Silap

A paperless office? A dream almost possible!

Current status

From some studies that have been carried out recently, results that the current situation of Italian companies is quite tragic about recycling of paper and energy saving; Also the greater diffusion of technological media for the production of documents, has allowed a huge increase in paper consumption in the last 20 years.

Even more so today, in a world where it is important for a company saving money, Silap decided to promote a more responsible usage of the paper, using better the tools available to the company and sensitizing more employees to limit consumption.

Achievable short-run goals

Considering that the UV power supplies of the QBe series have a green soul, Silap has thougth to reduce the number of user manuals supplied with each UV QBe power supply, providing its customers with a single printed user manual for each batch with more pieces of the same product.

If the customer will need additional manuals, he may request the file associated to it, by sending an e-mail to sales.spm@silap.com indicating the serial number of the product or the purchase order number. If we will not receive further communications, our proposal for saving paper will be considered valid.

In future it will be enabled the download of the user manual and other documentation for a specific customer  by a page on this website.

Otherwise, if a customer needs a paper manual for each product he must specify clearly in the purchase order.

Solution already in use

For several years within Silap are adopted the following technological tools to improve the management and exchange of information between the various offices:

  • Software to send fax: every office that usually use faxes can send these through an appropriate screen very similar to the one that appears when you dial an e-mail. This allows them to avoid printing the file produced or gathered from operational systems.
  • Electronic document archiving software: used by all the offices, it allows you to store and search for documents through specific cataloging parameters defined by a “Virtual folder”. This approach also allows them to manage the status of each document and create document flow between offices minimizing the use of printed documents (eg orders, shipping documents and supplier orders)
  • Electronic protocol of documents: generally used by those who deal with accounting documents, has the same function as the protocol applied to paper documents, except that it is generated by the accounting software and is applied in the form of virtual stamp to documents stored in document archiving software, allowing a subsequent search so fast
  • Dual Screen: used by the administration and from the computers that handle a large amount of paper documents, especially the second screen allows you to save on prints of temporary use (eg system insertion of customer orders)
  • Using energy-efficient copiers: in our offices there are copiers with energy saving function after a period of disuse (adjustable), double-sided printing, scanning with the possibility to sent directly to the workstation and also support printing on recycled paper; all of which contributes to energy and paper savings, allowing you to handle the largest number of documents in electronic format.

Objectives for the future developments

The actions taken so far are a good starting point, but in order to further improve the management of the volume of paper assets, Silap plans to pursue the following objectives:

  • Reduction of paper consumption of at least 20%: this would lead consequently to a lower use of consumables, which translates into a significant cost savings
  • Define criteria for the purchase of paper and toner in relation to the number of copiers and business functions that use them
  • Define mode of communication to employees: how much more effective it is a communication, the more employees will move away from the old way of working, but it must be highlighted the advantages and benefits for each activity (focusing on the most critical ones)
  • Where necessary, introduce a test phase with training to support employees to bring to the gradual change of printing habits
  • Define simple guidelines that can deliver tangible results in the short term
  • Collect printing habits and opinions from employees to understand what people need most of the change in their printing habits
  • Introduce use of recycled paper (post-consumer and not resulting from production scraps) for internal printing use, and only use plain paper for official communications (eg customer invoices)
  • Step to archiving replacement to eliminate the large amount of paperwork stored for tax purposes

External references

REGIONE LOMBARDIA, Consumo di carta negli uffici e nelle cassette postali [online]. Disponibile su <http://bit.ly/ZXrRgA> [Data di accesso: 10/04/2013].
PROVINCIA DI FIRENZE, Come ti riduco la carta [online]. Disponibile su <http://bit.ly/YNRNk1> [Data di accesso: 10/04/2013].