Go to Lloyds TSB’s new Financial Markets building at 10 Gresham Street in London, and you will not find a single fax machine.

The firm decided to implement multifunctional devices (MFDs) to serve as printers, copiers and fax machines.

The strategy has paid off, meeting with overwhelming employee approval as it helps the bank to reduce energy, paper and toner costs.

Lloyds TSB worked with building architects to ensure an employee is never more than eight metres from one of the two MFDs on each floor.

Head of IT strategy and architecture Colin Everett says the devices are much more efficient than having multiple machines throughout the building. ‘The technology has existed for a long time, but people have been slow to implement it,’ he says.

Everett says that such sluggishness could be a behavioural issue, as could workers continuing to print confidential documents on shared devices.

‘We have integrated a security system into the device so that after printing, employees can collect their copy from any printer in the building by swiping their building identity card over the machine,’ he says.

‘We also find that people print too many documents they do not need, so anything left on the printer queue for more than 24 hours is deleted.’

Everett says the limited number of machines, and the fact that they are all networked, allows them to be centrally managed.

‘The management system gives us monthly reports, so we are able to track our printing to see how many duplex, single-sided, colour, black-and-white print-outs each person and each department uses, which means we are able to see trends,’ he says.