Business printers have a short lifespan. Since your company lives and dies by the printer – your employees are using the printers from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. without any breaks – your machine will likely die before you can say cat in a hat. Yes, you made an investment in a top-of-the-line printer, but it wasn’t enough – it never is.
After some research, trials and errors and putting more money into it, you purchased a new business printer. This one will apparently last a long longer than the average machine? Will it?
Well, if you employ the right methods and protocols, then it will reign supreme for years. Here are five tips to make your business printers last longer:
1. Create a Schedule for Printing Needs
Some employees will print until their heart’s content. If you stand anywhere near the office printer, you will notice how it works overtime by printing every other minute. It never ends.
This can obviously place a strain on your business printer. The best way to circumvent this is to establish a schedule for your printing needs.
Unsure how to start? It’s simple: you create scheduling hours for printing. For instance, all printing can be done between 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m., 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.
2. Turn it Off When You Leave
A common mistake that workplaces make is by keeping the business printer on for the entire evening, even when no one is at the office. This eats up energy and keeps the printer on when it should be off and resting.
Simply put: before you head home for the day, you should turn off the printer, or at least put it on sleep or standby mode. This allows it to cool down for the next day…and saves on your energy bill – we all could do with the savings!
3. Go Paperless & Mobile…Gradually
A growing number of offices around the world are going paperless and using mobile technology to save on energy costs, expand the lifespan of printers and to adapt to the modern world. You should do the same.
You may not have the capacity to immediately become completely paperless, but you can take some of the minor steps to ensure that you can have a printer that will live as long as a decade.
4. Read the Manual
Do you know what many people refuse to do? Read the business printer’s manual. How foolish!
Whether you are at an office or in your home, it is important to peruse the business printer. It not only tells you how to maintain your business printer, it also gives you tips on how to properly utilize your new machine – the paper to use, the ink to use, the toner to use.
Indeed, you can learn a lot by simply adhering to your printer manual.
5. Location is Key for Your Printer
Here is one trick that doesn’t require too much for you to do: location.
Yes, location is key for your business printer because heat and dry air can generate problems for these machines. Whether it is clogging or safety, knowing where to place your printer can do a lot for your technology as well as for the office.
Unsure where you should locate your printer? It’s easy: keep it away from narrow and busy areas as well as radiators and other heat sources. The best place is a corner of the office.
That isn’t so hard, is it? Business printers can set your company back by as much as $2,000. We all know how imperative a printer is to your workplace, which is why you should want to have the best protocols and procedures in place to make certain that you can have a machine that lives a long period of time.