunction devices, personal printers, and color units. The implementation allowed Marco to reduce ECE’s output devices from 80 to 50, going from 43 unique products to only 12 unique products. Marco also redeployed some of ECE’s existing fleet (18 units). The solution has resulted in a savings of $22,764 over the course of five years.

The savings include reduced costs for invoice processing, reduced internal administration hours in managing devices, and increased user productivity. The average age of ECE’s equipment went from 4.96 years to 1.18 years, which means less maintenance and service issues. In addition, ECE went from having 72.5% of their devices networked to 98% networked. With the new devices, ECE was also able to bring some of their print jobs in-house, reducing their costs for outsourced printing.

Kris commented, “We have a lot less inventory and need for storage space for supply items. And the units are very easy to use.”

“We have a lot of capabilities that we did not have before,” said Linda. “Not only did we save printing costs, but our employees are excited about some of the features they didn’t have before – like stapling, three hole punching, scanning, and two-sided copying. Employees really like that!”

Marco’s iLink process is also a tool for ECE to continually measure and manage their document environment. Marco’s technology advisors conduct a yearly review to determine how ECE’s business has changed and to make sure they have the software and equipment they need to continually improve their processes and increase efficiency.

“If you’re looking to manage your printing, scanning, and faxing costs, I feel Marco is the best choice,” said Linda. “They came in and really took care of providing what we needed. They make it simple for you.”