No customers want to be without toner when the printer says empty, which often happens at the most inconvenient time. So the question is, how do a supplier manage to have toners shipped before its too late?.... or too early for that sake.
There are many different ways to do this, but common for all is the need to understand the actual printing behavior for each customer and printer. Some are high performers and other low. There are many ways of understanding this challenge and just as many methods to fix it. All with the same goal, to make sure toners are available when needed.
Our experience shows many different cases where its getting more and more difficult to navigate in finding the right path for offering just-in-time supplies delivery. A good set-up for one client is bad for others. I'm sure that any print management software wants to define that path to keep their clients up and running at all times.
We believe in intelligent software with the ability to learn. Software that predicts supplies replacements based on actual behavior and trends is the way forward for us. A combination of using good old threshold thinking combined with analytics gives a great fundament for managing supplies in a new way.
The greatest challenge is the different reporting capabilities from various printer models. We see different scenarios:
Toner is either OK, low or empty
Toner reports from 100-0% (we like this)
Toner reports in blocks of e.g 20% and changes to "low" when it hits a certain level. (Typically 20% or nearby)
.. and other using combination of the above.
As you can see, how do we manage all supply items good enough to call it just-in-time? The ability to solve this issue is what determines a good print management software.
At 3manager we are working hard on optimizing the ability to manage multi-brand supplies and add the intelligence to understand true behavior giving you the ability to offer just-in-time supplies delivery.
Check out more at www.3manager.com to learn more about how can manage supplies and other print related challenges in an easy and time saving way.
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