SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

ISDS team sheet are often 12 pages or more. We are required print one for the inmate and one for the file (that is over 24 pages of paper at a time) and with a case load of at least 130 inmates or more and team twice a year that is over 6200 sheets of paper per case manager per year. That is only if you have a small case load. We need to start printing these teams multi page per sheet, where there are at least 2 pages... more »

With move to paperless offices, it is astounding how many people print and then scan hard copies back to make them into e-documents. Users are often not aware that they can "print to PDF" format direct from their desktops, and have the "scanned" document immediately available.

What a waste of time and paper, not to mention additional hardware support and maintenance to the required scanners and printers.

Save paper... more »

OPERATION FREEZE THE INK! 700 pounds and 10,000 pages is what the average worker will print in one year. A 25-30% reduction of printing by 50-60% of federal workers (1,500,000 FTE) would save $187 million in a year! It's not technology that holds us back, it's the will to use it. Implementing a printing cap would make government workers get creative in how a document is electronically delivered.

The US government and SSA in particular maintain the largest repository of electronic documents. These documents, for the most part, are stored in a TIFF format. By changing to the PDF format both storage space and bandwidth to transport the images over the network would be reduced. In addition, the PDF format allows for greater use since data within a PDF is searchable. The converse is not true for the TIFFs.

SSA has many public information materials that are produced in huge quantities and shipped all over the country (at significant costs). Some of this material is available in pdf format on SSA's web site but it's not easy to access just the one or two items a customer may need.

SSA uses a program named "eMailer" that enables our employees to email a few of these materials.

SSA should make all of its electronic pamphlets,... more »