how many printers should we have?
 

Now I know this is kind of a dumb/open question, as there really isn't any answer, but -- my boss asked me this question: "Is there an industry standard for a number of printers to a number of users?" A little info: We have about 140 clients on our network, located at 4 sites. Most clients are at one site, the other 3 are satellites. The larger of the satellites is complaining that one printer is insufficient in an area where there are 17 PCs.

Printing is almost 100% black-and-white, reports, letters, etc.

Most of our printers are LJ4000s, and a few newer ones like the 4300. At the present time we have about 16 printers on the network.

Any thoughts, help, recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

In my work area of about 40-45 people there is 1 plotter, 3 LJ5s and a color laser printer. We could probably get by with 2 LJs. If you print lots of large documents or anything with lots of graphics one printer isn't enough.

Depends on your needs - one account I was on had 1 b/w printer between 15 people. And one colour printer per office. This was their standard. If an office had especially high print needs, or the printer would be located too far from some of the office they had more.

It really does depend on what your printing needs are. I'd get the offices to produce a report over a few months to give their average printing requirements (probably higher around thinks like end of financial periods) and then you can make a decision. Look at how far they all have to walk to get a print, who has the highest requirement - 1 or 2 users may be clogging up the works - and things like that.

Also look at how much your company is willing to spend on these extra printers.