Johnson Controls is a global diversified technology leader serving industrial customers in more than 150 countries. The company’s 170,000 employees create quality products, services and solutions to optimize energy and operational efficiencies for buildings; lead-acid automotive batteries and advanced batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles and interior systems for automobiles. Their commitment to sustainability dates back to their roots in 1885, with the invention of the first electric room thermostat.
Johnson Controls lean internal IT team was faced with the challenge of managing an aging fleet of multifunction printers that regularly failed, often taking two to three working days to restore service. The increasing regularity of device failure and length of these outages was severely impacting the productivity of the staff and in turn impacting productivity and bottom- line performance, particularly during peak periods when urgent print jobs could not be printed in-house and had to be outsourced.
Being a global multi-national company, overseas staff were frequently in Singapore to visit and attend meetings.
A common frustration faced by visiting staff members was the inability to connect easily to the print network and access the Enterprise Print software to print the documents they required to support their work.
Further compounding the reliability and connectivity issues was the realisation by management that the printing related costs were continuing to rise. Without any visibility on the print volume and usage, very little could be done to effectively explore ways to reducing costs.
With the lease of the existing multifunction printers reaching contract expiry, Johnson Controls knew that it was the perfect opportunity for them to source for a more reliable and robust printing solution that could meet the current and future needs of their staff.
Johnson Controls consulted FUJIFILM Business Innovation and a print assessment of their office environment was conducted, helping the company identify several areas of major improvement in their printing processes.
A key requirement identified during the assessment process was the variation in print demand and volume across the different departments.
Our Engineering department has the highest and most critical demand for print because of the tender documents and proposals they need to generate. Our colleagues from the Engineering department very often have extremely short turnaround time from proposal completion to submission, hence, the availability and reliability of the printers cannot be compromised. On the other hand, the print requirements from our Admin department is not as stringent.
- Ronnie Lim, Senior IT Infrastructure Engineer, Johnson Controls.
After several sessions of product demonstrations and the successful completion of the solution proof of concept, FUJIFILM Business Innovation proposed an Enterprise Print solution including APEOSPORT (AP7780ST, A3070ST, A6080ST, A4475PST, A4475PST, A3375ST, A5575PST, Equitrac Follow-you Print, Mobile Print solution, Accounting Management solution to Johnson Controls. With the objective to reduce operational costs, different departments are installed with different machines to suit the different printing needs.
With the Equitrac Follow-you Print, all local and overseas staff can now send their print jobs to any FUJIFILM Business Innovation multifunction device in the office and print anytime, anywhere. The Mobile Print solution also allows staff to access and print documents from their mobile devices, enabling greater convenience to all the employees.
Another added benefit from the Equitrac solution is the real time visibility it provides of print volume and usage by department and cost centre to the management team. The Administration team can now generate monthly reports of the print usage by department. This allows the finance team to effectively bill the individual cost centre accordingly for their print usage. The solution also allows the Administration and IT teams to set quota to avoid unnecessary and excessive printing and wastage of precious resources.
One of the reasons we decided to approach FUJIFILM Business Innovation is due to their good track record in implementing document and cost management solution. What I really like about the engagement with their team is that instead of proposing one model of multi-function printer across the company, their proposal is customized according to our printing needs. For example, the MA95, which is a professional production printer was proposed for the Engineering department, versus the Apeosport 3375 proposed for the Admin department. All in all, the 9 printers proposed cater to the different needs of the various departments.
- Ronnie Lim, Senior IT Infrastructure Engineer, Johnson Controls.
By completely transforming Johnson Control’s print setup, the company has been able to achieve measurable productivity gains.
The downtime from the multi-function devices has significantly reduced, thanks to a more robust fleet of printers, along with a committed after-sales support service provided by the FUJIFILM Business Innovation Customer Support Operations team. The company now produces high quality documents and spends less on printing.
We are very happy to work with FUJIFILM Business Innovation. Throughout the whole engagement, their team has shown the commitment and sincerity in helping us find the best solution to meet our printing needs and resolve any document related issues we were facing at that time.
- Angela Ong, Head, Administration, Johnson Controls.
Johnson Controls has also realised many other benefits from the FUJIFILM Business Innovation solutions, such as:
- Reduced the number of printing devices by 25%
- Supported Johnson Controls sustainability mission through the smart energy saving features in the multi-function devices
- Created a well-integrated solution for tracking and accounting aligned with employee IDs and secure access cards
- Enabled reliable, direct printing from their SAP system housed in Japan, a process that was previously affected by regular downtime
From this successful engagement with Johnson Controls and realization of benefits of the Singapore office, the solution has now been proposed to the other regional offices of Johnson Controls. across Asia.