Certified Refurbishment
Ever since its launch, Multiplan Electronics SRL has cemented itself as the lead refurbisher and supplier of refurbished computer electronics in Romania. We pride ourselves on the experience attained during 24 years of craftsmanship, diligence and straightforwardness.
Starting out with only a handful of employees in 1994, our small local business of refurbishing computers has grown into a well-established company with almost 100 employees, a fleet of transport vehicles, a strong on-line presence and an imposing portfolio of ever-expanding business partnerships both in Romania and abroad.
But what does refurbishment stand for? The origin of the word “refurbish” stems from the 14th century Anglo-French furbiss, a distant relative of an Old High German word meaning “to polish”. However, its meaning has changed through times, nowaday – in essence – it means “bringing older or damaged equipment - that have been previosuly been returned to a manufacturer or vendor - up to a workable, better-looking or like-new condition/appearance”.
Refurbishing of IT equipment is an interesting process consisting of multiple stages and it requires very specific skills from a number of employees. The long road from acquisition to distribution requires data wiping, sanitization, software installation, testing, packaging and many other processes to be done accurately in order to properly refurbish and ultimately remarket a computer or any other IT equipment.
Acquisition
Our refurbished PC sources are customer returns, off-lease equipment, manufacturer demos and excess inventory, mainly from Western Europe and the United States. These sources offer a constant flow of large quantitites of brand desktop PCs, brand laptops/notebooks, monitors, servers, etc.
- Off-lease equipment: Corporations, large companies, financial intitutions, government institutions tend to lease new computers from acknowledged brands and then replace their entire equipment pool on a 3 – 5 years period cycle.
- Excess inventory: Due to various reasons, vendors tend to accumulate overstocks and excess inventories of equipment. These may not be the very forefront of technological development right now but they used to be and still considered to be leading edge technology.
Erasing Data
With respect to legal concerns, erasing possible data is an extremely important process in our refurbishment process. All the devices are wiped at our first contact with them. Due to the nature of our supply sources, sometimes confidential data may have been kept on the computers and laptops we acquire. In order to handle this concern, all those devices are securely wiped in accordance to the highest standards to make sure none of the sensitive data will get exploited.
Disassembly, repair, replacement, reassembly
Following the data wiping from the storage devices, all equipment undergoes a thorough examination and both functionality and aesthethycs are examined. This is a vital part of the refurbishing process, since it is at this point where the faulty or missing components are either repaired or replaced right away by our technicians. At this point in the process we can also reconfigure the product in accordance to our partners’ needs. In some rare scenarios reballing is applied to BGA chips with our BGA rework machine. Ultimately the thermal compound is reapplied to specific components and the rest of the components are reassembled awaiting the next step.
Sanitization
All electronic devices, including IT equipment, require thorough cleaning after prolonged periods of use. Both the exterior and the interiors are cleaned to remove dust, dirt and various particles that find their way inside or on top of peripherals. Our technicians use a combination of high-pressure air and large high-performance exhaust fans to effectively remove the dust from components, coolers, ducts and the interior of the case walls. The exterior of the cases, laptop lids, keyboards and monitor/LCD screens are cleaned with specific cleaning liquids to remove traces of dust and other dirt like grease or sticker glue.
Quality Control & Pass
All equipment must pass a final quality test before software installation and/or packaging & shipping. All components are verified by our techs, debugging and benchmarking programs check the stability and functionality of the system making sure everything is fully operational. All test results are documented and recorded digitally. If an equipment doesn’t pass the quality check, then it gets sent back to disassembly and repair.
If the equipment passes the test, external components showing signs of wear or slight scratches receive a new coat of paint or a layer of film; B and C grade equipment with bends and heavy scratches may undergo mechanical repair procedures until they regain their original shape; faded laptop keyboards are sometimes reprinted with our special keyboard printer and they may also receive a different allocation.
Software installation
With sanitization and quality control passed, operating systems are installed which may include Linux, Microsoft Windows according to our partners’ requests. Thanks to our partnership with Microsoft Corp., we have obtained refurbisher specific operating system licenses (MAR) Thus we can offer our clients much lower rates for OS licenses than ever before. Our software technicians make sure that the operating systems installed by us are always up-to-date with the latest service packs.
Packaging, shipping, distribution
All our equipment is sealed, packaged, labeled and ready to ship out nationally and abroad. The packaging methods and materials we use meet some of the highest standards in order to maintain product integrity during transportation. Our protective and filler materials include high-quality, high-density carton dividers, individual protective film wrap on every product and in-house manufactured large bubble wrap or styrofoam wrap.
Our team of experienced sales consultants and account managers always make sure that all business partners get the highest return of investment from refurbished products ensuring constant customer satisfaction.