Smart Government at Work - Orange County, CA

Smart governments understand that AXIAR Green, Paper Saving Software, saves money and reduces resource use without sacrificing services. California's Orange County Department of Education is one such smart government.

Is your government smart enough to use AXIAR Green, Paper Saving Software? Send your representatives this story and give them a chance to be part of the smart government community.

OCDE highlights (full Press Release below):

- Automatically generating and routing digital documents (PDFs) with Paper Saving Software, which eliminates hundreds of thousands of pages of printed output and the costs associated with printing, distributing, storing and disposing of paper
- Eliminating dedicated and costly printer-resident forms hardware (DIMMs)with Paper Saving Software
- Managing a fleet of over 1,000 printers using AXIAR's intelligent print management capabilities, which enables IT personnel to troubleshoot print problems and dynamically deploy printer assets based on variable printing needs


PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

CONTACT: Mr. Andrew Wellman (203) 966-0661 awellman@LBMsys.com

Smart Government at Work

NEW CANAAN, Connecticut (September 20, 2010) - In an initiative to reduce costs, reduce waste and improve efficiency, the Orange County Department of Education (OCDE) in California selected AXIAR software from LBM Systems to address outdated and inefficient printer- and paper-based business processes. Using AXIAR saves OCDE money by reducing toner, paper and printer costs and delivers green/sustainable benefits by reducing the amount of paper consumed.

OCDE's IT Mission Statement states: "Leverage technology to simplify, enhance, and provide innovative business and educational solutions. Our commitment is to provide creative and collaborative ideas by implementing and incorporating technology with our customers." The entire OCDE IT team is to be commended for effectively assessing their business practices and for their cost-saving efforts without sacrificing services. OCDE uses AXIAR to simplify, enhance and deliver innovative business solutions to save money and improve the 'business' of educating Orange County students. Several capabilities of AXIAR are used to benefit the OCDE and improve print processes:

Eliminating device-resident printing bottlenecks (DIMMs): prior to AXIAR, digital forms were stored on hardware-installed DIMMs on individual printers which led to costly replacements and time delays when DIMMs and/or printers broke. With AXIAR, forms are stored on network servers and any printer on the network can be used without special hardware requirements. This eliminates the cost of DIMMs and enables the OCDE to flexibly deploy printing assets based on printing needs. By eliminating the need for DIMMs on over 120 printers, OCDE avoids the need to purchase DIMMs.

Automatically converting documents to PDF: OCDE uses LBM software to automatically convert large print jobs to PDF for digital transmission and storage. Since the conversions occur on servers rather than desktops, the need to license and maintain individual PDF conversion tools is eliminated. The output created is fully keyword-searchable, so the time spent manually scanning documents for information is eliminated. By converting 900,000 pages of output per year to PDF rather than printing immediately (900,000 pages equals 1,800 reams of paper, or over 8,000 pounds of paper), OCDE is generating significant cost-savings by reducing toner and paper consumption - about $15,000 in paper/toner savings in report use alone. The green benefits of reduced paper/printer use include energy savings (fewer printers running), shipping reduction (fossil fuels used in delivery reduced), fewer packaging materials consumed (used to ship paper and toner supplies), heat/humidity controlled storage (paper must be kept in appropriate conditions to avoid spoilage) and recycling/disposal costs (fossil fuels used to cart recycled/disposed paper).

Digitally distributing documents: After converting batch documents to PDF, the output can be routed digitally with AXIAR. This eliminates the cost of collecting, mailing and/or internally delivering paper output, which saves money while accelerating the flow of information. By routing the 900,000 PDF pages of output digitally rather than distributing paper-based documents, OCDE is saving transportation, mailing and distribution costs every year. This adds up to annual savings in consumable costs alone, plus the additional benefits of faster information delivery, fewer print jobs misplaced/lost and no need to recycle, shred or throw out boxes of used paper.

Ensuring print job delivery: Finally, for jobs that do require printing, AXIAR's advanced print queue management features enable ensured delivery of print jobs. This eliminates "lost" print jobs and redundant printing, saving OCDE personnel time (IT staff no longer has to troubleshoot lost print jobs) and money (redundant printing that occurs upon print errors is reduced/eliminated). Across the OCDE's network of over 1,000 printers, eliminating lost/redundant printing saves thousands of pieces of paper from going to waste, reduces wasted toner use and frees up valuable IT personnel from costly print-job troubleshooting.

Taxpayers, students and OCDE employees all benefit from their efforts to minimize spending while providing top quality education - just another example of smart government at work.

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