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When do I replace my thermal or inkjet fax?
When it is right for you and your business application. Before upgrading any fax, make sure it makes financial sense by evaluating these four major areas:
- Usage: This is simply how much is your
fax being used. Keep your activity journals (send/receive)
for 3-6 months, account for any busy season or slow season
and try to get an average send page volume and receive page
volume. Keep an eye on page count, not location sent to.
The average fax is 3-6 pages, so if you are sending to 5
locations per day, the pages sent are 15-30 pages per day.
Once you have an average, go on to the next area.
- Telephone distance: Check your journals
and find out the percentage of long distance calls versus
local. Also highlight any international calls. Make sure
that your fax, like your phone, is getting good long distance
telephone rates. Try and get an average cost per minute
for long distance.
- Archiving/copying: Do all incoming faxes
have to be photocopied? If so, who does this job? Get an
average of their hourly worth. A good rule of thumb is $10.00
an hour for employees, including benefits. This might be
too low for your company if the president makes his own
copies.
- Application: International traffic,
local traffic, single-users, multiple users, photograph
sending and receiving, letter/legal pages - All these applications
affect your fax. International sending could use batch transmission.
Let's figure our what we have. We should know the number
of pages sent and received per day: local, long distance and
international. How many pages are copied and who copies them.
Get an average hourly cost:
Example:
Sending: 20 Pages local 10 pages long distance. The
long distance should be calculated by number of pages
times average rate per minute. Each page will take an
average of one minute, so it looks like: 10 Pages x
$.20 x 1 minute=$2.00. Times this by a business month
of 21 days, it equals $42.00. This is your long distance
sending.
Receiving: First figure the number of pages received,
in this case 30 page a day. The average cost of fax
paper is $.04 per copy, so the daily cost is $1.20,
and the monthly cost is $25.20. Next, figure the amount
of pages that are copied, lets assume all 30 are copied.
The copy cost is $.02 per copy, or $.60 per day or $12.60
per month. Next figure the labor to copy. One study
figured it took three minutes to make one copy. Lets'
be more conservative and assume one minute. The average
labor rate (with benefits) is $10.00 per hour. Now let's
figure out the labor rate. 30 copies times one minute
is 30 minutes. 30 minutes is .5 of one hour. The equation
reads: 10.00 x .5= $5.00 x 21 business days, equals
$105.00 in labor for one month.
Results:
- Sending costs are $42.00 per month
- Receiving costs are paper=$25.20 per month
- Copying=$12.60 per month
- Labor=$105.00 per month.
The total monthly costs are $184.80 per month or $2,218.00
per year. |
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What
are the savings with a new fax?
The first thing to look at is sending. Commercial plain paper
fax sends pages at 9.6Kbps to 33.6Kbps. Let us assume just
a 33.6Kbps modem - the compression on these commercial units
are MMR (Modified Modified Read) or JBIG. - It is 40% faster
than your current fax. That's a minimum 40% savings or the
equivalent of your phone bill going from $42.00 To $25.00.
Another savings is "dual-access." This enables you to send
while you are receiving and send while you are sending to
another location. This feature with quick scan places the
documents in short-term memory and gives the original back
to the sender within 3-6 seconds each. This frees up the sender
to do another job. This is a soft savings that is hard to
put numbers on. Other features like "Delay Send' and "Broadcast"
save the operator a lot of time. The benefits of extra employee
time can be huge - more time to talk with customers or just
more time to do the job they were hired for.
Your savings on receiving are easier to figure out. The
cost of an Okifax to make a copy is $.02 per copy. So your
costs drop from $143.00 per month to $12.60, or a savings
of $130.00 per month. This large savings is realized because
of no copier cost, no labor cost and reduced supply costs.
If copies still have to be made the savings will still be
true because a person making copies of thermal paper must
do it manually, while a plain-paper fax can be automatically
copied on a copier. With a savings of $130.00 per month, a
new fax would have a break-even in less than a year - a good
business investment. If rented, a savings could be seen in
month one.
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Why not buy a superstore fax?
You should a retail store unit if your volume is going to be
less than 10 pages sent/received per day. Retail fax units are
less expensive for the same reasons that many less expensive:
fewer features and a lower duty cycle. The next sections describes
some of the feature differences.
Retail vs. commercial
units
- Speed: Many retail store units use modified Huffman as
a compression code. This is at least 40%-50% slower than
the MMR compression coding used in commercial units. If
there is heavy long distance, or just heavy traffic, a 33.6Kbps
modem should also be considered. FYI-fax equipment in the
U.S. is usually set at 28.8Kbps, even though we all brag
about a 33.6Kbps modem.
