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Case Studies

Global Manufacturer Saves $4 Million by Refining Its Hardware Refresh Strategy

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Industry

Manufacturing

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Location

Michigan

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Service

Data Center Maintenance

A global manufacturer expected better than inconsistent support, a lack of communication and increased service calls for Dell EMC storage maintenance. Service Express was their answer to improve service efficiencies and establish reliable support.

Several years of exceptional service and expertise led the manufacturer to partner with Service Express to meet its EMC storage support needs.

Challenges Uncovered

After evaluating the company’s EMC support needs, Service Express identified underlying problems:

  • Spending multimillion CapEx dollars every three years
  • Refreshed equipment providing little to no performance improvements
  • Experiencing rising OpEx costs every three years for a hardware refresh
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Extra time and cost savings redirected to essential IT projects

  • 3 years added to useful equipment life
  • $4 million in CapEx savings
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The Service Express solution

Add disk space and extend EMC equipment life by three years

Service Express offered a more effective approach to the OEM-endorsed refresh cycle:

  • Evaluated performance and capacity needs on all EMC systems to determine necessary upgrades
  • Presented reliability data for EMC hardware showing stability long after the OEM- recommended refresh time frame
  • Added disk space to meet the company’s storage demands, extending the life of equipment by three years

At first, the company’s IT leaders were unsure of the implications of an extended hardware life cycle. The common assumption is that devices have a higher failure rate toward the end of their service life. However, with over 25 years of Service Express support ticket history, the data shows that hardware is stable long after three years.

The results

CapEx and OpEx savings shifted to fund essential IT projects

The extended refresh cycle saved the company $4 million in CapEx costs. By postponing the hardware refresh, the decrease in time, staffing and other resources also generated significant OpEx savings.

With a new refresh strategy, the IT department has more control in planning for its next refresh. Service Express enabled cost and time savings to redirect toward other resources and essential IT projects.

Additional resources