President's Task Force on Efficiency
Current Projects
Many of the ideas submitted to the Task Force on Efficiency have been
turned into projects that are currently underway. The following list provides
a brief overview of the project, as well as, the contact for more information.
Print Rightsizing - Lisa Bonnell
Document output continues to increase every year. As a result, the number
of printers, faxes, copiers and scanners that we use is increasing as
well. While these pieces of equipment may not seem to cost a lot of money
when you purchase them, the supplies and maintenance drive the total cost
of ownership up by as much as 4 x the original equipment cost annually.
(This is where the manufacturers make their real money.) In an effort
to reduce print-related costs, the CFO's organization conducted a "rightsizing"
pilot, where all printers, copiers, scanners and faxes were turned off
and all print was re-routed to networked multi-function machines. Multi-function
machines handle print output, copying, scanning and faxing, as well as,
finishing, stapling and collating. After the 30-day pilot period, the
CFO's organization realized 40% savings associated with toner, supplies
and maintenance. An agreement for these machines is now in place that
can be extended to other interested areas of the University. And like
the Office Depot agreement, larger discounts will occur as more people
join in. Additional information about this program can be obtained from
Lisa Bonnell or from the Purchasing Department. http://www.utexas.edu/admin/purchasing/ikon.html
Credit Card Fee Reduction - Fred Friedrich
Due to the increased use of internet and telephone payment systems by
students and parents, costs to maintain the systems and provide these
services have risen to over $2 million per year. To defray these rising
costs, a convenience charge and other credit card policy changes was implemented
on April 21st. The major changes are the elimination of Visa branded cards
from the list of available payment options, the addition of Discover,
and a 1.75% convenience charge when paying tuition and mandatory fees
over the "What
I Owe" Web site and the TEX telephone payment option. In addition
to these changes, students will no longer be able to pay via credit card
at the Cashier's Office in Main Building, Room 8
The annual net savings from this initiative will be over $2 million,
beginning with fiscal year 2003-04.
Mainframe Output Alternatives - Jim Miller
As part of the campus-wide print reduction effort, ITS-Enterprise Information
Services (EIS) has identified electronic output as a key deliverable of
their spring software delivery cycle. The goals of the project are two-fold:
1.) provide a simple, first generation "green" alternative within our
standard job submission software, Task Manager, for receiving and using
output and 2.) develop a long range strategy for providing multiple alternatives
to paper to better serve end users. EIS' requirements for the mainframe
solution is as follows:
- Be Web accessible via standard browsers
- Be secured for view only by authorized individuals
- Be formatted as plain text, PDF or spreadsheet
- Be searchable for character strings
- When located on the enterprise server, output should be downloadable
for manipulation on desktop machines
- No change to software is to be provided so that participation is
not burdensome to other departments.
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