Business Transformation Office's impressive paper saving
6 June 2018
A reduction in paper and energy consumption, time savings, cost cuts and an improved customer experience are some of the benefits resulting from two process improvements introduced by the Business Transformation Office.
The Business Process Enablement (BPE) programme has developed forms to meet the majority of digital form needs for the University, with staff encouraged to use the digital version rather than the former paper records.
Working across the University, the BPE programme has uncovered a total 700 forms of which 140 were designated as no longer required and 400 have been digitised.With an estimated 110,000 form submissions annually, the paper mountain soon builds up. Based on an average of two pages per paper form and assuming each paper form is printed out only twice, this equates to a staggering 440,000 pieces of paper each year.
The environmental cost of this is significant – 190,321 litres of water, 1,930 kilograms of waste and 7,425 kilograms of wood. These figures do not include the cost of packing and transporting paper nor storing paper or disposing of waste paper. This amount of paper equates to a 17 story building and costs $4,000, with the additional cost to the University of $74,200 for the maintenance of printers.
Elspet Garvey, manager of the Business Transformation Office, says the digitisation of many forms, along with an earlier ‘good idea’ to set double-sided printing as a default, has made inroads into a paper-based culture.
Approximately 70 staff members from faculties and service divisions have been trained to create and edit digital forms and we have already achieved the 2020 strategic target of reduced paper usage per equivalent fulltime student (EFTS).
The Business Transformation Office initiative, nominated in the Environmental Sustainability category of the Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Awards, was described by the judges as an “excellent initiative which was self-started in response to a strategic plan target and effectively executed with widespread engagement”. The judges noted it provided University-wide value with a focus on training and capacity building.