- Size scanned: Commercial units scan 8.5"
across or the width of a page. Retail units scan 8.2" across--so
be careful with diagrams or drawings.
- Chassis: Commercial units have a metal
chassis to prevent flexing of the unit; that's why they
weigh up to twice as much as retail units
- Modular design: Commercial units should
have the ability to grow with your business. So if your
business grows in year two, you only spend $200.00 for a
modem or memory, instead of another retail machine. OKIFAX
units can have modems, sheet feeders, memory and PC interfaces
added at any time.
- PC programming: Most commercial fax units
can allow a user on a PC to program the numbers or parameters
on their PC, then just input into the fax. Besides being
a great time saver, it is also helpful when the user upgrades
or needs service on their fax. These numbers can be brought
back into the PC and stored, so no new programming needs
to be done.
- Equipment life: Retails units do not
hold up to heavy use over time They use inexpensive nylon
gears that wear with heavy use. We know; we service them.
- Service: This is always something to
be concerned about. What if my fax unit stops working? Any
dollar savings that you had by buying a store-bought unit
is gone on the first service call. In some cases because
of the low cost of the unit, companies elect to dispose
of the fax due to the low original cost. Buying a fax every
2 years will be more expensive than buying a modular commercial
fax and keeping it 5-7 years. Servicing store-bought units
can be a hassle. Shipping a unit off to be serviced leaves
your company without a fax - usually not acceptable. KM
Data, Inc. Offers IMMEDIATE FREE PLAIN PAPER LOANERS, usually
within 3 hours, delivered to your location.
- Phone line problems: 25% Of service calls
are due to poor phone line connections. Shipping a unit
off, or bringing it into a store will not help this problem.
Commercial fax units should have programmable phone line
adjustments to help get around a telephone problem. OKIFAX,
for example, offers 4 different phone line conditioners
per auto dial location.
- Fax equipment may also appear broken, when
there is nothing wrong with it. Operator error can be
expensive. At least 30% of service calls are due, in
some part, to human error. Toner spills, incorrect paper
loaded in tray, incorrect telephone fax numbers and
removed telephone lines are at the top of our service
report lists. All these items require a tech to visit
the fax, causing a billable charge.
- Laptop users seem to have a "thing" against fax
machines. Maybe that is a little strong but we
have 2-3 service calls a week where a person using a
laptop will unplug the fax to use their laptop and not
place the jack back into the correct slot. It sounds
like a minor issue, but we collect about $350.00 per
month in labor, just because the jack is in the wrong
slot.
- Sometimes companies moving from a low end fax
into a mid to high end plain paper fax do not consider
a service agreement because "the thermal fax never
broke." Plain paper fax machines are closer to copiers
than they are to a thermal fax or printer. Plain paper
commercial fax units should be serviced by a technician
every 6 months. During this preventive maintenance (PM)
call, the feed rollers should be cleaned, LED head cleaned,
toner vacuumed out of drum area, separator rubber cleaned
and scanner dusted. Another reason for a service agreement
is to receive manufacturer updates. - all manufacturers
make changes to equipment during the life of that equipment.
These changes can be in the form of updates on feed
rollers to firmware changes to enhance equipment function.
A company with a service agreement gets these updates
automatically and free. It is part of the service agreement.
- Consumables: A very important consideration
is cost per copy. Thermal fax is $.04-$.08 per copy. Thermal
transfer fax is $.05-$.18 per copy. Inkjet fax is $.05-.09
per copy Laser LED fax is $.02-.07 per copy. The OKIFAX
cost per copy is just $.02. If you are planning on keeping
your fax for 5 years, a difference of $.05 on consumables
will equal $3,150.00 more in supply costs! This is based
on 50 pages/day over 5 years. If you receive more than 15
pages per day, look at an LED/Laser fax.
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Other things to consider
When considering a fax, remember to consider the
most expensive part of faxing, the user. The person operating
the fax is by far the most expensive part of faxing. Think
about it: the fax machine's cost is handled by your Accounting
Department and the unit is depreciated in some manner. Phone
costs can be controlled with discount long distance and supply
costs can be kept to 2 cents per copy. The user is the one
area that can go up in price. For example, if your salespeople,
engineers and executive secretaries (not to mention the President
of the company) are standing by the fax waiting and waiting
for his/her important and sensitive document to send, how
much is the fax machine worth now?
| How do I reduce user cost? |
Memory: Have enough
memory to scan all pages into the fax unit first. The
fax unit should have at least 100 pages* of memory. |
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Dual access: Be able to send into memory while
you are receiving. This enables the user to get the pages
back in their hands and go on with their job. |
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TCR: transmit confirmation is very important.
