4 Questions to Ask Your TPM About Their Sparing Management

You are lining up your management team with your third-party maintenance provider (TPM), examining your SLA contract — and it all looks good. You’re ready to sign on the dotted line. Everything seems right and your TPM provider says they will have all the spares you’ll need, all the components exactly when you need them, on time and ready to ship. And working well.

So you take them at their word.

But do you know what happens behind the scenes of sparing with TPM?  How do you really know the spares will be there when and where you need them?  Read on to learn the four questions you can't afford to not ask your TPM. 

To learn more about OneCall maintenance, get in touch with a member of the team by clicking below.

1. Can they provide the serial number of their spares?
This is the most important question to ask. Simply ask them for the serial number of the spares that are supporting your contract. If there are crickets on the other end of the line, then you know they don't actually have the spares. Once you have serial numbers, log them in your asset management platform and you will have the peace of mind they actually do have those parts accurately spared.

Want an easy place to track and manage your entire IT estate?  Try our FREE tool that will take the headache out of managing all your TPM contracts, regardless if they're covered by PivIT or not. Click here for a demo.

2. Did the TPM provider do their due diligence up front?
Did they ask at the beginning for outputs and modular-level detail about your equipment? If they didn’t, then most likely they don’t know your component-level detail. And most likely, they won’t have it spared.

3. Where are their depots, warehouses?
Ask them for the location of their depots — yep, ask for the exact address.  Then overlay the addresses against your sites. At the risk of stating the obvious, if they don't have a local depot within 4 hours of your site(s), they won’t be able to meet your 4-hour SLA.  

4. Do they provide a quality testing process?
What assurances can they give you that your spares and equipment are still in good working condition on day 200 as they were on day 1?

__________
"This is where the rubber meets the road. If your TPM provider doesn't have that spare
readily available, you may as well not even have that maintenance contract.
Here at PivIT, it's something that we take very seriously - it's part of
what we hang our hat on, that we can guarantee that we're going to meet
that SLA every time whether it's 4-hour or next business day
to get that spare to you."
Erin Ohlgren, V.P. of Sales
__________

PivIT's Sparing Integrity Program
With PivIT’s Sparing Integrity Program, we have an easy answer you will love to all four of the above questions.

At the onboarding stage, we will capture all of your equipment — every component from the chassis to the fan, to the power supply — to advise you on the best hybrid maintenance solution for your IT ecosystem. 

Once you have the hybrid maintenance strategy you love, we will give you the serial number for every spare you choose to put under OneCall support. You can trust it will be “like for like, device for device."

When your spare arrives at our operations facility, it undergoes a rigorous quality testing process. We're one of the few TPM providers to have an ISO 9000 Certification — which means that quality is paramount. Through detailed physical inspection, storage and continued cycle testing, we ensure that over time your product remains in optimal working condition.

Finally, we will give you the address where all your spares are stored in state-of-the-art facilities. With serial numbers in hand and the address of your depot, you have the guarantee that your spare is there for you, when and where you need it. 

It's dedicated to you — like your own personal spares boutique. This ensures a start-to-finish guarantee that your spare is setting on the shelf dedicated for you and in excellent working condition — and that it will arrive at your data center on time.

Wouldn't it be nice to never wonder again if your spare will be there when you need it?  Now you have the right questions to ask your TPM so you can spot delay tactics a mile away. You have that peace of mind knowing when you need your replacement, it is in your local depot ready to ship to you. It’s boutique-like service tailored to your needs.

Ready to experience the peace of mind that PivIT's Sparing Integrity Program brings?

Contact us to get started!