MHW Magazine News and stories from the Materials Handling Industry
Datatrade has launched Reg. a new remote engineer service to enable warehouse and retail distribution centres to keep their mobile printers working and not only minimise downtime but also reduce costs and the stock of pool printers.
Mobile printers are increasingly used to improve efficiencies in printing barcode labels, receipts and invoices in demanding warehouse environments. Manufacturers, retailers or logistics providers are often offered all-inclusive service packages to support new mobile printers but if a fault occurs, the printers usually have to be returned to the supplier for diagnostics/repairs, leaving an interruption in service.
Where Reg. differs is that it’s a remote service, a cost-effective way of putting printer engineer skills and knowledge on site without a physical presence. Customers with no IT capabilities can use Reg. to help fix first line fault issues or diagnose second line issues where printers really do have to be sent away for repair. This initial intervention often means faults can be fixed in situ and printers won’t have to be removed from site for what could be a fortnight.
If a pool mobile printer has to be set up to continue where the faulty machine left off Reg. again remotely takes the place of the skilled person who would ordinarily configure the replacement device. It integrates the printer with the site’s IT and operational policies enabling the configuration process to be carried out by non-technical users.
“Printer downtime costs firms money in lost productivity, and all-inclusive services packages are not always the panacea they look,” suggests Peter Laplanche, a director at Datatrade.
“People don’t factor in the unseen cost of managing with one printer down, or the cost of procuring skilled resources on-site or learning how to set up pool stock themselves. Reg. costs about half the actual sum of a normal service package and is a real cost-effective way of maximising uptime and having access to Datatrade expertise but without physically having its engineers on-site,” says Peter.
Reg. is a simple solution that customers can manage themselves and which is, more importantly, tailored and configured to clients’ printers in aspects like fonts, logos and label sizes, and to the support processes and IT infrastructure.
As well as configuring the printer, Reg. also provides business process support between users and IT to ensure that use of pool printers is acknowledged and refreshed on the network. Reg. is also a useful tool for businesses that use asset management systems.
