Print Optimization Services > Print Environments We Serve

One of Pharos Systems' guiding principles is that a print management and optimization strategy must integrate cost and process controls across all environments where print happens — because print in one environment affects print in another. Consequently, we look at student printing, faculty and staff printing, centralized production printing, and externally-sourced printing. Our recommendations will be unbiased because we do not make or sell printing equipment or supplies, nor do we provide break-fix service. In recognition of the fact that print environments are rarely completely homogeneous, Pharos has always been vendor-neutral and multi-vendor in terms of how we operate (and that includes our technology).

We follow a dual path to optimization: sourcing excellence to achieve the lowest prices and process excellence to achieve the lowest costs. Our On-Site Print Specialists manage RFP processes, spearhead the migration to digital workflows, manage vendor performance against service level agreements, and continuously identify new opportunities to save money, print less, and print greener.

Student Printing
Many educational institutions offer students free printing and copying. This is typically associated with steep increases in volume and costs year over year, overflowing recycling bins, and mountains of unclaimed printouts.

Pharos software solutions help address these issues by giving institutions the capability to charge students for print jobs (Pharos Uniprint®) and copy jobs (Pharos Off-The-Glass®) via their campus cards. Even charging students very nominal amounts beyond their free-printing quota makes them much more selective about what they print or copy. Institutions using Uniprint and Off-The-Glass to enable pay-for-print and pay-for-copy have dramatically less waste and lower costs. Moreover, the fees collected can be used to maintain and enhance the printing/copying infrastructure for the benefit of the entire campus community.

Pharos offers services to baseline the current state of student printing in your institution and develop a strategy to optimize it. We will look at the size, capabilities, and location of the equipment fleet, vendor contracts, vendor invoices, and vendor performance against service level agreements. We will examine patterns and volumes of print/copy activity. We will help plan your Uniprint implementation, including user authentication, integration with other systems (such as campus billing systems), selection and configuration of pricing options, restrictions on access to color printing, customization of user interfaces, etc.

Faculty and Staff Printing
Pharos Systems can help your institution reduce spending on faculty and staff printing by up to 40%. We do this by changing user printing behavior, rightsizing the fleet (the right size and the right capabilities), and migrating paper-based workflows to digital. Our optimization services will enable your institution to achieve less printing, greener printing, lower costs, and better prices. We examine:

• Your entire equipment fleet, including all print, copy, fax, and scan devices (their location, cost, volume, capacity, capabilities, and employee-to-device ratio)
• Vendor contracts for hardware, software, and services
• Vendor invoices for hardware, software, and services
• Vendor obligations and performance against current service level agreements
• Voice of the customer
• Help Desk calls
• Spending on paper, toner, and all other consumables

Centralized Production Printing
More than half of the 50 largest in-plants in North America are part of universities. If your school has a print shop, Pharos Systems can help optimize it, whatever its size. We help you understand whether current equipment fully addresses end user needs and whether vendor agreements serve your best interests. In analyzing user requirements and costs against industry benchmarks, we can guide you in making effective fact-based decisions.

We look at such things as the capabilities and usage of your in-plant, existing vendor contracts and invoices, vendor performance against current service level agreements, facility and labor costs, paper-sourcing processes and costs, job tickets, security requirements, and budgets. We also conduct interviews with customers of the facility and dig into bypass (work that should be run in the production center, but isn’t).

Externally-Sourced Printing
With course catalogs, viewbooks, and other traditionally paper-based materials going digital, colleges and universities are not purchasing as much external print as they used to. But do you know just how much money your school is spending on traditional offset printers, on-demand digital printers, and specialty printers? Do you have any controls in place to manage the process?

Pharos Systems offers print management and optimization services for externally-sourced printing that can save schools a lot of money, often in a very short period of time. We always start by performing an assessment and creating a current-state baseline, which typically analyzes:

• All of your spending on external print, including freight and postage, prep and file transfer charges, rush and change order charges, pre-flighting charges, agency charges and fees, etc.
• All costs associated with PO to payment, including all related spec-bid-buy processes
• Document services outsourced to third-party providers
• Costs associated with inventory, fulfillment, and distribution
• Obsolescence, WIP, and waste charges
• Design for manufacturability, for digital, and the overall fit to manufacturing

In our experience, optimizing externally-sourced print can save organizations up to 35%. We achieve savings by improving sourcing practices, managing the supply chain, and leveraging existing investments in campus print shops. And if you want, Pharos can provide dedicated On-Site Print Specialists to manage your suppliers, drive process improvements, and track spending.