Project - Computer Asset Replacement Plan

New to the company, I learned that my department was spending a significant time determining how best to manage aging computer assets and servicing older, outdated computers that were starting to fail or operate very slowly.  I learned that computers were only being replaced when they had become totally obsolete or could no longer be fixed / rebuilt, and would often be replaced in large quantities at a high cost - thus infrequently.  I also noticed that their expenditures were not in the IT budget.  I became concerned that we were not following an asset replacement plan, as this would allow finance to plan accordingly, enable my team to plan their replacement, and ensure that computers would be retired within an acceptable lifespan.  In a meeting with Executive Management, concern was expressed over the number of computers that needed replacement that year, the amount of downtime that the users were experiencing, and that some computers were taking over 5 minutes to boot in the morning forcing users to leave them on overnight (against company policy), start their work late, or come in early every morning.  Users suffered significant downtime even though the department was working to fix / rebuild them as quickly as possible, and sometimes sourcing hardware replacements proved difficult as the company would acquire non-standard computers and hardware (to shave costs).

It is generally recommended that computers are purchased having more memory, disk space, and processing requirements than the user needs immediately because software providers often publish updates that consume disk space, CPU, and memory without having provided any schedule as to when this will be done and without specifying requirements for each published future update.  Years in, if computers were purchased to precisely meet the needs of the user, it can become difficult to advise how many years the computer will remain in service (while meeting uptime and security requirements), and whether parts can be acquired to extend their life.  As well, older computers may not be able to run some of the newer software, or take advantage of advanced features of anti-virus and firewall applications - increasing the risk of malware and other applications entering the network.

Goal: Ensure the timely replacement of assets and plan/expose fiscal requirements to sustain business activities

I drafted a 5 year computer replacement plan, ensuring that all computer will have been replaced within that time. Some of the benefits of this plan included:
• the elimination of retired operating systems from the network
• faster boot times (computers taking 5 minutes to boot)
• computers only out of warranty for 2 years
• enables ability to use advanced features in security programs installed on the computer
• helps to ensure computers can run same version of Microsoft Office and other applications, reducing support calls and making group policy software deployments easier to manage
• retired computers could be used in the boardroom or for emergencies / spares

Even though my plan was approved and enacted, the company was forced to replace a significant amount of computers during the first year.  I modified the asset replacement plan to compensate for this, and detailed how to adjust it in future years so as to bring the computer replacement quantities back in line with the original plan.  My plan considered MOLP licensing, but due to costs this option was not pursued.  Another initiative reduced boot times for the remaining computers to less than 5 minutes.  These efforts were well received by those impacted, reducing overtime and speeding data entry efforts.

I also developed a 5 year perpetual server replacement plan, which included network devices, to help ensure that the network resources and infrastructure would remain capable of sustaining current and future projected traffic with minimum downtime, while considering costs.  I was unable to get the plan approved prior to my leave.