Depot Service

Several years ago, MCA recognized that several of our customers had challenging service requirements. Many of them have numerous facilities which need device repair; however, the service offerings of traditional on-site service providers did not meet the unique requirements of these remote facilities. For example:

• Many remote sites are located in rural areas, making next day, on-site repair difficult or in most cases, impossible.
• Additionally our customers quickly realized that “next day, on-site service” does not equate to “next day, on-site repair”. Many times, the repair was not completed for several days after the failure, due to lack of available parts or technician delays. These delays resulted in loss of productivity and seriously impacted our customers’ ability to satisfactorily serve their clients.

By offering these customers a Depot Service Solution, MCA has enabled their remote sites to be up and running again the very next day after equipment failure. Our Depot Service Solution has a proven track record that consistently outweighs the on-site service option, both from a productivity and cost effectiveness standpoint. MCA’s Depot Service Solution delivers equipment to customer sites reliably next day, at a cost that is generally less than the on-site service option. MCA’s offers a total package for customer shipments consisting of instructions for installation by the end-user, return freight airbills, serial number/asset tag tracking and reporting, efficient management of our customers’ inventory, and factory authorized repair services provide our customers with a depot solution that exceeds their expectations and keeps their business running as it should.

MCA has capitalized on the many efficiencies of depot repair services to provide our customers with true next day service.

• Trained Technicians: Because MCA knows exactly what equipment it will be repairing, all the technicians will be trained to the Manufacturers’ standards. Conversely, many on-site technicians have never seen the equipment they are sent to work on.
• Stocked Parts: MCA can stock all the parts needed for the exact equipment therefore lessening the repair cycle. Most on-site technicians will be required to order parts for any repairs performed in the field adding to the downtime of the end user.
• Tech Bench Repair: All repairs are performed in a tech bench environment with all necessary tools and support material at hand. There is also the advantage that the technician is not working under the pressure of an end user down and needing to be back up and running.
• Preventive Maintenance: Not only will the problem the equipment was sent in for be repaired but MCA will perform Preventive Maintenance on the device. It will be inspected for worn-out parts and other potential problems eliminating future downtime.
• Repaired Equipment Ready to Ship: Spare equipment will be staged ready to ship to the end user arriving the next morning ready to be put into service.
• Because everything is packed and ready to ship there is no waiting on a technician to call back or show up or drive 75 to 150 miles to reach the end user.
• MCA tracks all repairs and resolutions on depot repaired equipment and can identify problem areas and equipment trends.
• MCA will track all Serial Number changes and Asset Tag changes.

When you call MCA you will always talk to a person, not a recording. Everyone at MCA knows the importance of taking care of our customer and will be happy to help, but please be assured you can talk to upper management including the Vice President and President at any time.

Our Depot Maintenance Team assures quality from the time your product arrives at MCA by having a system of checking equipment in, routing to the proper repair technician, following a checklist of product specific items to repair and prevent future premature failures. After ample testing of the unit, it is placed at a Customer Specific Location to await shipping instructions from the Customer. A detailed account of parts and labor is input in our Call System for future reference. MCA takes one further step and specifically packages every piece of equipment with specialized foam and double wall boxes to maintain the integrity of the package for shipment to the next end user.

MCA has a very detailed check-in procedure when a unit is received in our warehouse to ensure that it gets prompt attention and gets returned to the Customer in a timely manner. Our Qualified Technician also has a check list to ensure that all areas of service are covered. All personnel have access to a Depot Procedures Manual that will answer any question that any one of us may have, be it the dispatcher, the technician, or the shipper. All equipment is tested and run thoroughly before shipping, including PC burn-ins for 24 hours to ensure no issues, and printers tested for a minimum of 100 pages to ensure that they will not fail out in the field. MCA only uses the most reliable spare parts. All rollers, printheads, and belts are always replaced with new parts.

