Quality in the office comes down to service
Overseeing quality of office equipment at DuPont are David Meers, procurement manager, and Maria Harrington, supplier manager.
By Susan Avery -- Purchasing, 1/15/1998
The key to a successful national agreement? Consistent service and support from site to site, says David Meers, procurement manager, DuPont. "A supplier providing DuPont with office equipment must be capable of meeting or exceeding quality expectations of our customers in a timely manner at each site.''As procurement manager, Meers is responsible for DuPont's $10 million annual copier, facsimile, and multifunction product purchase. He oversees an agreement with Lanier Worldwide, Atlanta, that not only provides more than 100 DuPont locations nationwide with office equipment, but also service and support for the units as well. Maria Harrington, supplier manager, handles the day-to-day administration of the agreement.
Under the agreement, DuPont does not purchase any of the equipment used by its customers within its facilities; Lanier owns the copiers, charging the company a cost-per-copy fee, which includes service, toner, and supplies.
To do this, the supplier calculates charges to each business unit based on the number of "clicks" on each copier system's meter. (Lanier manages DuPont's quick copy centers at its headquarters as well.) For facsimiles, the agreement allows DuPont to buy or rent the machines; it also includes service and supplies.
"Renting technology on a scale as large as ours sometimes can be smarter than buying because technology changes so quickly,'' says Harrington of the fax program. "And, as we expand Lanier's service in Europe and eventually worldwide, it will be especially important to keep inventory low, while providing appropriate technology in each country.''
Meers estimates that implementing the agreement has helped to reduce office equipment costs at DuPont by at least $300,000 to $500,000 annually. Savings, however, "actually exceed this figure,'' he says. "It's difficult to quantify savings resulting from simplifying administrative processes.''
Selected for service
Before implementing the agreement with Lanier in 1992, "we were buying from the world,'' says Meers of the way DuPont used to purchase office equipment. "If someone made a copier we probably had one. We had no supplier convergence program in place, no strong partnerships. We kept suppliers at arm's length.''
Like many big companies in the early 1990s, DuPont began to focus its efforts on its core competencies, of which, Meers says, managing office equipment is not one. "We wanted our supplier to manage the machines for us. We also wanted to simplify administration of the agreement, i.e., the payment and invoicing processes.''
DuPont based its supplier selection decision on these criteria: national sales and service capability, wide range of equipment, and total cost. It had been doing business with Lanier prior to its selection.
The agreement provides DuPont opportunity to select from a wide range of equipment from one supplier. Regularly auditing copier usage, Lanier determines which machine best fits requirements (based on volume of documents customers copy).
For service, Lanier guarantees its response to calls from customers at DuPont within four hours.
At DuPont, Lanier has set up an exclusive toll-free telephone number for customers. The dedicated number (calls are received at its Customer Vision Center in Atlanta) provides a consistent single point of contact between the two partners. It allows any customer at DuPont, using a designated charge code, to call to order or replace any copy, fax, dictation, or document management system; call for service or supplies; ask questions about invoices; comment on supplier's services through the Customer Resource Center.
"What goes on between Lanier's Vision Center and the DuPont location is invisible to us, and that's the way we like it,'' says Meers. "All we know is it works, enabling us to focus on our core competencies, leaving the document productivity expertise to Lanier.''
Lanier reviews its own performance. The supplier has in place a reporting system capable of keeping tabs on every machine placed at DuPont as well as its service history. The process, the company says, is based on problem-solving methodology, developed by Jerry Leonard, northeast region service manager.
"Leonard's group gets to the root cause of the problem and corrects it based on gathered data and careful analysis,'' says Meers.
Monthly reports to DuPont are as much a benefit to Lanier. The supplier manages information on each system including: copies per month; up-time percentage; number of service calls; response time to service requests; three or more service calls in 30 days.
Lanier also has capability to evaluate and manage product and representative performance throughout the U.S. and Canada each day. The supplier also may monitor local, regional, and direct versus dealer performance as well as individual representative performance.
Committed to meeting monthly, a team including Leonard as well as Ron Kolb, strategic account manager, reviews performance based on report findings and respective solutions.
The partnership takes DuPont behind the scenes as well, says Harrington. "At our annual review meeting, we visited Lanier's research center so we could take a look at new products and technology.'' Lanier also involves DuPont in beta tests of new office technology.
Rids process of paper
Before implementing the agreement, DuPont manually processed more than 5,000 invoices monthly. Upon implementing the agreement, Lanier began providing DuPont with monthly estimates and quarter readings and then determined the actual cost based on the difference of the estimates and the actuals on a quarterly basis, processing about 3,000 hard copy invoices each quarter.
Starting in 1995, Lanier representatives conduct monthly copy meter readings and the billing is 100% paperless, handled electronically with EDI (electronic data interchange). DuPont uses EFT (electronic funds transfer) to make payments to Lanier, and Lanier uses EDI to bill DuPont. Armed with a business-unit charge code number, model, and serial numbers from the machine, the end user makes the decision servicing and purchasing equipment. Costs are then electronically charged to the end-user's department's cost center and electronically invoiced. Each invoice includes the charge code number and other information about each machine.
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