Where did my demo machine go?

PPC (our fictional company) has been excited to roll out some new computers in their environment. Engineering has found a fantastic new workstation they think will solve all the complaints they have been receiving from their internal customers.

PPC’s engineering team has decided to bring in a demo machine from their vendor to try out. This is what happened with their demo request.

The machine arrived via an express carrier and was delivered directly to the vendor managers desk. The vendor manager, knowing how excited engineering was about getting the machine, delivered the demo device to the workstation engineers office. They weren’t in so they just left it on the desk.

So far, this sounds like a lot of places you may have worked at or been involved with. The problem comes next.

PPC’s workstation engineering team finds the device on their desk and go straight to work configuring it for testing. Over the next two months, testing goes well, and the workstation team thinks this is the model for the next refresh.

Meanwhile, the asset team is getting calls from the vendor about a demo device that wasn’t returned. The hardware manager was told that PPC will need to pay full price for the demo model (which the hardware manager knew nothing about).

The hunt began for the demo model, which by this time had made its rounds through the workstation engineering team. Ultimately PPC had to pay for the demo machine because it was not returned to the vendor in a timely fashion.

WHAT COULD PPC HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY?

1. Most Important: The Vendor manager should have contacted the hardware manager about the pending arrival of the new device and provided all relevant information including, Serial number, model, manufacturer, assigned to and required return date.
2. Hardware manager should have contacted workstation engineering as the required return date approached to get the device, and it’s peripherals packaged up for return.
3. Tracking information should have been captured to prove the item was returned during the appropriate window.

About the Author

ITS ITAM Solutions Team ITS ITAM Solutions are a staff of ITAM/SACM specialists who love to assist clients with developing and improving their ITAM programs. They provide tool agnostic process development, and tool specific implementations. Read more at their blog at itsitamsolutions.com.