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Depot Capabilities

Point of Sale

For clients with larger quantities of equipment to maintain, we offer a depot facility.  Through this facility, we are able to ship fully configured replacement equipment to a client site overnight (or couriered to site the same day if needed). 

This is most applicable to clients in the retail sector where point of sale systems are in use at numerous locations with very similar configurations and where downtime results in significant lost revenue and poor customer perception.  

How It Works

Continuous Technology Solutions maintains small quantities of spare equipment (typically 1 spare to 15 in-service units) that can be configured on demand to replace the equipment in use at our client's sites.  Through a private portal, we receive notification of any equipment malfunctions.  Rather than attempting to troubleshoot or repair the equipment onsite, we configure and send a replacement for any equipment that is not functioning properly, along with a shipping label to send the malfunctioning equipment back to our depot facility in the same packing material.  The staff onsite simply swaps the equipment, and send the malfunctioning unit back to our depot facility for repair.

The Economic Case

Equipment shipped UPS ground is delivered the following morning (in-state) at a very low cost.  The malfunctioning unit is returned to our depot also at a low cost.  Then, because the client site is no longer suffering from lost revenue due to equipment failure, the equipment can be repaired at the competitive repair rates offered by our depot facility, rather than the high cost of emergency onsite repair (or the cost and frustration of coaching non-technical retail staff through a reset or reconfiguration while customers are waiting)!

For example - consider the typical costs for a point of sale computer:

	Onsite Repair	Depot Replacement
Travel or Shipping cost	$25/hr (usually 30+ min if in the metro area)	$10 each way
Labor for repair	$100/hr (1 hr min)	$55/hr (15 minute min)
Parts for repair	Parts cost (though parts often need to be ordered, resulting in a delay and a 2nd trip to the site)	Actual parts cost (parts availability does NOT incur additional cost)
Estimates	At least $50 travel $100 labor (probably much more) plus the cost of the parts, estimate $75 plus the disruption of having a repair performed onsite during business hours	$20 for shipping $55 labor (often less) plus the cost of the parts, estimate $75 plus 1/15th cost of a spare printer assuming 1 spare for 15 units in use
Approximate Total	$225 (could easily be twice this much if parts are not available on the first trip)	$150 (or less)
Additional notes	At the end of this repair, the system may need re-configuration to be serviceable.  Who does this, and can you estimate the additional cost?	The replacement system arrives onsite fully configured.

There are many other scenarios:

• Labor and parts for the computer repair could be covered by a warranty.  In this case, the repair might appear to cost nothing, but consider that a staff member will need to call the vendor and perform basic troubleshooting steps to initiate a warranty repair.  At best this will take 30 minutes, which is disruptive to business and has significant hidden costs due to lost productivity and sales.  Then, a warranty call will be performed, usually by a third party technician, usually using refurbished parts supplied by the manufacturer.  This service call is disruptive to business and incurs additional hidden costs.  After the repair, the computer may need to be reconfigured, which will incur more hidden cost.  

Why not implement this depot facility internally?  We already have the infrastructure and expertise:

1. space for equipment storage and shipping
2. a repair facility
3. staff to operate the storage/shipping and repair facilities
4. expertise to store, ship, coordinate, track, configure, and repair the equipment
5. an equipment database and tracking system