IT Inventory Management – How Your Repair Provider Can Help

Of increasing importance in depot repairs is where a repair vendor also provides Logistics or Inventory Management of IT hardware. This seems to be a trend that is increasing across a wide spectrum of IT users.

With this model, the third party depot repair company not only repairs your hardware, but they will store it and ship it to end users or stores in the field. The defective hardware is returned from the field directly to the vendor for repair and is then put back in the repaired pool of equipment for future use.

This offers you several benefits including:

• IT hardware management and repair is outsourced with generally significant cost savings. This allows you to concentrate on your core business, which is generally not repairing IT hardware!

• Professional handling, storage, configuration and maintenance of your hardware by the depot repair company.

• Defective equipment is repaired and re-used, which offers great cost savings over replacing broken hardware with new equipment. When necessary, your provider should be able to source refurbished equipment too at cost effective prices.

• The Depot Repair provider will be able to process repairs for you that are covered by the manufacturers’ warranty. Even if they cannot repair the manufacturers’ equipment in-house, they can provide added value by processing these repairs with the manufacturer on your behalf.

• With the broader knowledge of the market, your provider will be able to notify you of trends or issues in the IT field. Are they recalls or common problems with the hardware that you use? Your vendor may well know of problems that their other customers experience and can use that knowledge to help you!

If you wish to outsource these logistics to a third party then you need to have confidence in your provider. They may well be located hundreds of miles from you and you cannot watch over them every day, so make sure the following items are agreed to beforehand.

• Ask for regular (at least weekly) reports from your supplier as to what’s been repaired and what their equipment stock is.

• What will the depot charge for managing your inventory? Apart from the cost of shipping equipment the charges shouldn’t be very high; many depot repair companies view inventory management as a way to add value to their relationship with their customers and strive to keep costs low.

• Determine the process for sending equipment into the field – how does the vendor know what and where to send equipment? Who is responsible for ensuring that defective equipment is returned to the depot?

• How are manufacturer’s warranties handled? Again, suppliers may be authorized to repair manufacturer’s equipment, but even if they’re not they may process the repair at little or no cost as a way to add value to a customer.