Protect Your UPS Fleet And Your Data
Hi, it’s Jon Sevel from CoastTec. Today we are going to talk about our new program, the Comprehensive Protection Program, (CPP). The CPP is a solution that enables companies to maintain and manage large fleets of UPS, both cost-effectively and efficiently. So what I mean by that is, if you look at a traditional service contract for a large number of units, you would typically have to have one service entitlement per one unit, meaning that your contract would have to spell out each specific unit in your fleet for coverage. In a large UPS fleet, that becomes cost prohibitive. If you have a large fleet of UPS, we know for a fact that not every single one of those is going to fail in a year – so why pay for coverage that is going to cover every single unit in your fleet for that year?
Let’s look at a car insurance analogy, something we all look to learn more here about every year. What if you have a fleet of 100 cars? Typically you have to pay car insurance for each one of those cars. But what if you were able to say, “I’m not going to pay for each one of those cars in car insurance, I’m just going to buy ten little incidents.” Ten incidents and if something happens to car number four during the year – gets into an accident, has a problem – you take one of your prepaid incidents and you put it on car number four. What happens if car number 78 has a problem? You can take one of your prepaid incidents and put one on car number 78. You’ll then be able to cover your fleet of cars only buying your 10 incidents and not covering the entire fleet of cars because, again, you know that not every car is going to have a problem that year.
Now, take that example into the field of UPS. You’ve got a thousand units in your fleet or even a hundred units in your fleet, and we know that not every single one of those units is going to fail in that year. We’ve been doing this for 25 years- we can pretty much predict your failure rate based on the age of your units and the units you have in their environment. So we can say to you, “Look you have your fleet of a thousand units, we know that probably 20% or maybe even less are going to fail, so we are going to sell you a bucket of service credits that are going to cover that specific amount of units for that year.”
You are only paying for the units that you use. You are only paying for the service that you use, whether it’s proactive or reactive. What I mean by that is, if you have a failure, we are going to send you a unit. At the end of the year, if you have some credits left over, we are going to go ahead and replace the oldest units in your fleet proactively to burn those credits.
Let’s take an example of a fleet. You have your headquarters that has a bunch of units in closets and then you have branch locations-whether a bank or a retail environment. Let’s say one of the units in the headquarters fails. What happens is you would just generate an email, send it to CoastTec, (it would be your company name @coasttec.com). Then we (CoastTec) will send you a replacement unit right to your site at the headquarters. You then take the unit that has failed, put it in the box that the CoastTec unit, the replacement unit, came in and send it back to us. Then we will deduct the appropriate amount of credits.
Okay, now say a unit at one of your branches fails. You then generate an email (send it to your company name @coasttec.com) and we will send a unit to your branch. The branch then replaces that unit puts the old unit in the box that the new unit came in and sends it back to CoastTec where we would then deduct the appropriate amount of credits.
Currently, we have about 30,000 units that are in this program. We are finding that the customers love this program for a couple of reasons:
1. The ease of fulfillment. You don’t have to get a P.O. cut for every time a unit fails. You just send an email and the unit is on its way to you.
2. The ease of purchasing. You’re only cutting one purchase order to cover your stack of credits for the year.
3. You have CoastTec, a company that has been around for 25 years, to maintain, manage & monitor your fleet of UPS’s.
4. There is no fire drill. When something happens to a unit, you don’t have to run around making a lot of calls to get prices. You just send an email. We are here to support you.
For more information about the CPP program or to get your company’s personalized fleet assessment please give us a call at 410-521-1000.
Your data is critical and irreplaceable. Data and equipment protection is the main reason to buy UPS units. Protecting against power outages, spikes and surges are crucial to your overall data management and IT plan.
Many businesses deploy a fleet of UPS units but then don’t maintain them, even as the batteries wane– they “set ‘em and forget em.” It’s easy to understand why– folks are busy and the UPS is typically out of sight and out of mind. But that’s a huge risk to your data and your network and it’s a waste of your initial investment in UPS equipment.
Replacing your fleet with new units can be costly, and we know that costs are important in this economy. APC understood this problem, too, which is why they partnered with us on our Comprehensive Protection Plan (CPP). Through this plan, you can service your current UPS units in between purchasing cycles, saving you from needing to replace your existing fleets with new units.
Service, when and how you want it
APC’s Comprehensive Protection Plan (CPP) is a service-based solution to support your installed fleet of APC Single Phase UPS units.
How it Works
APC’s CPP covers your fleet for a specific number of “Service Credits” during the term of a one-year agreement. These credits can be used to proactively service your fleet or quickly replace failed units.
We’ll work together to determine the number of credits that should be purchased to both covers your fleet against failure and support your proactive service goals.
Minimal Downtime
Under the CPP, service is fulfilled via “Advance Exchange”, the fastest, most convenient and environmentally-friendly method. At your request, we quickly deploy a re-certified APC unit to replace a failed unit in the field. The failed unit is then placed in the box the re-certified unit came in and returned to CoastTec via a prepaid postage label.
Our Warranty
After being serviced, each unit will hold a new 1 or 2 year warranty (depending on the contract). If the unit fails while under the new warranty, the unit will be serviced or replaced at no charge, even if the unit is no longer protected by the CPP.
Management for Large Fleets
Using a dynamic shared spreadsheet, CoastTec will itemize and track all units and credits, so you’ll always know your units’ status in real time. With one P.O., quick turn-around, and an easily accessible record, fleet management has never been this easy.