Imaging Equipment (copiers, printers, faxes)

With so many different kinds of devices that make images on paper—printers, copiers, fax machines, multi-function devices—it is simpler to refer to them all as "imaging" equipment.

Try to locate the operating manuals for these models, as they may have information useful to you later on.  Each machine has a rated 'capacity', which is the maximum number of images the manufacturer recommends that it make per month.  Most office equipment is used at rates well below its capacity, often 15% of it. So, even if a copier is rated at 50,000 images per month, it probably makes closer to 10,000.  There are probably a few pieces of equipment that are hardly used; make life simpler and don't bother with counting their paper use, unless they are particularly expensive to operate (such as some color printers or copiers).

Along with capacity, it is useful to know the rated imaging speed.  Machines don't necessarily run at the rated speed, either ever, or under ordinary use, but speed is a good way to categorize machines.

What to Count?

It can be unclear just what to include in your estimates of paper use costs.  Some costs are easy, such as the cost of purchasing paper.  On the other hand, what about the time for an employee to go add money to the postage meter?

If a copier is leased and is paid for on a per-copy-made basis, then it is quite reasonable to include the entire copier cost in your estimates.  For a printer, you could include the cost of buying the printer, the toner cartridges, the networking hardware? the computer? This can get quickly out of hand.  The point of analyzing paper use is to see costs that you might save.  Thus, you can assume that you will have a printer regardless, but you might use it less, and so it might last longer.

For example, toner cartridges cost 2 cents/image.  We'll assume 3 cents/image to account for wear and tear on the printer.

 

Imaging Device Survey  COPIERS  Clever Inc. leases four copiers, paying 2.5 cents per copy, which includes servicing, toner, etc. Last year the copiers were used at the following rates.  Speed is in copies per minute.  The annual images made come from the bills from the leasing company.  The monthly capacity is the maximum amount of imaging that the manufacturer suggests you use your equipment.  The % of Capacity is the portion of the potential capacity that is actually used. Clever Inc., In-house Copiers   Monthly Capacity Monthly Images % of Capacity Annual Images 50 cpm 70,000 10,000 15% 120,000 50 cpm 70,000 20,000 30% 240,000 30 cpm 30,000 10,000 33% 120,000 10 cpm 10,000 1,000 10% 12,000 Total 180,000 41,000 23% 492,000 Clever Inc., All Copying   Annual Images Duplex Rate Annual Sheets Annual Imaging Costs Regular Copiers         50 cpm 120,000 18% 109,200 $3,000 50 cpm 240,000 18% 218,400 $6,000 30 cpm 120,000 10% 114,000 $3,000 10 cpm 24,000 0% 12,000 $300 Subtotal 492,000 16% 453,600 $12,300           Copy Shop         Regular Copies 180,000 40% 144,000 $9,000 Color Copies 2,000 0% 2,000 $2,000 Architectural Drawings 10,000 0% 10,000 $2,500 Subtotal 192,000 38% 156,000 $13,500 Total 684,000 22% 609,600 25,800   The architectural drawings are large format copies and so require special copiers.  Each drawing is the equivalent of 10 to 30 regular copies.  This table shows regular copy equivalents.       COMPUTER PRINTERS  The computer printers at Clever, Inc. are mostly laser printers, and most are shared by at least a few people. We’ve grouped them by speed category.  One of the high speed printers has a duplexing unit with a 50% duplexing rate, so its paper use is reduced by 25%, or from 96,000 to 72,000 sheets per year.  All annual paper use is 322,800 sheets, rather than the 346,800 images.   Speed Number of printers Monthly Images/ printer Annual Images/ Printer Annual Images Total High 2 8,000 96,000 192,000 Medium 4 2,500 30,000 120,000 Low 12 200 2,400 28,800 InkJet 4 125 1,500 6,000 Total 22     346,800 Speed definitions are from the Energy Star program: Low is less than 7 ppm; Medium is 8-14 ppm; and High is greater than 14 ppm.  Two of the inkjet printers are color.  The low speed laser printers and the inkjet printers are used by one person each.     FAX MACHINES  Clever Inc. has 4 fax machines and 2 fax modems.  The fax phone bill is $4,000/year.  From a sampling of fax machine activity reports, the phone cost is typically 10 cents per sheet, so the estimate is 40,000 sheets per year.    Imaging Summary   Clever Inc., Imaging, Paper use, and Cost   Images Sheets Paper Cost Total Cost Copiers 492,000 453,600 $2,270 $12,300 Printers 345,800 322,800 $1,680 $12,080 Faxes 40,000 40,000 $200 $5,400 Copying Out 192,000 156,000 $780 $13,500 TOTAL 1,070,800 972,400 $4,930 $43,280

 

One consulting company estimated (derived from BIS, 1995) that in 1998, copiers would use 2.4 million tons of paper, printers 1.9 million tons, and Multi-Function Devices 0.4 million tons, for a total of 4.8 million tons/year.  They estimate that 0.5 million tons per year is used for other purposes.
 

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