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purpleblob
Guest
As a hobby only. I don't want to end up in situation where I start to hate my hobby as well
Your profession ?
- Thread starter Pladio
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As a hobby only. I don't want to end up in situation where I start to hate my hobby as well
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NewDArt
Guest
Large companies tend to employ other suppliers to do that work for them. It's usually called Managed Print Services who then put all of the "fancy" toys onto the system to ensure it works properly. Nuance's Safecom is one type of software that allows for print management and is one of the largest. Sometimes other companies such as Canon or HP would use their printers with Safecom.
https://www.nuance.com/print-capture-and-pdf-solutions/print-management-solutions/safecom.html
This usually helps in the management of paper and ink costs, which in turn ends up reducing power costs as well.
At my company now, they have reduced their printer estate by over 20%, same for paper and ink over the last 3 years.
Interesting thing about Procurement, is that I tend to work in a wide range of areas, including print management
I would certainly not consider myself an expert, but I'm sure I could hold my own in your team
Oh, we've looked into Safecom as a potential supplement - so I'm aware of that one.
Cloud printing has been the "hot thing" in print management for a number of years - and our solution is called "Papercut".
We've had a large variety of offers to "replace" our current way of managing printers. None of them have really been able to match our current system or live up to our demands.
Much of it is built by ourselves - primarily by myself and another colleague who essentially built our group, our administration software and procedures together. We're ~3 people who adminster around 3000 printers.
Our organisation is the result of an IT consolidation that happened around 9-10 years ago - where the powers that be decided to gather all IT workers in Copenhagen in one place in an effort to centralise the effort and save money.
Around half the workforce decided to quit at that point, so a ton of new people were hired in an effort to meet the demands of the ~40K users we support.
Since no one wanted to touch print management - and very few had any experience in the field - my colleague decided to take the initiative to get a hold on printers, and I just started working here when he requested some help.
I was offered the opportunity and said "what the hell" and I've been here ever since
lostforever
SasqWatch
I recently finished 10 years at a financial institution as a C++ programmer. We build common software interface through which people can access various stock exchanges around the world. You can get prices or even trade. I like the technical side of my job but I don't enjoying managing people.
Given that its 10 years, I am starting to think about moving to a different company but I have a 2 year old daughter and my wife doesn't want me to spend lot of time traveling so my options are very limited.
Given that its 10 years, I am starting to think about moving to a different company but I have a 2 year old daughter and my wife doesn't want me to spend lot of time traveling so my options are very limited.
Oh, we've looked into Safecom as a potential supplement - so I'm aware of that one.
Cloud printing has been the "hot thing" in print management for a number of years - and our solution is called "Papercut".
We've had a large variety of offers to "replace" our current way of managing printers. None of them have really been able to match our current system or live up to our demands.
Much of it is built by ourselves - primarily by myself and another colleague who essentially built our group, our administration software and procedures together. We're ~3 people who adminster around 3000 printers.
Our organisation is the result of an IT consolidation that happened around 9-10 years ago - where the powers that be decided to gather all IT workers in Copenhagen in one place in an effort to centralise the effort and save money.
Around half the workforce decided to quit at that point, so a ton of new people were hired in an effort to meet the demands of the ~40K users we support.
Since no one wanted to touch print management - and very few had any experience in the field - my colleague decided to take the initiative to get a hold on printers, and I just started working here when he requested some help.
I was offered the opportunity and said "what the hell" and I've been here ever since
How do you handle toner replacements and break/fix as well as provisioning of new devices ?
Also what's cloud printing ?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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NewDArt
Guest
Well, in most municipalities in Denmark, the individual management sections (health, social services, financial section, etc.) are bound by agreements called "SKI" agreements. These agreements are essentially enforced at the government level and arranged between a supplier that can match demands at the lowest cost - and the corresponding municipality. Copenhagen in this case.
For instance, right now, the holder of this SKI agreement for printers in Copenhagen is Konica Minolta.
