Learning About Business Opportunities

Posted on: 4 October 2016

While providing sufficient tools and resources in the office is crucial to ensuring optimal productivity, it's also crucial that your workplace takes appropriate steps to limit the amount of paper waste that they generate on a regular basis. Some employees are trigger happy when it comes to printing off documents, and this has resulted in the average office worker using 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year. Limiting paper waste can be difficult; however, these 3 copier features have been found to be rather effective in keeping overall paper usage at an all-time low.

Tracking System to Identify Usage by Person

Put signs all over the office encouraging employees to think twice before sending documents over to the copier. Even still, it's difficult to determine whether all employees are following your instructions unless you purchase a copier that can track the amount of documents that are printed by each employee. The software will allow for each employee's computer to log into their system individually. This software will keep a log and record of whenever an employee sends a document to be printed by the copier. The record should include information like the document's name, the amount of pages printed, the time when the document was printed and more.

Having a tracking system installed comes in handy. You can monitor overall copier usage by employee to determine if anyone is abusing their printing privileges. If the software has determined that a certain employee seems to be printing more documents than others, you can easily check to see whether all printing jobs were justified.

Automatic Duplexer for Printing on Both Sides of the Paper

Printing documents on both sides of the paper instead of only one side can significantly reduce the amount of paper that is used by your office. Only copiers with automatic duplexers are capable of providing this service. Employees can still choose to print documents on only one side of the paper when necessary if they manually switch the printing settings from the automatic duplexer to simplex printing.

Keep in mind that printing documents on both sides of the paper will take longer than if they were only being printed on one side of the paper. This is because the copier will need time to flip each piece of paper. In addition, you also won't be able to cheap out on the quality of the copypaper you purchase, as low quality paper will be more susceptible to ink leakages.

Software that Shrink Document Size on Paper

On top of making use of both sides of the paper, you should also look for copiers that come with software capable of shrinking document sizes on the paper, so that you can simply fit more on each page. For example, if your employees are printing out a presentation, fitting several slides on one page may not interfere with overall readability in comparison to printing each slide on a new page.

Confirm that the software can shrink the document without compromising the quality of the resolution of the final printed product. Employees should be able to view how the final print job will look like on their computer screen to determine whether they'll be happy with the results and to determine whether they wish to proceed. Keep in mind that not all documents can be shrunk successfully.

The type of copiers that you choose for your office can greatly influence total paper usage each year. Reducing paper waste is not only beneficial for the planet, but can also reduce your business' overall expenses and can prevent your waste bins from overflowing with paper waste. Learn more about your options by contacting companies like Lafayette Business Machines Inc.