Fleet Management: A New Lease on Life for Your In-plant

Like any good in-plant manager, Kim Stanford hoped for the best but planned for the worst. Several years ago, the worst came in the form of a global pandemic.

Kim Stanford

With in-person instruction canceled at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), production orders slowed to a crawl at Stanford’s in-plant. Call it preparation, call it luck but there was a bright spot for her five-employee production operation at this particularly bleak time — her in-plant’s fleet management program.

“The leases on our fleet equipment provided us revenue,” says Stanford, director of General Support Services at UAA. The modest upcharge the in-plant places on leases for its fleet of Kyocera devices meant the department still had some funds coming in when pages weren’t going out. And, surprisingly enough, “We did not get a single cancellation on our leases,” during the pandemic, Stanford says.

Almost a third of in-plants (32%) oversee copier fleet management programs, according to In-plant Impressions’ latest research report, “In-plant Capabilities, Performance, and Expansion (2026).” They tell us that managing their organizations’ fleets provides not only a revenue boost but an opportunity to increase their value while driving more print work to the in-plant. It’s a lesson Stanford learned a long time ago.

With 35 years at UAA, Stanford has spent the last 14 of them as UAA’s director of General Support Services, which includes the in-plant. The print operation runs monochrome and full-color Kyocera digital presses, along with an HP Latex printer for wide-format signage and display work. The fleet of multifunction printing devices (MFDs) her department manages consists mostly of mono printers with scanning capabilities, along with some full-color equipment.

The 100 devices in UAA’s fleet are all on three-year leases. Stanford’s General Support Services operation pays its vendor for leases and clicks, then charges departments back. Though customers can decide to buy print equipment instead of leasing, it is not a popular option.

“Three departments in the last year that owned their printers reached the point where their printers were at end of life with no maintenance,” she says. “They switched to leasing, so now they can get new equipment with every lease renewal.”

When UAA’s General Support Services department began managing a fleet a few decades ago, “the university bought devices and leased them to departments,” she says. After facing increasing costs to recycle end-of-life equipment, UAA switched to leasing equipment instead.

The Impact of Funding Cuts

Recycling old print devices is not a problem at the University of Oregon. The sustainability-minded university has its own e-waste department on its Eugene campus that can handle end-of-life equipment.

April Nero

Oregon’s in-plant, led by Print Services Director April Nero, manages a fleet of 400 MFDs and 900 desktop printers from Xerox across two campuses. While nearly all those devices are leased, Nero understands why some customers choose to buy their printers outright.

“Some units are funded with grant money that only covers a specific period of time,” she explains. “So, purchasing the printer means there are no concerns about ongoing lease payments when a grant ends.”
If she had a crystal ball a year ago, Nero might have advised a few more of her clients to purchase their print devices. Declining international student enrollment, coupled with a decrease in research grant funding, have made this academic year unlike any other.

“We have had funding cuts, with some parts of the university consolidating or dissolved,” she notes, leaving the university with some excess leased printing equipment. While there is always the chance those printers and MFDs will get redeployed elsewhere, some ongoing leases are held by academic and research departments that no longer exist.

Short of buying devices outright, Nero says it is worth looking at the length of your lease contract if your organization expects tough times ahead in terms of budgets. Getting a shorter-term contract that has multiple renewal options may be worth considering, says Nero, though she admits there is a potential pitfall to that strategy: Shorter contracts are likely to drive up monthly lease costs.

Grow With Your Organization

Pamela Krol

When organizations are expanding rather than contracting, fleet management captures growth in ways in-plants alone cannot. At the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Pam Krol gets orders for new fleet devices any time a new building goes up at the three campuses she handles as operations and business manager for Documents & Media (DM): UCSF, UC Berkeley, and UC Law. In the past 15 years, the fleet she manages has tripled in size. It currently includes 560 color MFDs, 354 color printers, 20 monochrome MFDs and 134 monochrome printers. The program generates 36% of the in-plant’s revenue.

After years of effort by Krol and Associate Director Mario Carmona to get a copier management program started, UCSF’s finance administration greenlit the establishment of an in-plant-managed fleet in 2011 with the expectation that “centralizing management of supplies, service, and billing through one unit would reduce indirect costs,” says Krol.

Her clients like the program because Krol’s team “becomes the point of contact for anything the machines need, and that frees their own employees from having to handle troubleshooting and billing tasks.”
While the fleet of devices across the three campuses is primarily comprised of Xerox devices, it also includes Ricoh, Canon, and HP equipment. The desktop printers in Krol’s fleet are purchases; all other print equipment comes on a 60-month lease. The in-plant receives consolidated bills from these vendors covering all of their equipment, rather than individual bills for each enrolled device, which simplifies reporting, tracking, and payment processing.

Words of Wisdom

Learning the essential details that come with leasing — or purchasing — a fleet is important for any in-plant considering handling print technologies across an organization. Stanford, Nero, and Krol have additional words of wisdom for in-plant leaders looking to start a fleet management program.

Ask for What You Want

“I was surprised how cutthroat it can be with vendors,” UAA’s Stanford says about her first time negotiating a fleet contract. Printing tech suppliers are going to try to outdo each other, she notes. “If you are going to a vendor looking for 100 machines, you are going to get a pricing advantage,” she says.

Make sure the service and capabilities you expect are spelled out in the contract, she adds. “We are very specific in what we ask for. There is not a lot of room for misinterpretation,” Stanford says. Vendors eager to win — and keep — your business are motivated to stick to the terms and conditions you spell out in the contract.

Larger fleet contracts can also include vendor support staff and more — and that can be to your advantage. The University of Oregon’s MFD and desktop printer fleet program contract includes golf carts for print IT support staff to use, ensuring quick service on the school’s car-free campus.

UCSF’s fleet vendor is obligated to address service requests within just four hours. Many organizations will appreciate it when service tickets for fleet devices do not become a burden for their existing personnel.

Limit How Many Different Models You Use

When the University of Oregon released its latest RFP for fleet devices, Nero took a close look at the types of printers she would offer. Departments at the University of Oregon can choose from four different printers and three different MFDs. In-line finishing is available as an option.

“We have narrowed our options down to a handful of devices,” Nero says. “On our first contract, we struggled with departments having so many options to choose from.”

Stanford shares a similar perspective from Anchorage. Her university reduced the number of Kyocera models departments can choose from, and that can make all the difference when it comes to having toner available. “Narrowing down device options creates an advantage in stocking consumables,” she points out.

Your Fleet Program is a Marketing Tool

Whenever employees pick up a job from a fleet MFD, there is an opportunity for you to show them your message.

“We place posters, flyers, and postcards near copiers to show where our service centers are and explain that large jobs should be routed to the in-plant to avoid tying up machines,” says UCSF’s Krol.

Plus, in-plants can see fleet users’ print volumes every time they run a click charge report. A volume spike presents the perfect opportunity for a visit or call to a department to explain how the in-plant can produce that type of job at a lower cost.

In general, having a fleet program “helps us build stronger relationships,” says Krol. “It increases the in-plant’s visibility and relevance in daily operations. The in-plant may become harder to replace and easier to invest in due to visibility across departments.”