I've helped work out this agreement for printers (well, technically it's both printers and MFPs) and it includes a large variety of demands and prequisites that the supplier must meet. One of them is toner replacement - which happens automatically based on software provided by Konica. They monitor all the printers that have been sold to the sections of the municipality for toner status and then new toner supplies are sent when needed with no user involvement.
Same goes for replacements if such is needed and justified. Usually, the user in whatever section registers an incident with our organisation (called Koncern IT) and since it's printer-related, I'm usually the guy who decides how to deal with it - as I'm incident manager in our group. If I establish that it's a physical issue - then I tell the user to directly contact Konica Minolta - and they're bound by the agreement to fix the issue within a given amount of time.
The financial aspect is very complicated and I won't get into that here
Could printing is essentially about giving the user the option to release their print jobs at any given printer in their vicinity. The jobs are stored on a server and held until the user decides to release them at their convenience.
It means they don't have to bother having a specific printer installed - and they don't have to wait in line while others are printing, because they can just go to another printer and release their jobs. Obviously, this also means there's added security - because the jobs aren't being released until the user is actually present - and as such, no one else will see what's being printed.
Futhermore, there's a lot of potential statistics possible - because the server will log all kinds of usage - and we could potentially use that information every which way to optimise and reduce cost.
The "big boys" do love their statistics, but again, printers are largely an unknown entity and no one really knows enough to use the information wisely. We do have an occasional suit try and do something clever - and they rarely listen to us. That's not how it works in municipalities, unfortunately.
The issue with municipalities is that people are rarely held accountable - as it's an incredibly complicated structure with way, way too many of the wrong people in the wrong places. The people with aspirations of greatness are rarely anything like great - because if they were, they would be working in the private sector where such things are rewarded.
So, around here, it's really about who cares more about getting a little feather in their cap. We have a lot of people taking all the credit for our work - but I honestly don't give two shits about getting credit.
My only concern around here is to optimise and increase our efficiency. I'm extremely good at that, and as long as the result is less work - or smarter work - then I'm ok with it.
If people want the "glory" they can go right ahead - I really have no investment whatsoever. Mostly because I would still consider the honor a complete joke even if I revolutionised the entire municipality. Again, because I think our entire societal structure is a joke. It would be like putting a nice suit on a giant turd.
Not really my thing
Well, in most municipalities in Denmark, the individual management sections (health, social services, financial section, etc.) are bound by agreements called "SKI" agreements. These agreements are essentially enforced at the government level and arranged between a supplier that can match demands at the lowest cost - and the corresponding municipality. Copenhagen in this case.
For instance, right now, the holder of this SKI agreement for printers in Copenhagen is Konica Minolta.
I've helped work out this agreement for printers (well, technically it's both printers and MFPs) and it includes a large variety of demands and prequisites that the supplier must meet. One of them is toner replacement - which happens automatically based on software provided by Konica. They monitor all the printers that have been sold to the sections of the municipality for toner status and then new toner supplies are sent when needed with no user involvement.
Same goes for replacements if such is needed and justified. Usually, the user in whatever section registers an incident with our organisation (called Koncern IT) and since it's printer-related, I'm usually the guy who decides how to deal with it - as I'm incident manager in our group. If I establish that it's a physical issue - then I tell the user to directly contact Konica Minolta - and they're bound by the agreement to fix the issue within a given amount of time.
The financial aspect is very complicated and I won't get into that here
Could printing is essentially about giving the user the option to release their print jobs at any given printer in their vicinity. The jobs are stored on a server and held until the user decides to release them at their convenience.
It means they don't have to bother having a specific printer installed - and they don't have to wait in line while others are printing, because they can just go to another printer and release their jobs. Obviously, this also means there's added security - because the jobs aren't being released until the user is actually present - and as such, no one else will see what's being printed.
Futhermore, there's a lot of potential statistics possible - because the server will log all kinds of usage - and we could potentially use that information every which way to optimise and reduce cost.
The "big boys" do love their statistics, but again, printers are largely an unknown entity and no one really knows enough to use the information wisely. We do have an occasional suit try and do something clever - and they rarely listen to us. That's not how it works in municipalities, unfortunately.
