5 Ways Managed Print Services Help You Achieve Lean Business Goals

Lean business is a productivity model that was first developed for use in the manufacturing industries, but almost any kind of company can benefit from sticking to its principles. Making an office lean and effective requires outsourcing at least some of the more complicated and repetitive tasks that bog down the daily routine. Switching to managed print services like Des Plaines Office Equipment Company can help you implement this business method in five distinct ways.

Reduce Use Of Resources

When it comes to getting lean in the office environment rather than the manufacturing plant floor, cutting resources means tightening up the daily work flow of each employee instead of optimizing the use of raw materials. However, there are still plenty of materials wasted by mismanaged printing practices. Hiring an outsourced managed print service helps you prevent wasted

  • Paper, with reductions in both misprints and unnecessary duplication
  • Ink and toner, by adjusting the settings dynamically to balance efficiency and quality
  • Electricity, with equipment that goes on standby within a few minutes of sitting idle.

Of course, the expertise of the managed print service also helps you retrain your employees to manage their personal resources better. With the printing handled outside the office, each request is checked and approved or denied before a single sheet of paper goes through the printer.

Increase Flow By Reducing Friction

The lean business model is based around reaching an optimal state of flow so that every step runs smoothly, eliminating distractions and allowing your company to respond more seamlessly to customer demand instead of pushing products out at your own rate. Printing can create a lot of friction in an otherwise smooth running office by interrupting flow with paper jams, frozen equipment that doesn't respond, and endless printing delays due to coworkers accidentally ordering dozens of copies of a hundred-page-long report.

Track Your Failures And Successes

No matter what type of business optimization plan you prefer, it's impossible to put it to use if you aren't tracking both your success and failures on a daily basis. A managed print service includes all the use and waste tracking you need for understanding how far you are from your goals. Pick a program that can provide daily and weekly reports, not just monthly and annual summaries of your company's printing history. Integrated software reduces the time and effort used for interacting with the managed print company even further.

Save Money On Both Consumables And Maintenance

Most companies first decide to try managed printing because they find out it can save them up to 30% on overall costs. Don't forget that those savings include both the costs of materials and maintenance. Cutting expenses is always a major part of the lean business method, so it's not enough just to find ways to use less paper and ink. It's maintenance and repair costs that really inflate the waste when you do the math over the long run instead of just measuring expenses from year to year. 

Reallocate Labor Away From Chores

Finally, taking the printing responsibilities out of the office entirely redirects your valuable team members so they can focus on creating new ideas and tightening up existing processes. Printing can become a very time-consuming distraction, causing a valuable worker to waste half a day just trying to get a fresh copy of that one specific chart. Make sure each paid hour of labor produces as much value for your company as possible to stay lean and flexible.

Going lean means doing more than just creating as many new ideas as possible. By trimming away all the unnecessary extras like in-office printing, you can create a company that moves more quickly than the competition in every decision.


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