Challenge

Recovering and deploying computers from students who used them to access curriculum online was manageable when the K-12, public, virtual school was founded in 1999. But as student enrollment grew rapidly, computer recovery and redeployment processes became a major headache for the business.

At first, the company attempted to outsource technology change processes to a computer reseller that had the requisite experience in procurement and deployment, but lacked expertise in IT asset recovery and redeployment. That gap created operational inefficiencies.

One of the school’s biggest challenges was that it was unable to reclaim, and ultimately repurpose, 40 percent of its IT assets deployed to student homes. This inability required the institution to procure new technology at much higher costs. It also lacked the capabilities to efficiently redeploy the equipment that was recovered, resulting in deployment delays, product quality concerns, and high customer complaints. Because the school couldn’t pass increased costs to the students through higher fees, profits suffered.

In addition, the school had no visibility into its equipment inventory, where it was located or the condition of the equipment. As a result, it couldn’t effectively manage its inventory and was forced again to buy more new equipment than its business model would support. It also didn’t have information on the condition of existing assets that could be used to drive decisions on appropriate asset lifecycles and maintenance strategies.

Solution

Working with Redemtech, the school was able to deploy a comprehensive approach to TCM that included defining business and technical rules that met financial and quality objectives. Automated processes for asset recovery, technology reuse, deployment, quality control and compliance with Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requirements were also addressed.

Through Redemtech, the asset recovery process was automated, providing visibility to the location and recovery status of each asset deployed. This allowed the school to increase recovery rates from 60 percent to 95 percent, which meant it could increase reuse and reduce new equipment purchases. Assets also became more visible, allowing the school to see the condition of each piece of equipment, so it could properly manage resource allocation and procurement for new equipment and parts.

Redemtech also implemented value-appropriate business rules for the repair and refurbishment of recovered systems, and delivered hardware reliability metrics so the customer could make sound lifecycle management decisions based upon the dependability and break-fix costs associated with specific models in use.

Warranted data destruction, verification and certified reporting for FERPA compliance was delivered while customized World Wide Web tools, automated communications, and how-to instructions with each deployment were also implemented.

Results

Since working with Redemtech, the institution has realized myriad benefits. Quality metrics collected by Redemtech have enabled greater understanding and faster resolution of issues surrounding the organization’s assets. Through Redemtech’s detailed reporting on quality issues, the organization now has the ability to identify root causes and take the appropriate steps to fix problems.

After outsourcing deployment to Redemtech, the institution has been able to drastically improve recovery rates and save more than $1.9 million annually in new equipment costs through increased redeployment, while enhancing quality, reliability and end-user satisfaction.

Implementation of TCM has delivered operational benefits as well. For example, when the school wanted to upgrade the memory of all the computers in the field, Redemtech helped distribute the RAM with step-by-step instructions to help families willing to perform the upgrades themselves. This was a huge benefit for the organization, considering the time and cost it would take to ship the computers to a processing facility for upgrade and then back to the families.

Redemtech also helped the company realize $125,000 by taking advantage of a rebate program for new inkjet printers sponsored by its sister-company, Micro Center. More than $60,000 in savings was achieved by mailing shipping labels directly to the users, rather than having them provided by the shipping company. And freight costs on monitors were reduced by 50 percent by replacing CRTs with lighter-weight LCD panels.

Reliability data captured by Redemtech has also supported better decisions on new technology, as the school can now analyze equipment performance in the field by manufacturer and model. For instance, using data supplied by Redemtech, the company was able to analyze the reliability of nine system configurations being deployed. Company officials discovered that five models were exhibiting below-average reliability. As a result, the four other models most reliable were standardized. This change, along with improvements to refurbishing and shipping processes implemented by Redemtech, resulted in an 80-percent reduction in quality problems at a time when equipment shipments rose 20 percent.

In total, through Redemtech services, reporting and asset management expertise, the customer has generated savings of more than $2 million per year as result of TCM. In addition, the school has benefited from enhanced student satisfaction and reduced burden on internal resources.

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