MCA is blessed with a team of Highly Qualified Technicians in all areas of expertise. MCA has a staff of Senior Technicians who have been repairing computer equipment with a combined number of years amounting to well over 100 years. MCA is a Certified Partner with manufacturers such as HP, Lexmark, Xerox, Lenovo, Dell, IBM, Okidata, Fargo, and Zebra. Our technicians receive some of the best training the industry has to offer. We represent many other manufacturers as well. In addition, MCA technicians are A+ certified and our technicians also bring with them the knowledge of the older equipment still in use by many companies today. We also employ a staff of depot technicians who are kept up to date with the proper training from major manufacturers, as well as being able to discuss issues with the Senior Technicians when needed. At MCA, we have helped customers with hundreds of sites rollout new inventory including complete I.T. staging with images and grouping items together to allow our customers to focus on their core business while we work out the details of keeping the infrastructure with new I.T. equipment. In addition, we have made sure that all of these sites stay running by offering a complete depot solution with a guaranteed fixed piece of equipment as soon as next day, no waiting on communications with a big manufacturer or waiting on additional parts if the technician did not bring them. We guarantee less downtime thereby increasing your company’s bottom line profits.

The Corporate Headquarters and distribution center gives MCA the capability, room, technology, to support depot services for companies throughout the U.S. MCA’s headquarters has loading facilities to support tractor trailers and all other types of loading and unloading. Located in Chattanooga, TN we are in the same industrial park as Federal Express and UPS.

MCA has a state-of-the-art facility with over 11,000 square feet of office space and 6,000 square feet of warehouse storage three stories high. In the warehouse, the equipment is securely stored and inventoried on a regular basis by customer and by equipment type. Our warehouse is monitored by Sonitrol security and is also secured with video surveillance. Our warehouse manager is on hand at all times and supervises three additional employees for shipping, delivering, and packaging. Each employee has passed background checks and has extensive experience in handling equipment.

MCA’s state-of-the-art facility has more than adequate space to accommodate our customer’s storage and distribution of spare pool equipment, including (but not limited to) the following items: 100 – PC’s, 100 – POS Receipt Printers, 50 – 15” LCD monitors, 5 – Servers, 25 – Laser Printers, 25 – UPS’s for each customer.

MCA has been helping our customers for years with equipment staging and rollout. We have the technical know-how to make equipment integration and rollouts go smoothly and efficiently. MCA has a dedicated area in our state-of-the -art tech room for imaging of servers, pc’s, POS equipment, loading software on scanners, routers, switches, and many other types of equipment. MCA has managed the rollout of equipment for short-term projects as well as long-term projects. MCA refreshed over 2,000 pc’s for one of it’s customers that involved new images, removal of old equipment, install of new equipment, and transfer of data to new equipment. MCA has recently completed for another customer a remote rollout of new technology to over 400 locations.

As soon as a shipment is received, it goes into a designated tagging area where every piece of equipment is identified and labeled according to customer and location. The warehouse manager ensures that the customer name is scanned, equipment make and model is scanned and the actual serial number is scanned to create two identical inventory labels.

One label goes to the service call dispatcher to note in the call that the equipment has been received. The second label stays with the equipment to be confirmed by the technician and then is used by the packager once the equipment is repaired to label the box. The service call system has the ability to track all inventory on hand by a location that is set up to show that the equipment is at the MCA Depot location. This way at any point the customer can contact MCA and get a full list of their inventoried equipment in our warehouse.

MCA has provided online access to various areas of our IT operations since 1999. Starting with our online service call system, we facilitate over 75% of our service call volume online. Our online call system can show status of both open and closed service calls and additional reporting not available online can be sent via email on a spreadsheet directly from our call system. Our online catalog provides our customers with real-time tracking of their orders with easy search features to identify serial numbers, locations, order numbers, etc. Our online catalog system also includes Depot and Asset Management which provides our customers with the ability to manage their assets through asset tag tracking, and view their depot inventory levels at any time. Optionally, we also provide our customers with the ability to import and export their inventory and asset data in or out of our online system. Email confirmations are made automatically during the fulfillment of any online order. You will be notified when your order has been shipped or the status has changed for any reason, such as backordered equipment.