The issue with municipalities is that people are rarely held accountable - as it's an incredibly complicated structure with way, way too many of the wrong people in the wrong places. The people with aspirations of greatness are rarely anything like great - because if they were, they would be working in the private sector where such things are rewarded.
So, around here, it's really about who cares more about getting a little feather in their cap. We have a lot of people taking all the credit for our work - but I honestly don't give two shits about getting credit.
My only concern around here is to optimise and increase our efficiency. I'm extremely good at that, and as long as the result is less work - or smarter work - then I'm ok with it.
If people want the "glory" they can go right ahead - I really have no investment whatsoever. Mostly because I would still consider the honor a complete joke even if I revolutionised the entire municipality. Again, because I think our entire societal structure is a joke. It would be like putting a nice suit on a giant turd.
Not really my thing
The toner replacement is an expensive part of our contract as it ties to other elements which means they basically need to keep people on site.
Our company, as a bank, can't let random people into the offices to play around with our devices. Too many security issues.
We're trying to find ways for the people to potentially replace toners themselves but it's a hard sell
.I understand what you mean by cloud computing now. Didn't realise that was the term used for it.
We call it pull printing. Yeah the statistics are very useful in terms of reducing the number of printer required. Each printer which is under-utilised is reviewed to see if they can be removed.
The cloud printing also ensures we have policies in place to reduce number of pages printed and avoid colour printing through group printing policies which automatically put all pages on 2-to-1 format ...
Our main issues now is access to individual data to find out how the people are who are printing everything they can and in colour
It's quite interesting, but it's only one of my projects so I don't do all of that myself.
If you want to discuss ways to increase efficiencies let me know.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Software dev myself here, too.
I envy Thrasher: I'd love to work at JPL or NASA, and be a part of the exploration of our solar system.
I envy Thrasher: I'd love to work at JPL or NASA, and be a part of the exploration of our solar system.
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NewDArt
Guest
The toner replacement is an expensive part of our contract as it ties to other elements which means they basically need to keep people on site.
Our company, as a bank, can't let random people into the offices to play around with our devices. Too many security issues.
We're trying to find ways for the people to potentially replace toners themselves but it's a hard sell.
I understand what you mean by cloud computing now. Didn't realise that was the term used for it.
We call it pull printing. Yeah the statistics are very useful in terms of reducing the number of printer required. Each printer which is under-utilised is reviewed to see if they can be removed.
The cloud printing also ensures we have policies in place to reduce number of pages printed and avoid colour printing through group printing policies which automatically put all pages on 2-to-1 format …
Our main issues now is access to individual data to find out how the people are who are printing everything they can and in colour
It's quite interesting, but it's only one of my projects so I don't do all of that myself.
If you want to discuss ways to increase efficiencies let me know.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The individual users are responsible for the actual replacement once the toner arrives.
Obviously, leaders and "important people" get others to replace the toners, even if it's usually incredibly easy and takes about 2 minutes
Nah, I already have many, many ways I could increase efficiency - but, again, the issue is that I don't hold the power to make these changes.
All I can do is suggest them and argue why it's a good idea. My boss usually listens to me - but he has no power either.
Again, it's an incredibly complicated structure that's ENTIRELY different from the average company in the private sector. It's a gigantic wall of red tape and greasing the right hands you have to go through to make anything happen - and once you DO make something happen - there's no reward beyond the tiny hope that your ideas actually get executed correctly, which they almost never do
But I've had a few successful projects. I designed our "printer access and information" homepage - which is actually pretty cool. I know a lot of people are happy with that one. I also designed our label and identification system - which has saved us a lot of resources.
Of course, no one in power knows who I am or cares - unless they happen to take part in a meeting where I'm present, as I'm hard to miss in that particular setting
Thankfully, I'm not motivated by money or power - and I'm pretty much the anti-company man - so I'm pretty good just knowing that I did a little something to make life easier for people working in the public sector.
We have multiple terms for it, too - including pull, follow-me, follow-you and cloud printing. There are others, but I forget
The individual users are responsible for the actual replacement once the toner arrives.
