Admittedly, the different departments in the workplace have different functions. The same is true for employees. In managing a workplace and its properties (including printers and copiers), there are printer tips to keep in mind to help you maximize your ROI and your profits.

1. Assign or get a printer in accordance to the work description and needs of an employee.

One important tip is to observe that printers with specialized or customized uses should be used by those employees trained for those particular uses. For example, printers with engineering functions should be used by engineers or the technical team. As such, it is advisable to group employees with the same functions or work description together so that it will be easier to share a printer.

This will also allow the company to save up on printer devices or supplies. For instance, work groups that have a lot of paperwork or documentations such as the administrative department should be issued a workgroup printer while the technical team, as mentioned, should be assigned an engineering printer. In this way, the company does not have to buy several workgroup or multi-function printers or engineering printers. Some departments or employees can make do with personal printers which are cheaper.

As we’ve said, this tip will also allow your business to save up on printer supplies. For example, employees that do a lot of printing can be given ink or toner cartridges with higher page yields or capacities, compatible or remanufactured inks and toners, or be issued with printer models that use cheaper inks and toners.

2. Plan where the network or shared printer should be placed to maximize the time and productivity of the employees.

The next tip concerns the location of a network or shared printer. In most offices, a network or shared printer is located at the corner of the room or down the aisle (or hallway). This can be time-consuming and may not be entirely ergonomic for some employees. For instance, a printer should be placed near the workstation or desk of the office secretary or administrative assistant because he/she prints a lot. Employees that do not print that much may be assigned to work areas farther from the printer. In this way, the productivity and time of each and every employee is not hampered just because they have to go and fetch their printouts from time to time.

Another possible solution to this scenario is for the company to provide personal printers to employees who need to print a lot. This can be beneficial not only to the employee involved but also to the other employees. If one particular employee prints a lot, this means that the other employees may have to take some time to wait as their printing jobs are put on queue. Providing a personal printer can help hasten the flow of print jobs of the employees.

3. Do Your Homework: Check out the costs of cartridge replacements, maintenance and other components and services for the printer brand or model that you are planning to buy.

Before buying or installing a network or shared printer, it is better to investigate first on the costs of the components and other consumables associated with it. For instance, making a printer that uses expensive consumables available for everyone’s use can be a waste of money. One good example to demonstrate this is printing all-text pages or long reports on inkjet printers which costs more per page. In this case, it is more advisable to use a laserjet printer. Certain types of papers can also consumer more ink than the other types.

HP has just decided to go greener! During the Cairo ICT 2010, the printer manufacturing leader announced that they have devised and adopted a number of new environment-friendly goals. On top of these new goals is the pledge to enhance the overall energy efficiency of HP ink and laser printing products by as much as 40% next year. HP is also planning to increase the amount of recycled materials used in the production of their inkjet printers by 300% this year as compared to 2007 figures. Lastly, the printer manufacturer also intends to reach its goal of recovering 2 billion pounds of computer and printer equipment within this year.

HP’s decision to go greener is partly fueled by the company’s decision to help their customers reduce the environmental impacts of printing. HP representatives have constantly heard of customers who are looking for more energy-efficient and more environment-friendly products so the company has decided to take environmental responsibility to the next level.

As part of their efforts to produce technologies that have reduced environmental impacts, HP has released an enterprise printing assessment service and a carbon calculator and a more environmentally-sensitive policy governing paper manufacturing. The HP Carbon Footprint Calculator has been available to HP inkjet and LaserJet office printer users since May 2008. It allows users to monitor their energy consumption, paper use, and carbon output as well as the associated monetary costs of their current printing environment. As such, the HP Carbon Footprint Calculator reduces the environmental impacts of printing by instilling responsible printing in the office or at home.

Coinciding with these efforts is the launching of the new model of HP inkjet printer that is made entirely from recycled materials. HP considers the DeskJet D2545 as an important milestone. 83% of the printer’s total plastic weight is recycled material. It also uses HP 60 ink cartridges which are molded from recycled plastic resins. In addition, the company also launched the DesignJet T-Series, a new line of large-format printers that reduce carbon footprint.

If Lexmark’s recycler is able to recycle Lexmark ink and toner cartridges to pens, Epson’s recycler has found another way to recycle discarded Epson ink cartridges: turn them to lamps and chandeliers.

Shops in Durham, North Carolina are now selling lamps and chandeliers made from Epson ink cartridges. These are manufactured by LowellAndLouise and boxlightbox, both located in the area. They make use of different colors available to create ambient lighting that will suit the preferences of customers. For example, ink cartridge colors used to provide light include matte black, cyan, light cyan, magenta, light magenta, yellow, light black and very light black.

The manufacturers recycle Epson ink cartridges by scrubbing them clean of residues, drilling holes to drain the ink and putting wires inside to power it.

All lamps and chandeliers are fully functional and wired to provide ambient light. Also available are single lamps, box pendants and eight-cartridge chandeliers that can be hanged at homes or in offices.

Talking about the different “green campaign” measures of the various companies, perhaps the most common measure that they do is to go “paperless” as much as possible. However, any type of business is not very likely to go paperless since the need to secure hard copies of some documents still arises from time to time.

Now, here is a possible solution to this concern: the PrePeat. PrePeat is a new desktop printer that uses sheets made from heat-senstive PET (polyethylene). Yes, it is made from recycled plastic. PET is the polymer materials used for manufacturing plastic bottles and some plastic bags. Aside from this, PrePeat can also print, then erase and reprint on the same page over and over. Each “plastic sheet” can be reused as much as 1,000 times. This eliminates not only the need for printer cartridges but also prevents more wastes from accumulating. It also contributes to environment conservation.

The only drawback of the PrePeat is its price. Right now, each printer costs about USD 5,517.00 while the plastic sheets which is currently available in reams (1 ream = 1,000 sheets) are priced at USD 3,300.00. With these current prices, individuals and businesses will surely shy away from using PrePeat but hopefully, its Japanese manufacturer can find some alternatives that can lower its selling price. 

To give you an idea on how PrePeat works, here’s a link to the demo video.

I'm sure there are numerous references and tips on how you can contribute to green printing. However, this video is very interesting in a sense that it shows the easiest and best ways by which you can contribute to green printing (at no cost at all). Watch it now and start contributing to saving the environment.