With an elderly fleet of printers, copiers, fax machines and
scanners that were prone to breakdowns, engine maker
Cummins turned to Lexmark for a solution that would
enable it to cut costs and reduce paper consumption

Cummins has 40,000 employees and
global operations in 200 countries and
territories.With such a vast
distribution of locations comes the challenge
of selecting, deploying, managing and
maintaining technology – even output
devices. Its fleet of printers,
copiers, fax machines and
scanners were increasing
maintenance costs and negatively
impacting on reliability and
employee productivity. Cummins
also wanted to further trim output
costs and reduce paper consumption
in support of its sustainability initiatives.

These business goals became the genesis
of a corporate-wide initiative called Print
Smart – a project to optimise and
standardise its entire printer fleet globally.

Key needs revealed during the evaluation
process included:
The tracking of consumables – paper and
toner
A desire to eliminate abandoned print
jobs
Implementation of a consistent user
interface for printers worldwide
Insight into employees’ usage habits
Standardised global service
Following analysis of available products,
services, and customer support around the
globe, Cummins chose Lexmark as its global
managed print services provider. Under a
comprehensive equipment leasing and asset
management agreement, Lexmark is
providing implementation, asset lifecycle,
proactive consumables management, break/
fix and global help desk management,
training and maintenance services around
the world.

Lexmark installed a combination of about
2000 monochrome departmental printers
and high-volume monochrome and colour
multifunction printers (MFPs) around the
world in approximately six months. This
involved executing dozens of unique Local
Country Agreements to ensure compliance
with a wide array of legalities and standards.

With a standardised and optimised Lexmark
output environment around the world,
employees experience the same user interface
on every device in every location worldwide.

Cummins also implemented a solution
that releases print jobs only when employees
enter an identification code at Lexmark
devices connected to the network. This
approach has helped Cummins reduce its
print volume by three million pages a
month. That physical presence guarantees
that confidential jobs print only when the
document owner is physically present. It also
eliminates the time gap between printing
and pickup, preventing abandoned print jobs
from piling up and avoiding paper and toner
waste.

All of the output devices on the Cummins
network are proactively monitored by
Lexmark. The devices themselves actively
report their health to a staff of engineers
who can often take care of device issues
before employees even notice. Lexmark
engineers also integrated the entire device
fleet with Cummins’ BMC Remedy Service
Desk system for incident management and
help-desk support. Now, printer issues are
logged with Cummins IT and calls are
dispatched as necessary.

With proactive consumables management,
the Lexmark devices send alerts when toner
gets low. These alerts trigger a replacement
genuine Lexmark toner cartridge for that
model to be shipped to its precise location.

Onsite Lexmark technicians receive the toner
and replace the cartridge before a toner
outage impacts employee productivity.

Cummins is on track to cut printing
by 36 million pages in just one year,
generating a projected annual
savings of $2 million. In overall
costs, Cummins has seen its
expenses drop by 62% on a
monthly basis. The reduction
in annual paper consumption
saves the equivalent of 4000
trees along with a projected
greenhouse gas avoidance of
605 metric tons. By managing
its use of colour, Cummins
reined in colour printing from
600,000 pages per month to just
225,000, saving an additional $1.5
million annually. The company
previously operated 2500 printers. This
number has been reduced by about 16%,
simplifying maintenance and lowering
overall operating costs.

Now with a fleet-wide view of all of its
output devices, Cummins has powerful
information upon which it can make
business decisions. It knows how many
devices it operates, where they are located,
what those devices are printing and whether
each of those devices is over or under-used.

Its entire fleet is linked directly into its IT
service desk to remedy printer issues before
they impact users or with onsite Lexmark
resources. Toner and other consumables are
shipped, arrive and are replaced
automatically, freeing employees from
ordering, storage and replacement, and
freeing up space and money for other
projects. And, Cummins is printing less in
support of its corporate cost savings and
environmental goals.