It is easy to create more work and waste money. All you need to do is create more poorly designed forms that must be filled out in many multiple copies. Another way is to send copies of reports and unimportant notices to everybody you can think of. You can make sure you print out every email and news item so you will have a hard copy that needs to be filed. Of course you may never need the information and if you do it will likely be impossible to find.

You can create work for your suppliers too. That way, their cost will go up, and they will need to raise their prices to meet your requirements.

All of the above are examples of extreme cases. Frequently you need to make copies. It is important to document in writing contracts and records that are important. But some thought should go into what is produced. Reducing needless paperwork saves labor cost and is good for the environment.

One way to improve purchasing administration is to make sure that forms are easy to fill out and they are not redundant. If one form can be used rather than two, there is a saving of 50% in paper cost alone. Simply adding a line, a space, or rewording a required entry can eliminate an entire page and multiple copies.

Large companies and governments often continue to send reports, catalogs, notices, and various types of information to hundreds of employees who never needed the information or no longer need it. Attaching a little note asking for a reply if the information is no longer needed will permit you to remove their name from the mailing list.

And, of course, the obvious way to improve is to send information by email or through a Web site to eliminate the need for paper and ink. But even when using electronic methods you can waste resources and time by cluttering the channels of communication and wasting the recipient’s time to read or dispose of the messages.