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T.C.O. (Total Cost of Ownership) made easy
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Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is defined as the calculation of the entire costs surrounding the ownership and operation of the printed document on a device such as a printer over its life.
TCO should take into account factors that relate as much to time and overheads as to the cost of purchasing the printer and the cost of consumables throughout its use.
TCO is specifically vulnerable to the vagaries of reliability and durability of the printer - how much time is lost/wasted/used when the device is out of action for any reason.
Here is a list of the main factors which should be taken into account when considering TCO.
1. Initial costs
While the printer purchase price is just one of the cost categories associated with TCO it is nevertheless important to consider when evaluating a printer.
In a large organisation it is also important to consider the mix of devices, colour, monochrome, personal or networked as well as the life of the these products and future use.
The cheapest product does not always offer the best price/performance ratio and may not be suitable for future applications.
Recent trends against capital purchases due to financial pressures has pushed some customers towards a contract approach on a cost per page bases instead of outright purchase. The practice of buying printers must be weighed against the benefits of such contract.
2. Consumables
Over the life of a printer, supply expenditures can total up to four times the actual acquisition cost of the printer. Supplies expenditure is on the increase due to increased graphics use, mainly due to presentation handouts and web page printing.
The percentage page coverage will directly effect the supplies use and simple changes such as to the font in a document can have an enormous effect on the percentage of page coverage.
In addition features such as "Toner save mode" and "Draft mode" can reduce the consumption of supplies by up to 40 percent per page thus having considerable effect on TCO.
3. Network Management
Network Management and administration are among the indirect costs associated with TCO and are virtually impossible to calculate. Fortunately for users most network printers come complete with similar such tools so these costs become almost identical from vendor to vendor. All
TallyGenicom Network printers come complete with network management, offering simple configuration and notification of status such as paper out, toner out etc.
4. Maintenance/Warranty/Support
In addition to any maintenance contract price required throughout the life of the product the general reliability of the product must be taken into account. In a large organisation printer related help desk calls will incur some cost.
With regards warranty, "more is best" as it offsets future maintenance contracts thus having a direct effect on lowering TCO.
5. Ratio of printers to users
The more printers an organisation has the greater its costs for supplies, maintenance, support , management and space. Although some smaller lower cost desktop colour printers are available, they do not offer the cost savings of a true network device which on average would be shared by four to five people.
6. Power Consumption
Both mono and colour laser printers employ hot fuser technology at around 500W when printing. As all products now have power save mode, it is not necessary to add this cost into the calculation, however, large organisations must look carefully into electricity cost when considering TCO.
7. Wear Items
The best kept secret in the industry. What is a wear part ? (not covered by a maintenance contract), and what's a consumable? Any parts such as transfer drums, rollers and cleaning pads must be included in the TCO calculation, not all manufactures do this.
Conclusion
The cost of printing is likely to be far more than the user estimates or realizes,
TallyGenicom can accurately determine the actual running costs of the printer including purchase/lease price, supplies costs , maintenance costs and wear items. As most other factors are constant between printer models this running costs gives a good comparative TCO figure when comparing against other manufactures' models.
See
charts for proof.
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