Issue #0529/2 - Enabling the company to obtain vast quantities of valuable data from customers, Canon’s new e-Maintenance system should benefit service providers and customers alike.
It has long been possible to set up email maintenance alerts on certain laser printers and MFPs but Canon has taken the automation principle one step further in the last few months by creating a centralised, automated, secure service solution, e-Maintenance, which seeks to take any element of chance out of the maintenance process for its MFPs.
Designed to allow Canon’s business partner network to maximise profitability, the system ensures that the reseller or outsource service provider needs only to visit customer sites when there is a situation requiring attention. The system should maximise uptime, reduce unnecessary device interventions and, most importantly to the service provider, reduce maintenance costs.
Once installed, e-Maintenance links Canon MFPs directly to a central server, not at the service provider’s offices, not at the Canon HQ for the user’s country, but at the company’s global headquarters in Japan. From the central server, information is disseminated to the relevant service provider for each customer. Thus, the customer does not need to take any action to initiate a service visit and can focus on its own business activities.
Providing sophisticated reporting, both customer and service provider should reap significant benefits from running the system. Service providers will be provided with detailed status and maintenance information, allowing them the respond in a timely manner to callout requirements. Customers, apart from receiving a more efficient service, will be provided with an internet link to the central server enabling them to monitor not just the status of their Canon MFP devices but to obtain usage data and statistics at a device level.
From the service provider’s point of view, the status data provided by e-Maintenance allows up to the minute, accurate and automated billing by reducing potentially error-ridden human meter readings. Because the billing is automated, fewer queries should ensue and any queries that do arise should be resolved more efficiently and quickly.
Further benefit is gained from the maintenance technician’s ability to ensure that the right supplies and the right spares are carried every time the customer’s site is visited.
This should eliminate the uncertainty of on-site fault investigations and the need for the technician to leave the customer’s site in order to collect the required part for repair. The technician will have detailed knowledge of the fault before making the site visit and device downtime will be minimised. Canon hopes that the result will be first-time repairs becoming the norm.
Canon says that security is not compromised and that customers should not be concerned about security issues because all email traffic is encrypted.
Canon partners are able to customise the service to suit their own needs and those of their customers. They are able to specify their own service levels to suit different customer profiles and the pricing that accompanies them.
Of course, it is not just the customer and service provider that win through use of this new system.
One major benefit for Canon is that e-Maintenance will provide the company with a vast quantity of hugely valuable usage data. In theory it should allow the company’s product development engineers and marketing personnel to bring devices to market that match users’ requirements very closely. It should also allow Canon’s business partners to sell new hardware to existing customers very accurately because intimate knowledge of the usage patterns is already held.
By monitoring performance, the system should also be able to determine whether some machines are over-utilised while others are under-utilised. If desirable, the service provider can adjust the mix of machines to provide the customer with the best possible deployment of hard copy hardware.
But, on top of all this, e-Maintenance will provide Canon with an intimate understanding of the print, copy and scan activities undertaken by its customers. The potential value of the data to Canon is higher than can be imagined. In theory, in addition to simple numbers of pages printed, the company will be able to determine the page density of every page printed on every one of its machines; together with the colour balance of every job; the number of pages in every job; the frequency at which every machine is used; how long each machine spends in idle or sleep modes; the proportion of printed pages to copied pages to scanned pages, etc., etc..
The possibilities to Canon are almost endless.
However, to summarise: reducing interventions is always good, both to service provider and customer; speeding up maintenance visits and reducing response times, thus reducing downtime, is always good; more accurate billing that allows the customer to have a much better understanding of the value for money being achieved from the contract, thus improving the comfort factor and potentially reducing print costs, is always good.
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