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Misawa Homes Group Improves Management Efficiency and Lowers Environmental Burden with Managed Print Services by Fuji Xerox

Monday 14. February 2011 - TCO Cut by 30%, Green House Gas Emissions Down by 40%

In November 2010, Fuji Xerox’s Managed Print Services (MPS: outsourcing service to manage print environment) started its operation at a total of 428 offices, the largest number ever in Japan, of Misawa Homes Co., Ltd. Fuji Xerox’s MPS, XOS, assesses the print environment of company-wide offices, optimizes output device installation, and handles operation and management of the devices, while lowering the burden on the environment. When compared with the numbers before the introduction of the service, Misawa Homes Group expects to reduce its annual TCO (total cost of ownership)Note 1 related to document output by roughly 30 percent, and its annual greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 equivalent) by around 40 percent.
Misawa Homes Group’s three major achievements generated by Fuji Xerox’s services are as follows:
1.Enhanced group governance
The number of output devices including printers and faxes installed at Misawa Homes headquarters, all offices of is 27 affiliates (345 locations across Japan), and showrooms (83 locations) was reduced from approximately 1500 to 860, which ensured control over business resources. As a result, the company expects to reduce TCO by 30 percent when compared with the level before the service was introduced. The optimization has been and will be enabled by certain rules, which allow reasonable arrangement of output devices across the group. Furthermore, by having a uniform print environment throughout the group, employees can now carry out tasks more smoothly at any office without having to operate different machines. The uniform print environment also allows consistent output images of CAD data and corporate color.
2.Strengthened information security and improved work efficiency
Fuji Xerox installed multifunction devices with a feature to prevent wrong fax transmissions, which would decrease the risk of a security incident. The company also introduced an IC card authentication system to control output, which solved security issues such as information leakage from printouts left at print devices. The system also helped reduce printouts of unwanted documents. The IC cards’ document output records are used to simplify Misawa Homes’ task of dividing output costs between departments. Automatic toner cartridge delivery based on the document output records from the devices as well as automatic dispatch of engineers according to the error status, reduce operational work of group employees.
3.Lower environmental burden
The optimization of output devices and installation of digital multifunction devices with high energy-saving performance, such as the ApeosPort-IV series, contribute to cutting down energy consumption, and annual greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by 40 percent compared with the level before the introduction of the service.
Misawa Homes aims for even greater benefits: On the environmental front, the company ensures that eco-friendly copy paper is used at group-wide offices and sites, which currently do not use it. To further enhance the group governance, it plans to centralize corporate procurement through Fuji Xerox’s e-commerce site, E-QIXNote 2, thus promoting bigger cost reduction.
With nationwide business operations and open hours on weekends, the housing industry faces challenges such as maintaining a consistent level of services across locations as well as increasing work efficiency. Fuji Xerox will continue to support Misawa Homes with its MPS by handling their output-related operations across the group, so that the group can achieve higher management efficiency and focus on its core business.
Note 1 Total time and expenditure required from purchasing to disposal of facilities and other assets.
Note 2 E-QIX: Members-only online office supply store for businesses.