Infrastructure: Printers (IT Assessment DIY Guide, Part 11)
This is part 11 of a series on IT Self-Assessment for small businesses. We’re providing information and guidelines for a simple IT check, giving you the ability to gain free insights into how your technology can serve your business better. Each post covers a critical area of technology.
Infrastructure: Printers
Print easily and as cheaply as possible. That’s the bottom line with printers. Here are the three most common mistakes businesses make with printers, and how to fix them.
Common Problems
(1) Sharing printers off of PCs. When a printer is connected directly to a PC and then shared through the PC, it slows down printing and can affect the shared PCs performance. Anytime the PC is turned off, the printer is unavailable.
(2) Sharing printers off of a server. This creates similar problems and is unnecessary. Current printers have the processing power built in to handle virtually any print job you can send their way. There are some situations where sharing off of a print server is advantageous (see below).
(3) Using inkjet printers. To some extent, all printers are “cheap” and all ink is “expensive”, but inkjet printers are the worst of the lot. The low purchase price of the printer disguises the fact that over time inkjets are more expensive than laser printers. Similarly, printing black and white documents to a color printer wastes more expensive ink consumables.
Best Practices
(1) Share printers directly on the network. Network enabled printers usually have a “n” at the end of their model number. These printers have Ethernet jacks and network cards built in, and are available on your entire office network for PCs to print to.
(2) Use direct IP printing instead of a print server. Again, simpler is better. There are exceptions to this rule. If you need quick printing for guests to your office, or if remote employees need to print on the office printer, leave a printer on the server.
(3) Buy a solid monochrome laser printer for the majority of your printing. Internal drafts and black and white documents should always go to this printer. You can set grayscale and duplex on by default to save even more ink and paper. By all means, print your final versions with color ink and nice paper, but there’s no need to waste expensive consumables on drafts and memos.
Printers Self-Assessment
Number of printers in office:
Types of printers (inkjet, color, laser)?
Are any printers shared from a PC?
Are any printers shared from a server?
What is the estimated cost per page for the ink replacements for your printers?
Which of your printers has the cheapest consumables?
Issues to be addressed:
1.
2.
3.
