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  1. #11
    Senior Tech 1,000+ Posts kuby's Avatar
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    Re: Managing Toners Stock in the Field

    We had one customer that was ordering toner until one day I asked the manager why he send them toner went he sent them some last week. He said that they told him they were out? I went and looked at the copy count and came back to the shop and looked up the invoice and last serviced and showed it to the manager and told him something is fishy. There was not way they used that much toner. I told manger either that had another machine like that somewhere else ( not on contract from us ) or they are selling the toner to some one. The manager called them and questioned them about it and it stopped. Toner gets costly after a while.

  2. #12
    Field Supervisor 500+ Posts mloudy's Avatar
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    Re: Managing Toners Stock in the Field

    Just starting to have techs find all toners and then ask where any more are stored when they are on site. Way too many leased machines are being retuned with gobs of toners.

    One nice feature to monitoring software is that you can set up Premature Toner Alerts. Some of the dumbest customers will swap out all the toners when the colors are off. I had an alert hit my phone and I showed up in minutes to find a full set of toners in the trash which would have been gone by the next morning. Then I train the person who did it but unfortunately a new knucklehead will be in charge in a few months.

    Setting email alerts is great and we use them but if a toner is changed at, let us say 60%, then the email alert setting of 20% is never sent. With Sharp you can print out a 22-6 which will show the "near-near end" toners, toners replaced early but that is after the fact. It does help identify abusers.

    Our largest account would often start swapping toners when it needed an image unit. Talking about a fleet of 70 color printers. So for a black image unit alert on the display the printer would get a full set of new toners and image units. Keep swapping until the printer worked again basically. We eventually had to change them over to a cpc for parts/service and they paid for supplies. To this day we still pick up gaylords full of "empties" and bring them back to go through one by one. Normally we find about $500 our cost in brand new toners that have never even inserted as well of multiple toners with varying life left. When you never install a toner it doesn't show up in the Premature Replacement Alerts. After 12 years we still don't know how it happens and neither do they. We re-box them and ship them all back to them. I HATE MPS.

  3. #13
    Service Manager 5,000+ Posts
    Managing Toners Stock in the Field

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    Re: Managing Toners Stock in the Field

    Quote Originally Posted by mloudy View Post
    Just starting to have techs find all toners and then ask where any more are stored when they are on site. Way too many leased machines are being retuned with gobs of toners.

    One nice feature to monitoring software is that you can set up Premature Toner Alerts. Some of the dumbest customers will swap out all the toners when the colors are off. I had an alert hit my phone and I showed up in minutes to find a full set of toners in the trash which would have been gone by the next morning. Then I train the person who did it but unfortunately a new knucklehead will be in charge in a few months.

    Setting email alerts is great and we use them but if a toner is changed at, let us say 60%, then the email alert setting of 20% is never sent. With Sharp you can print out a 22-6 which will show the "near-near end" toners, toners replaced early but that is after the fact. It does help identify abusers.

    Our largest account would often start swapping toners when it needed an image unit. Talking about a fleet of 70 color printers. So for a black image unit alert on the display the printer would get a full set of new toners and image units. Keep swapping until the printer worked again basically. We eventually had to change them over to a cpc for parts/service and they paid for supplies. To this day we still pick up gaylords full of "empties" and bring them back to go through one by one. Normally we find about $500 our cost in brand new toners that have never even inserted as well of multiple toners with varying life left. When you never install a toner it doesn't show up in the Premature Replacement Alerts. After 12 years we still don't know how it happens and neither do they. We re-box them and ship them all back to them. I HATE MPS.
    ... this sets up your business for having a lot of useless toner on discontinued copiers when the copier is eventually returned to your office after an upgrade to replace the existing copier. This dead toner will likely sit on your shelves for years before you write it off and throw it away in a landfill. I am not sure if you can recycle a full toner cartridge.

  4. #14
    Field Supervisor 500+ Posts mloudy's Avatar
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    Re: Managing Toners Stock in the Field

    When we get down to a a limited number of a certain model in the field I start watching in-house and on-site pretty tight. I normally sell newly dead stock on eBay at half our cost.

    Right now it is the MX-M623N. Three left and all to be replaced by July. I think I will be left with about 6-8 toners. Watching charge per call supply orders is also important. I got a PO a few weeks ago for over $8K worth of toner that the customer would never use. Because of Covid the materials people now work from home and there is a disconnect for sure. These toners were for five 10 year old printers that they barely use anymore and the only ones we have in the field so I knew at some point they would want to return them for a credit. The people that take these orders at most companies have no clue of what is needed and what isn't inless they have a way to double check quickly. Other companies see an $8K supply sale and run it through. I didn't have the stock to begin with becasue I knew the demand and have been limiting what I stock for this printer model.

  5. #15
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    Re: Managing Toners Stock in the Field

    Thanks Everyone.

    Great information on the topic

  6. #16
    Field Supervisor 500+ Posts mloudy's Avatar
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    Re: Managing Toners Stock in the Field

    20210514_151848.jpg

    Here is what email alerts and print fleet software will not catch, stupidity.

    Walked by the cart in the warehouse where "empties" are placed before we ship them back to Lexmark. Pulled these out of the box they were in and by feeling the weight of one of them I knew it didn't have an empty toner in it. Sure enough if you look at the toner on the right it has never even been opened. We can put all kinds of safegaurds in place but people will always find a way to bypass them with stupidity. Fortunetly $125 goes back on the shelf and not back to Lexmark. I shake my head a lot at work every day.

  7. #17
    Field Supervisor 500+ Posts mloudy's Avatar
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    Re: Managing Toners Stock in the Field

    20210514_154457.jpg

    In an effort to stop customers from trying to fix light copies and prints by swaping out toners I had these stickers made. They go on all new equipment and techs carry a roll with them to put on existing equipment. $276 for 2,000 labels. Save a couple toners and they are paid for.

  8. #18
    Trusted Tech 50+ Posts Gina82's Avatar
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    Re: Managing Toners Stock in the Field

    Our small dealership kind of does a 50/50 with FM Audit. About 50% of our customers are on the web audit, and those do not get an extra toner for the shelf. We set the limit for 15%. Once that limit is reached, FM Audit gives you an estimated end of life for toner. Also FM Audit shows when toner has been replaced in the past and at what percent. We like it.

    The other 50% call into the office. We keep a manual record of meter reads with each contract customer in our toner book. I know that sounds like a lot of work, but it actually isn't. I can pull this binder at any time and pull any contract customer, it shows me about how often they receive toner and their approximate copies between toner. We also monitor meter reads. If a toner is supposed to get 24K, and the customer is only get half. We inform the customer, and if this is not corrected, we correct the service agreement accordingly. Depending on the account and their track record with toner, a few out of town accounts are allowed to keep an extra toner. Especially high volume accounts...

    Never leave toner at schools was a hard one to pull off, but we hardly leave extra toner at any school, since the turnover rate is so high in the office. But techs also check the machine and note on workorder if a certain account is getting low and don't mind calling and letting them know I'm sending them one. Since 50% call into office for toner, I can knock out toner replacement for light copies or copy quality issues. The other 50% only get toner when FM Audit calls for it and has to call in for service calls. We also keep toner in stock and monitor the quantity that we keep pretty often and adjust ordering when machines start to get older.

    This works pretty well for us.

  9. #19
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    Re: Managing Toners Stock in the Field

    As far as I know the ERDS sytem work for prior and low off the copiers we have done a program to auto notified us by the email it sends out.

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