Streamlining Toner Fulfillment and Printer Maintenance for Multi-Location Businesses

If you have a business that has multiple locations, or locations across the country, streamlining supply ordering and maintenance is an important part of running a print fleet. When there are many locations, the IT department will rarely have the bandwidth to keep up with each location's needs. It is very common for the location manager not to realize printer supplies or maintenance are needed until they are already down and operations are affected.

In this article, we are going to tackle the ways you can automate your toner fulfillment and reduce service tickets with smart software solutions and print management.

Using Predictive Software

Each printer can be tracked using software solutions like PrintFleet, FMAudit, or various manufacturer tools on the market. What these tools do is ping the printer, and the printer reports back to the software with key data that a managed print provider like ManagedPrint can use to simplify your fleet management experience.

Some of the common data points reported by the software include:

• Current number of prints on the device
• Current supply levels for all consumables
• Any error codes coming from the print device
• Type of device
• Location of device
• IP of device

How is Predictive Data Used?

The most important part of the equation is how the data provided is used to help improve your experience with your printers and copiers. When we get these reports, we are able to take action before anyone even realizes a problem is coming. We have seen the use of these software products reduce our service tickets by 80% compared to when they are not used.

How can we use this data to help your company?

• We order toners and have them shipped when your toner is low. This keeps toners off the shelf and ensures you don't run out of toners.
• We can see how old devices are in many cases and help design an asset program to ensure 15-year-old devices that break often are removed from the print fleet.
• We can see firmware versions and help push out updates, especially when the firmware update connects to scanning ability or network security. 
• We are able to see what error is reported. If your worker in Chicago calls us and says the printer isn't working, we can log in to the software and see maybe the drawer isn't closed or the printer needs a toner. In these cases, we can advise your staff on the next step to take and not require a person to physically go out to solve this kind of issue.

What you will find is that intelligent data can be used to minimize your downtime. If we got a notification from a manufacturer that drums needed to be replaced at 30,000 pages because there is a high mortality rate, if it exceeded 30,000 pages, we would be able to sort all of our clients' devices by make and model and then the number of pages and get this completed at a very efficient pace.

When you work with ManagedPrint, you can also take advantage of our other value-added services, like:

• Auto toner fulfillment
• Lifecycle asset management
• Nationwide coverage
• Print management software
• Device level reporting

Our team believes in using software and smart device agents to report information about your print fleet so we can help you have as much uptime as possible. If you would like to see how ManagedPrint could help your business, we would love to chat and ensure your team gets the amazing benefits we offer through the business intelligence tools we have invested in!