SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Prior to working for the federal government, I spent approximately five (5) years employed in the private sector. A growing practice was the implementation of faxmail. The idea is simple: an individual is assigned a phone number, and when he/she receives a fax, it goes directly into his/her email inbox.

With the goal of creating a paperless work environment, the receipt of an electronic fax will create an instant savings... more »

Fax machines are an obsolete form of communication and should be phased out.

It's called email.

 

We all have it.

 

It's easier than faxing --- and uses 0 sheets of paper.

 

Nix the fax machines already.

There have been many comments about saving paper. This will not happen unless it is mandatory, from limiting the number of printouts for each employee to disabling the cover sheet on printed documents – no one should be printing cover sheets. Make all fax machines computerized, which allows faxes to be received and sent online. Mandate that all meetings are paperless – no agendas, copies of documents, etc., can be used.... more »

For all staff with both Blackberries and desk phones, plus any staff that telework, issue one cell phone (versus having a personal cell phone, an office Blackberry, plus a desk phone), or offer a subsidy toward using the person's personal phone for office purposes. Then, all lines should share pooled minutes (like a great big "family plan"). Having both a Blackberry (with phone service), plus a desk phone, is redundant,... more »

In the early days of SSA, there were huge ribbon-style printers that received the daily print traffic. This printed hundreds of sheets that were manually torn apart and given to the appropriate person. This required excessive time, resources and manpower. Then someone had the great idea of a computer program (autoscup) that took all of the print jobs and converted them to a text file that could be emailed to any employee.... more »

Daily, we receive requests from our public for benefit letters. Though we encourage our public to eServices to obtain this information, some customers request the information to be sent via fax. Accommodating these requests costs time and money. We could greatly reduce costs associated with paper, toner, fax maintenance, and down time to fax by converting to electronic faxing. Doing this would allow us to promote... more »