Management of the output fleet, including items such as printers, can provide benefits to any business, including higher return on investment and greater profits.
Due to the nature of the modern business environment, assets are distributed both geographically, across regions, countries and the globe, and within individual locations. It is therefore vital to have efficient management of these assets, not only to ensure correct distribution in order to enable the highest level of employee productivity, but also to make certain that devices are available when needed and that they have the correct features.
Managing such a distributed environment is a key component when it comes to controlling costs related to output. Due to feedback from customers and access to technology resources, printer manufacturers are uniquely positioned in the marketplace to help organisations derive the maximum savings from their output environment.
A fleet management offering should combine management tools such as asset lifecycle services, on-site fleet services, remote fleet services and optimisation services into a tightly knit array of tools, systems, people and processes to help organisations effectively manage their output environment.
Asset lifecycle services should be the backbone of any fleet management offering, and provide the platform from which the other aspects function. This service is a core infrastructure, which includes tools and resources to aid in management of output fleets. The infrastructure serves a dual purpose in that it allows for the management of the assets within an organisation and lays a foundation for the provision of more enhanced and advanced services within the offering.
Asset lifecycle services should be the backbone of any fleet management offering, and provide the platform from which the other aspects function.
Hans Horn, MD of Lexmark South Africa
The purpose of asset lifecycle services is to help businesses to better manage their output fleet through improved device visibility, a task that is accomplished by providing the organisation with accurate, timely and reliable data on each individual device throughout the entire fleet. This data can be provided in easy to read hard copy format, or can be accessed via the Web portal.
Asset lifecycle services typically consist of five key components. Fleet origination is the physical tagging and cataloguing of an organisation`s assets, which includes capturing of the physical location and IP address of each and every asset. A detailed and precise inventory of these assets is a crucial step in understanding the level of resource commitment needed to manage the output fleet, and enables businesses to effectively identify, locate and manage every asset.
Enhanced data collection involves collecting data from the devices in an accurate, timely fashion. This data can be collected from products and the equipment of all vendors. Reliable data is essential for good decision-making, and by using this tool, organisations can eliminate manual meter readings.
Asset tracking and reporting should be aimed at capturing individual device information and aggregates it across the fleet to provide a complete picture of each asset over its duration of use. Extensive reporting should be built into the service, enabling once off reports or regularly scheduled updates, helping to identify usage patterns and allowing organisations to properly match each asset to individual user needs.
Move, add, delete, change reporting enables a systematic approach when it comes to managing changes in the output fleet, allowing for coordinated change activities, which in turn minimises impact on users and maximises efficiency through the period of change.
Finally, usage tracking and billing should provide a flexible and accurate service for the calculation of customer charges. Manual processes should be automating, increasing productivity and ensuring recurring charges, non-recurring charges and usage-based charges are supported.
The data gathered by asset lifecycle services should enable comprehensive management and allow for improved knowledge of all output devices, and by providing a centralised repository of information, reduce the time spent searching for information, therefore enabling informed, timely business decision making. Asset lifecycle services can also help to lower related annual costs, and ultimately provide a greater return on investment in the output fleet.
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