Paper Reduction in Enrollment and Student Affairs
In recent years, President Brown has challenged the University to increase its commitment to enhanced sustainability and “green” initiatives such as recycling, reduced energy consumption, and reduction in the use of paper in our offices. In response to this commitment, I have asked Director of Finance and Human Resources Administration David Backus and Associate Director for Network Systems Tony Toussaint to lead a group of ENSA managers in determining ways our unit can reduce the use of paper.
This committee includes:
- Samantha Arsenault , Financial Assistance
- Christina Coviello, Financial Assistance
- Elizabeth Frohlich, Admissions
- Debbie Macalintal, Office of the University Registrar
- Van Owens, Enrollment Services Operations
- Bethany Sheldon, Student Employment
- Margarida Silva, Office of the Vice President
- Shelley Tregor, University Service Center
The initial charge to this committee was to collect data and provide guidance regarding each department’s specific business needs, and to identify new office equipment that will encourage non-paper-based communication and recordkeeping. We currently have 56 printers, 15 fax machines, and 6 photocopiers deployed within the 7 departments of Enrollment and Student Affairs, and consume over one million sheets of paper a year. (This total does not include high volume communications, such as our recruitment mailings to prospective students, but rather just the paper we generate each day to communicate information among offices and to document essential business information.) It is our goal over the next year or so to significantly reduce the total number of machines involved in printing, copying, faxing, and scanning in ENSA offices, as well as the volume of paper we use.
To this end, the paper reduction committee proposed the following initiatives:
- New high capacity, eco-friendly Ricoh Multifunction Printers (or “MFPs”) will be installed in each of the unit’s seven departments to provide immediate access to improved fax, printer, scanner, and photocopier functionality. These MFPs will replace the old Canon photocopiers. These new machines will be installed in your department soon, or may have already arrived.
- The new MFPs will be installed gradually over the course of the next few weeks. Those departments that currently have the most pressing and immediate business needs will be addressed as soon as possible.
- An analysis will be conducted within each department to determine existing printing needs, as well as where printing can be consolidated and redirected to the new MFPs. If necessary, we may run parallel processes using both old and new equipment until it is clearly demonstrated that the new equipment is preferable. When the new MFP arrives in your department, all existing printers and faxes will remain in place until it is clearly established, in consultation with the department staff, that a piece of equipment can be removed without compromising or disrupting any of the office’s essential business operations.
- Training and instructional references will be made available to all employees on the scanning, printing, copying, and faxing functionality of the new MFPs. In addition, we will also be exploring opportunities to provide instructions on ways to effectively replace paper-based recordkeeping and filing with electronic documents that will be more secure, easier to find, and easier to share with co-workers.
Here are some of the key features and advantages that will come with the new MFP devices:
- Secure Authentication – In order to access any of its features, users will need to first log into the MFP by either swiping their existing BU ID card or by entering their network username and password on the keypad.
- Secure Printing – Print jobs sent to MFPs will be held in a secure print server queue and will not be released until users are physically at the printer, have authenticated by swiping their BU ID or entering their username and password, and have selected the jobs they want to print. This not only reduces waste by eliminating unclaimed/unwanted printing, but also provides increased security, confidentiality and compliance. Nothing will print until the employee who requested the work on their desktop PC arrives at the MFP and swipes their card or enters their password. However, print jobs submitted using UIS mainframe functions and print queues will instead print directly to the MFP output tray. This is the only exception.
- Users will be able to access and print their jobs from any of the seven new MFPs located throughout the ENSA unit at 881 Comm. Ave. Consequently, if the MFP in your department is being used by others or is out of service, you will have at least six alternative options for printing your output. You will only need to swipe your BU ID card or enter your network username and password to print whatever jobs you sent to your print queue from your desktop PC.
- New black-and-white MFPs will replace the old photocopiers on floors 2, 5, and 6, and serve as the primary departmental printers for the Registrar, Financial Assistance, and Admissions. Color copying in those three departments will be directed to existing stand-alone color printers. New color-enabled MFPs will be installed in the other four ENSA departments: Enrollment Services Operations, Student Employment, the University Service Center, and the Office of the Vice President. All seven new MFPs are available for use by all ENSA employees. They will be located as follows: Floor 6—ADM; Floor 5—OFA & OVP; Floor 2—ESO, OUR, & SEO; and Basement—USC.
- All MFPs will allow B&W and color scanning to PDF, TIFF, JPEG file formats; will allow scanning of documents to an e-mail account or network folder for archiving; can convert paper documents to popular formats, such as a searchable PDF, or to a Word or Excel document that can then be edited at your desktop; and will be able to convert incoming faxes to PDF/TIFF and route them to an Exchange mailbox.
- All MFPs will allow automatic duplex scanning and printing capability.
A similar analysis will be conducted regarding the use of fax machines. Whenever possible, incoming faxes will be redirected to the new MFPs. This will allow us to remove older fax machines that are no longer needed, are not energy efficient, or provide limited functionality; reduce toner and maintenance costs; and free up office space occupied by multiple machines (printers, faxes, copiers) whose operations will now be consolidated in the multi-function MFPs.
Over the course of the next year or so, we will be encouraging new paper usage practices with the aim of eventually reducing paper consumption by at least 40%. This will be accomplished by:
- All employees making a conscious decision to print less paper whenever possible. Employees will be asked to re-educate themselves to only print something when there is a specific business need that makes a paper copy preferable to an electronic document.
- Consolidating as much printing as possible to the new MFPs, rather than to older, less efficient printers.
- Printing duplex (double-sided) whenever there is not a specific need for a single-sided document. (The new MFPs will be set to default to duplex and black and white printing, but can be changed at your desktop PC to allow single-sided or color printing when necessary.)
- Having incoming faxes routed to an Exchange mailbox as a PDF/TIFF attachment instead of printing them.
- Providing software and hardware that will enable employees to easily and quickly scan paper documents, converting them to electronic files for archiving, sharing in folders, or sending as an e-mail attachment. This includes installing Acrobat X Professional on all computers to facilitate the conversion of information (including e-mails) to PDF format, the exporting of PDFs to Word or Excel documents, the creation of interactive PDF forms, and the enhancement or annotation of existing PDF files.
- Exploring opportunities to convert internal, paper-based business processes to electronic ones. The Office of the Vice President is committed to examining all internal financial, human resource and payroll policies and procedures in conjunction with the ongoing implementation of the BUworks/SAP system, and will strive to replace ENSA paper-based approvals and processes with electronic alternatives whenever possible.
- OVP will also research and disseminate the required record retention policies for various types of business documents, and encourage ENSA departments to digitize, purge or archive paper documents which do not need to be housed in the office in paper file cabinets.
The success of our paper reduction efforts will depend on all Enrollment and Student Affairs employees learning and practicing new ways of handling their daily work. Thank you in advance for your willingness and commitment to performing your work in ways that will help us conserve resources, eliminate waste, and improve the efficiency of our business communications and retention of essential records.