Look for equipment that puts a copy of the first page
sent right onto the TCR report, this tells you what was
sent in addition to all the other information that you
would normally need. |
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"*": This little fellow will
be on every fax brochure ever printed. In this case it
shows up by the "100 pages of memory" in the paragraph
above. All fax units use the same standard for testing
speed sent, toner/drum consumption, and memory. This standard
is now called the UTI-1 TEST CHART. This chart is about
a 5% background page. The good news is that all fax companies
use this chart. The bad news is that it is a small amount
of print on a page. A good rule of thumb is to cut the
numbers in half: The 100 pages of memory are really 50.
While we are on the subject, watch out for the transmission
speeds of fax units. The 6-second transmissions are not
really 6 seconds. Let me explain: a 14.4bps fax unit has
a first page handshake of 10 seconds, before page one
is sent. The 6 second speed is tested between like units,
using the UTI-1 TEST CHART, without counting handshake. |
| Battery backup |
Page memory is something to be careful about. Some fax
units allocate a percentage of memory for send and receive.
The best bet is to look for a fax that lets you use 100%
of its memory the way you need it. All commercial page
memory should be protected with battery backup. Consider
this example: your fax unit runs out of paper over the
weekend, and your business has a power outage. All stored
pages are lost and the sending fax units have already
told their users that the pages were received successfully. |
| Weight |
This is a favorite of our service people. Pick the
unit up! The store bought units weigh 30-40% less than
the quality commercial units. This ties into some areas
that were mentioned earlier: chassis sturdiness and
materials used.
Some commercial fax units have the ability to adjust
the individual features of each speed-dial or dialed
number. Commercial fax units can adjust echo suppression,
attenuation, error criterion and time-out values. This
becomes very important with international calls or calls
going to areas with poor phone line quality. The Okifax's
error criterion is an excellent feature. It enables
the user to allow different percentages of errors before
dropping the phone line or modem speed. In some cases
increasing error acceptance will improve fax traffic
without hurting copy quality. |
| LED printhead vs laser printhead |
LED stands for Light-Emitting Diode. The LED printing
process is identical to laser with one exception. Instead
of the single light source used in laser printing techniques,
a stationary LED bar consisting of an array of 1728 lights
is used. Light emitted from the LED array electrically
charges the drum one entire line at a time. |
| LED advantages |
Low cost per copy ("2 cents)
No moving parts
Excellent image quality
Allows for more compact design
Greater reliability
90's technology
Permanent image
No curling/facing
Customer cleans when installing toner
Plus, all Okifax LED heads have a full 5-year warranty! |
| LED disadvantages |
None |
| LASER advantages |
Widely utilized
Good cost per copy (3.1 cents)
Excellent image quality
Permanent image
No curling/fading |
| LASER disadvantages |
Higher initial cost
Many moving parts
80's technology
Costly to maintain
Engineer must clean |
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What's new
- Coding methods: In addition to MH, MR and MMR
coding, a new standard is now out called JBIG. JBIG stands
for Joint Binary Image Group and is about 20-30% faster
than MMR. This, like any other coding, needs the JBIG on
each side to work. This is usually used with 33.6Kbps modems.
- Internet fax: The benefits to this are pretty
clear - greatly reduced telephone costs. This feature lets
a fax send and convert the message to an email. This technology
is very handy with all the mobile and PAD users around.
Most commercial fax now offer this feature, and it should
be considered when buying a fax.
- LAN connection: Many fax units also offer LAN
connection, again a great tool for the office that shares
a device or devices. Hardest thing about this is getting
the users to actually use the LAN/FAX interface. People
tend to like the idea of walking up to a fax and sending
their pages.
- Flatbed scanner: This is a great feature if you
have a need to fax or copy a book or something that would
normally not go through an automatic document feeder (ADF).
This unit is most likely a multifunctional device, so you
might be able to fax, copy, print and scan from your PC
or LAN. You will pay more for this type device, so make
sure you have the application for it. Multifunctional devices
are great for small office environments, try and have some
backup devices incase the equipment fails, you would hate
to be without a fax, copier and printer.
Color fax: This is a question we are always asked.
Yes it is coming. With the new 33.6Kbps speeds and new color
compressions (V.30E) now being used, it make sense to fax
with color. Color faxing is still expensive and will be
used in more vertical markets, like real estate or marketing.
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