STORY: “Hannah and the Case of the Missing Hardware Assets”
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Chapter 5 – When it’s time to say goodbye*
Before an accurate and complete inventory audit had been conducted, Hannah could not be certain if devices in the stockrooms and locations needed to be disposed of. So, the piles of old devices just kept getting bigger and bigger. In the back of her mind, it was better to make no decision than to make the wrong decision.
This ever-growing pile of old devices made it harder to determine if a device could be used to replace an existing device. Instead, Hannah just spent more money on replacement devices.
With a complete audit of all her stockrooms, data centers and offices, she now knows what is actually in those locations and she knows the manufacturer lifecycle data for those devices.
It was finally time for that “Spring Cleaning” project to get underway.
1) All devices that were In Stock and past their manufacturer end of life were marked to be disposed.
2) Using the disposal order workflow, Hannah and her team created a disposal order for each stockroom and location around the world. Each location’s disposal order contained a list of ready to be disposed of devices. (The disposal order workflow makes it easy to track devices through the entire disposal process.)
3) Each location took their disposal order and pulled the listed devices for verification. The disposal order workflow structures and automates the disposal process.
4) They contacted their approved local disposal vendor to schedule a pickup of the devices
5) When the devices had been disposed, each team confirmed the disposal of all the devices and attached the supplied certificates of disposal.
Project “Spring Cleaning” is complete. And a success!
Hannah was left with well-managed stockrooms, but also the assurance that these end-of-life devices would not accidentally be redeployed into BrambleStatic’s* environment. And no more fire drills with Hannah’s team hunting down whether a specific device was actually retired and disposed of.
The disposal order workflow not only laid out each step that was required for each team to complete the disposal, but it also took care of updating the hardware asset data to eliminate future crisis And no more grumbling from the ITAM when they have to make these manual updates. It was a win-win-win for Hannah, the ITAM team, and BrambleStatic*!
Stay tuned for Hannah’s next step on the HAM journey: She is nearing the finish line, or like a weird dream-sequence, will she be back at the beginning of a new journey?
For more information on Hardware Asset Management, go to servicenow.com/HAM
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*The details of the company described in this story are fictional and only represent the profile of a Fortune 500 company. The details are not indicative of any existing company, past or present.
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