Depot can only be successful if the integrity of the shipment is maintained from MCA to our customer’s facility. We have developed a very secure shipment procedure where as soon as the equipment is repaired we bag the equipment to ensure no dust or warehouse particles cause any defects. Then we immediately package the equipment in specifically designed foam that forms to each piece of equipment and is easily removable by the end user for the return shipment. We also only use double wall boxes to hold up during shipment. We have relationships with major shippers and are centrally located less than a mile from the FedEx and UPS main shipping facilities, so at a moment’s notice we can take a last minute shipment without losing valuable time. As soon as an item is shipped the tracking number sticker is provided to the dispatchers and the call is immediately updated with all tracking information and can also be viewed on the website by the customer. In addition, MCA receives emails notifying us if there is a shipment exception and when the equipment is delivered so if needed we can arrange for a return pickup to the customers site.

I. A unit is received by our warehouse personnel and checked in using strict guidelines that ensure the unit will get input in our call system the day of receipt.

II. Warehouse personnel then inform the Dispatcher of the unit’s location, owner, serial number, tag number, problem description, and where the unit originated from.

III. Dispatch personnel then update the call history and assign it to a Technician, then update the site of the equipment to MCA Depot Warehouse under the customer’s site lists.

IV. Technical personnel clean, inspect, repair, and test the unit thoroughly as specified in the Depot Procedure Manual. All equipment is tested and run thoroughly before shipping, including PC burn-ins for 24 hours to ensure no issues, and printers tested for a minimum of 100 pages to ensure that they will not fail out in the field. Technicians can also look at the history of specific equipment which enables them to determine the best avenue of repair.

V. The Technician informs the Dispatcher with detailed information of the repair, indicating parts usage, page count (if applicable), labor hours, and comments.

VI. The unit is then placed in a customer specific location for packaging.

VII. The packaged unit is labeled and placed in a customer specific location and is ready at this point to be deployed on future service calls.

VIII. Once a new call is opened we ship out the piece of equipment and update the new service call with the serial number, change the site in the system to where the serial number is going and update the service call with tracking information.

MCA employs a highly specialized staff of Senior and Depot engineer technicians of which the majority have been with MCA for 10+ years. Our staff is committed to serving our customers’ needs. We let our customers decide how much they want to spend on each individual unit, and then we work diligently to get the job done using those guidelines. We package each unit to our customers specifications using the most advanced hand-held foam dispensing system, a process that produces specifically designed cushions for ultimate protection and efficiency. Our warehouse is equipped with video surveillance equipment as well as other security measures to ensure that ever unit is secure.

Because MCA holds the internal expertise to design and maintain our online systems, we have the ability to change or add features that are beneficial to our customers. Items like inventory levels and asset management are all recommendations from existing customers. MCA develops our online systems using Visual Basic Scripting, JAVA, and SQL. We have added individual systems to provide single customers with the ability to view imaging statistics, as well as, configuration files from Cisco Equipment. Our staging operations allow us to inject new procedures quickly and efficiently such as bar-coding, asset tagging, or boxing end-user documentation. MCA has also designed our new data center to offer co-location services, as well as, managed IT services such as managed VPN, managed firewall, and server co-location.

MCA understands customer service and what it takes to go the extra mile to ensure as few mistakes as possible. We fulfill our customer needs with great care and integrity as well as treat the extension locations with the same quality of care as if they were the home office requesting service. We all work together as a team to make the processes flow smoothly. MCA offers the above service to relieve the customer of the responsibility of taking the calls from the locations that need assistance by MCA shipping the equipment, receiving defective equipment, repairing and returning to customer’s inventory in MCA warehouse for recycle.

Our goal is to give our customers the ability to focus on their core business while we decrease their downtime and increase their bottom line profitability by providing a streamlined repair process. This depot scenario is ideal for customers with locations in rural areas.