Toshiba Boosts Messiah College’s Eco Efforts And Bottom Line

Environmental Practices Flow Through College Operations

Messiah College is a nationally recognized private liberal and applied arts college in the northeastern U.S. with 3,400 students from 38 states and 29 countries. Rooted in Pennsylvania’s agriculturally rich Cumberland Valley, Messiah places an extraordinary emphasis on environmentally responsible practices.

Messiah’s eco focus is visible throughout the college and it even features a department dedicated to the movement. Messiah is also one of only four Christian colleges in the United States to offer a Bachelor of Arts in sustainability studies. Messiah recycles nearly 25 tons of paper every year. All savings earned from Messiah’s recycling efforts are funneled to support more campus sustainability services.

In 2014, Messiah began looking for ways to operate more efficiently and affordably. Messiah College Director of Press and Postal Services Dwayne A. Magee, who works closely with IT operations, wanted to transition Messiah’s print fleet to a managed services contract to reduce both costs and energy consumption. He approached existing technology provider, Toshiba – supplier of 161 print devices on the Mechanicsburg, PA campus – to assist in accomplishing these objectives.

Comparing Notes With Colleagues

In addition to consulting with Toshiba, Magee also sought recommendations from colleagues at similarly sized colleges to fully grasp how Toshiba’s managed print services were fulfilling such needs. Kenneth Ball, the director of user services at Dickinson College, invited Magee and his team of IT professionals and administrators from Messiah to spend a day at Penn State Dickinson School of Law to receive a first-hand glimpse of Toshiba’s capabilities. The prestigious school is Pennsylvania’s first law school and the fifth oldest in the United States. Dickinson School of Law merged with Penn State in 1997.

Messiah staffers not only learned how Toshiba’s e-STUDIO MFP fleet was helping their colleagues at Dickinson College, they also observed how the Toshiba MFPs were making life easier for Penn State law students. When the Messiah team saw students and administrators at Dickinson Law’s main library access prints by swiping their ID cards, they immediately understood the important security and confidentiality benefits Toshiba’s Secure Release functionality could offer their university. They also recognized the significant amount of paper Messiah would save by virtually eliminating abandoned prints.

Print Costs, Energy Use Slashed

After implementing Toshiba’s recommended Encompass Managed Print Services proposal, Messiah College dramatically cut student and administrator print costs and reduced its energy use.

Toshiba’s MPS plan added 13 newly-networked MFPs, eliminated 42 energy inefficient desktop devices and introduced e-BRIDGE® CloudConnect remote device monitoring, which resulted in cost savings of more than $42,000 annually for Messiah.

“In addition to equipping our campus with leading technology, the company’s friendly and dependable support staff is another primary reason why Toshiba remains our managed print services provider,” Magee asserted.

“Toshiba’s team intuitively understands and accommodates our needs and is always there to help or explain how we can improve our workflow processes even further. They truly go the extra mile in making sure our document management needs are being met on a day-by-day basis.”

Continual Monitoring Streamlines Processes

The adoption of Toshiba’s cloud-based monitoring technology, e-BRIDGE® CloudConnect helps Messiah’s more than 200 departments remain up and running at the College’s campus. CloudConnect continually monitors, diagnoses – including alerting users when to change toner or simply close a paper drawer to continue – and provides firmware updates to better manage and streamline the College’s overall print fleet operation.

Toshiba is also reducing the time and cost associated with student testing. Messiah professors are utilizing Toshiba MFPs to scan and score student exams via an application the IT team created, called Faltron. Toshiba is also helping ratchet-up the College’s sustainability efforts with PrintReleaf. The College is now responsible for reforesting an average of six trees a month in Madagascar, home of one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet.

“Our partnership with Toshiba is enabling us to fulfill our sustainability mission by helping reforest one of the world’s most ecologically-sensitive areas,” Magee explained. “The program is also resonating with our students as many of them participated in voting to select Madagascar as the place we are going to help reforest.” Messiah’s students voted to help reforest the Dominican Republic.

Additionally Messiah has recycled annually an average of 150 pounds of toner consumables through Toshiba eco-Smart and its collaboration with global recycler, Close the Loop, preventing the e-waste from polluting open land.

“Toshiba has been more of a business partner than a vendor for us,” Magee affirmed. “Their leadership team takes the time to understand what we want to accomplish from a sustainability and savings standpoint while outlining and implementing solutions to accomplish our goals and objectives in these areas.”