PC Shelf

A large part of service desk work happens in a room with shelving in it. What is on those shelves, and who took what off them, is tracked by the technicians working the desk.

A typical IT stockroom holds five piles at once, each with its own rules. Mixing them up is how a machine meant for disposal ends up on somebody's desk.

How many of each, and why

Set the level from three numbers: how many of that model you run, how often they fail, and the lead time from the supplier. A thousand laptops at a two percent annual failure rate with a four week lead time means a handful of spares on the shelf at all times. Escalate when the shelf drops below that handful, while there is still stock to hand out.

This is also the argument for a standard build list. Two laptop models across the company means two spares pools and two images. Nine models means nine of everything, and a stockroom somehow always out of the one you need.

A loaner covers the gap: a machine in for repair, a contractor here for six weeks, a user whose replacement is stuck in transit. More machines go missing out of this pile than out of any other in the room.

Put a due date on every loan, then read the overdue list once a week and chase what is on it. That job usually lands on you.

Two technicians look at the same shelf, both see four laptops, and both promise one to their user for tomorrow morning. One laptop was actually free: two are earmarked for next week's starters and one is a loaner coming back that still has to be wiped. Both made a promise against that one unit, and one of them breaks it in front of a user.

Record a promise the moment you make it, the same way you record a check-out. Custody starts at the promise.

Stock control has five words worth knowing. They turn "we should probably order more laptops" into a number anyone can check.

Minimum

The floor the shelf is kept above. In most min/max systems it is also the reorder point: reach it and you order.

Maximum

The ceiling an order tops you back up to. Capital on a shelf is money not spent elsewhere, and hardware depreciates while it waits.

Reorder point

The level that triggers a purchase: what you expect to use during the lead time, plus safety stock.

Safety stock

The buffer inside that number, for the week when three machines die at once or the supplier slips a delivery.

Lead time

From raising the order to the boxes arriving. Ask the supplier for it rather than guessing, because the reorder point is built on top of it.

Skip this and a starter arrives on Monday to an empty desk, because the order that should have gone in three weeks ago went in on Friday.

A pallet arrives. Three things have to happen before any of it counts as stock.

Book each build-ahead unit in as you finish it. Building a machine and booking it in are two separate jobs, and a machine that has been imaged while it still sits outside the register is exactly the unit two people will promise to two different users.

Log a spare the moment it is built, before it reaches the shelf. An unlogged machine sits outside the count, so nobody can promise it, and you find out it was never there on the morning you needed it.

Tools, then PC Shelf. It is the stockroom shelf: every computer you have built in Computer Deployment and not yet sent out sits here, drawn as a unit. Machines come back to it too: unassign one in Asset Management, or set a computer back to ready, and it reappears here carrying the build it already had, which is a simplification. A real stockroom wipes and reimages every machine that comes back before it is shelved again, whoever returned it: the drive still holds the last person's files and cached credentials, and the rebuild is what makes the unit safe to hand to the next person. The shelf is saved as you go, so it comes back exactly as you left it after a reload.

Each unit shows two facts. Above the art is the name the machine was given during the build. Under it is the build it carries, Server Imaging or Manual Domain Enrollment, and Cloud Provisioning once that build ships. That second line is the one that matters when you are picking a replacement, because a dead call-center desktop needs the imaged build and a shared kiosk needs the hand-built one. Picking the wrong build off the shelf is the most common way to fail a replacement ticket.

At the foot of the shelf there is a count and Open Ship Manager, which is the door out. Units leave three ways worth remembering: shipped from the Ship Manager, handed over as part of a day-one kit with Check out kit, or taken for a specific job with Check out replacement. Every one of those consumes the unit. Checking a unit out from its own record, or registering it as anything other than stock, takes it off the shelf too.

A unit gives you a name, a build, and the fact that the machine is physically there. Who holds one, what state it is in and when it is due back are questions for the register, which is a different tool and the whole subject of Asset Management.

A finished build lands on the shelf immediately, and it becomes stock at a second step. In Asset Management it shows as Needs registration, and a checkout takes it once you have registered it.

Registering is the tagging step, and it happens in Asset Management: New asset, pick the unit, Register asset it as Ready to deploy, and it becomes countable stock the register can hand over.

So the count at the foot of the shelf is the number of machines physically there, which is also the number the Ship Manager will let you send. What you can hand to a person is the registered part of that count, because a checkout only accepts a registered unit. Those two numbers differing is normal in a real stockroom, and the gap is always paperwork nobody has done yet.

A stockroom system adds the layer that keeps a shelf stocked, and part one is where each piece came from: a reserved state that holds a promised unit for the person it was promised to, a minimum and a reorder point that raise a purchase request on their own, a supplier and a lead time behind that request, and a due date on every loan. Here the shelf tells you it is empty at the moment a ticket needs a machine, which is, in fairness, how most people find out at work too. Keep a spare or two built ahead of the queue in both places.