Do I Need a Service Contract?

You’ve just purchased that new $20,000 Digital Print System and you’re wondering if you really need a service contract on a brand new machine. Before you decide, you have to ask yourself two very important questions:

1. Do you have people in-house that know how to maintain and repair the equipment and have experience doing it?
2. More importantly, how critical is the equipment to your business?

If equipment downtime means loss of production or lost client opportunity, it’s possible the cost of a single equipment breakdown may exceed the cost of a service contract.

Another point to consider is print quality. If print quality is especially high on your “important list,” a service contract is undeniably valuable. To maintain 100% perfection on your prints can be an expensive endeavor without a service agreement.

Digital printer systems require regular maintenance, which can be expensive when paid for on a time and materials basis. These costs do not cover emergency repairs and breakdowns. When you have a service contract, part of the service is preventive maintenance which can help reduce unexpected breakdowns and machine downtime.

Most contracts also cover:

• Emergency repairs
• The cost of parts and labor
• Maintenance items
• Parts such as fuser rollers, gears, bearings, stripper fingers, and corona wires, which all need periodic replacement
• Parts such as circuit boards, power supplies, photoreceptors, and LED heads, which are all expensive parts should any of them fail unexpectedly

Software upgrades and support have become increasingly critical in the ever-changing computer world. They are usually included in a contract as well.  The labor to install the software may not be covered.

Most plans offer response time guarantees, with the most common time frame typically being 24 hours. Some plans offer response times as brief as 4 hours. Billing cycles can also vary from monthly to quarterly to annually.

Many clients view service contracts as insurance policies. In some respects, they are; however, service contracts truly cover a whole lot more. Service contracts provide predictability in planning and budgeting. In advance, clients can be aware of service and maintenance costs and avoid unexpected future expenditures that occur without a contract.

Taming the Beast

In the last five years, BPI has earned opportunities to partner with prestigious companies on three of Wisconsin’s largest construction projects ranging from $85 million to over $2 billion. One such opportunity included Wisconsin’s largest hospital construction project, while another gave BPI the experience of working with global partners in New York and Japan on Wisconsin’s largest private construction project. A third opportunity includes Wisconsin’s largest public housing development and the largest tax credit allocation in Wisconsin’s history. In all circumstances, BPI is able to deliver customer excellence using a variety of industry tools.

In 2006, BPI began a 4-year partnership with a large health organization in the City of Milwaukee. BPI’s responsibilities included using KIP large & small format copy/scan/print equipment along with various software’s for implementation and execution of the following items:

• more than 90% of print work
• online plan availability
• collaboration with architects, including the lead architect in St. Louis, MO
• onsite scanning by BPI personnel at customer site of all construction documents at project closeout
• complete plan index with proper nomenclature/terminology to provide plan description and document consistency

While execution is key, communication is also of critical importance. BPI honed communication skills while partnering with an overseas customer that had headquarters in New York and Japan. BPI’s Milwaukee office hosted several of the customer’s Japanese officials while using all the latest industry tools and knowledge to work through assorted logistics, such as:

• printing and assembly of closeout and O&M manuals
• hundreds of thousands of originals sized from 8.5×11” to 36×48”
• documents including both color and black and white images
• training of construction site personnel
• final product shipment to Japanese headquarters

A vital component in both execution and communication is timing. Using DFS software, BPI is able to closely partner with a local housing authority to provide the most up-to-date, quality digital drawings at the construction site. The primary outcomes are invaluable:

• Having the most recent sets of drawings and documents means timely information is not jeopardized and smooth workflow continues
• Elimination of inaccurate, poor-quality, or unreadable drawings reduces confusion and onsite errors
• Contractors had the ability, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,  to find, view, order printed hard copy plans (available from any of our 4 local BPI facilities) or download digital files directly from the site for instant access and print

Large construction projects and printing jobs can become unruly and take on lives of their own. Each project can become a beast that delays progress and affects the bottom line of all parties involved. Leading companies, both local and global, count on BPI’s dedicated and knowledgeable staff to tame the beast and assure execution, uninterrupted communication, and appropriate timing. BPI commits to its partnerships by using the proper industry tools to provide customer excellence from each project’s concept to its completion.

Thanks for the Kind Words

When you work in the service industry you do not very often have clients take the time to tell you when you do things right.   It is great feeling and it makes us want to service the next client even better so we can maintain that great level of confidence that you have known to love and trust at BPI.

Below is a video testimonial from our good friends at Roundy’s Inc.