Obviously, leaders and "important people" get others to replace the toners, even if it's usually incredibly easy and takes about 2 minutes
Nah, I already have many, many ways I could increase efficiency - but, again, the issue is that I don't hold the power to make these changes.
All I can do is suggest them and argue why it's a good idea. My boss usually listens to me - but he has no power either.
Again, it's an incredibly complicated structure that's ENTIRELY different from the average company in the private sector. It's a gigantic wall of red tape and greasing the right hands you have to go through to make anything happen - and once you DO make something happen - there's no reward beyond the tiny hope that your ideas actually get executed correctly, which they almost never do
But I've had a few successful projects. I designed our "printer access and information" homepage - which is actually pretty cool. I know a lot of people are happy with that one. I also designed our label and identification system - which has saved us a lot of resources.
Of course, no one in power knows who I am or cares - unless they happen to take part in a meeting where I'm present, as I'm hard to miss in that particular setting
Thankfully, I'm not motivated by money or power - and I'm pretty much the anti-company man - so I'm pretty good just knowing that I did a little something to make life easier for people working in the public sector.
We have multiple terms for it, too - including pull, follow-me, follow-you and cloud printing. There are others, but I forget
It may be different in small companies, but making actual changes in a bank takes ages too. At least one of this size. I have been discussing some minor changes for 3 months now and I still haven't even been able to agree with my immediate stakeholders. After that I need to speak to at least ten people to agree on this who will not want to take any responsibility, who will delegate and then disagree with their delegates....
This is how it works until someone from the top forces their hand.
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NewDArt
Guest
Hehe, well, ok - that does sound somewhat similar
Though, in my case - it's usually not about people not wanting to take responsibility.
The challenge, truly, is getting people to listen, understand and actually care.
Of course, I could be doing more to convince them - but I have absolutely no feeling of responsibility in this area. I don't feel the slightest obligation.
My only motivation is being lazy, really. I want to make things better, easier and more efficient - because it means less work for me and others.
Ironically, we're usually punished for that.
For instance, it was not uncommon during the beginning stages of our group to have ~50 incidents each per day per person. We didn't even have time to read them - because the workload was massive.
These days, I guess we average around 5 incidents per day. Almost all of that is a direct result of our efforts to optimise our process and tools.
The reward? Bosses and other groups bitching endlessly about how we're not doing enough work compared to other groups
Hehe, well, ok - that does sound somewhat similar
Though, in my case - it's usually not about people not wanting to take responsibility.
The challenge, truly, is getting people to listen, understand and actually care.
Of course, I could be doing more to convince them - but I have absolutely no feeling of responsibility in this area. I don't feel the slightest obligation.
My only motivation is being lazy, really. I want to make things better, easier and more efficient - because it means less work for me and others.
Ironically, we're usually punished for that.
For instance, it was not uncommon during the beginning stages of our group to have ~50 incidents each per day per person. We didn't even have time to read them - because the workload was massive.
These days, I guess we average around 5 incidents per day. Almost all of that is a direct result of our efforts to optimise our process and tools.
The reward? Bosses and other groups bitching endlessly about how we're not doing enough work compared to other groups
Break a few printer remotely
lostforever
SasqWatch
I live in Cambridge UK. Most of the financial institutions are in Central London which mean 1.5 to 2 hour commute each direction so not really an option.
Hmmmm, that's annoying.
Would you be interested in working remotely full-time ?
I know some people who do it, but I don't think I could.
lostforever
SasqWatch
Yes I don't mind working remotely but I don't think there are many job in UK which will allow this.
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NewDArt
Guest
Break a few printer remotely
I could just stop the print spooler on a server or two - if I really wanted some easy incidents
Bosses wouldn't have a clue, haha.
CelticFrost
SasqWatch
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Thrasher
Wheeee!
Aww. Don't be envious, I'll try to share the latest news on the science thread. Or better, follow/friend me on facebook (https://www.facebook.com/matthew.bennett.91604) where I post tons of NASA related news most everyday.
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pibbur who
Guest
Hmm. You've given me one good reason to create a FB account.
pibbur who now has to decide if one reason is enough
pibbur who now has to decide if one reason is enough