[Sponsored Guest Article] The lifecycle of IT gear, HPC or otherwise, is generally thought to start the day it is powered up to the day it is powered down for the last time and pulled out of the rack. However, in the immortal words of Prince: there’s something else- the afterlife. Actually, there’s a beforelife too. Lenovo’s global presence in both supply chain and asset recovery maximizes customer value from well before it ships, to well after it’s removed from the rack.
Start at the beginning or even before that. The management and execution of a global supply chain is one of Lenovo’s core strengths, and has been for years. Supply chains in the tech industry are inherently complex, comprised of intricate webs of over 2000 suppliers. For Lenovo, there is the added layer of stringent security measures for each supplier. All that must happen before the first transistor hits the factory door.
With 35 factories around the world, Lenovo’s global footprint allows it to optimize customer shipments to anywhere. Recently, Gartner Supply Chain named Lenovo the #8 supply chain in the world. In 2022 Lenovo opened its newest facility in Budapest, Hungary, primarily focused on ThinkSystem servers, storage and high-end ThinkStation workstations. Several of the largest HPC sites in Europe were serviced from this facility, including LRZ, Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research (PIK).
Lenovo’s commitment doesn’t end when the box gets loaded on a truck, train or ship. Our global services professionals and partners help to install the systems and are there throughout its lifespan. Technology does march on, and eventually you’ll want to move to new gear. Lenovo’s Asset Recovery Services (ARS) can help you to extract as much value from your old gear as possible.
Using a single point of contact, Lenovo offers:
- Remote or on-site discovery to provide current inventory with value assessment
- White-glove picking, packing, palletizing, and secure transport of assets from the client location
- Use of industry-recognized data sanitization standards
- On-site data destruction through mobile shredding operations
- Processing to receive, test, and prepare equipment for resale
- Recycling to ensure proper disposal of obsolete equipment
- Potential return of value for re-marketable assets
Proper handling of obsolete hardware is not only an economic issue, but there are important environmental issues, too. E-waste globally is estimated to total between 50 and 60 metric tons this year (enough to cover an area the size of Manhattan), growing to more than 70 million metric tons by 2030. E-waste is becoming a major waste disposal and landfill problem.
Lenovo offers what may be the most comprehensive and advanced range of global, certified asset disposition options in the IT industry that address both the environmental impacts of e-waste and the economic ones. ARS provides best-practice hardware recycling and secure data disposition that’s efficient, safe, environmentally sound and helps organizations to be compliant with the rules and regulations for customers’ countries or territories. The service complies with the highest standards in the industry and provides a globally consistent service.
By integrating Lenovo Asset Recovery Services with Lenovo Value Recovery, the company is truly supporting the whole circular economy. Customers can hand over assets to ARS when they refresh or upgrade their hardware, the ARS hardware coming back from customers then gets passed to Lenovo Value Recovery, where it is refurbished and resold. Additionally, ARS is not limited to Lenovo hardware only, offering disposal of any vendor the customer may have.
Finally, mitigating the dangers of unmanaged data disposition is an area of ARS expertise. In particular, maintaining security for key personal data such as Social Security numbers, financial data, addresses, medical records, as well as trade, product and commercial secrets is of critical importance to all enterprises. Lenovo ARS aligns to privacy laws, such as HIPPA, GDPR, CCPA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Gramm-Leach-Bliley and others, helping customers with compliance. This has the dual benefit of giving confidence to clients and customers as well as mediating civil liability and associated costs.
“Lenovo recognizes that customers put their trust in us to assist them with the full lifecycle across their entire technology landscape, and the safe and secure disposition of assets is a crucial component of this,” said Paul Tincknell, global leader and strategist, Asset Recovery Services. “By working with the best in the business, Lenovo ARS ensures that our customers are doing their part to be environmentally and socially responsible.” With a globally recognized supply chain, enabling customers in 180 countries, shipping 4 devices per second, and ARS handling everything from decommission to disposal, Lenovo delivers on the entire customer experience, from the cradle to the grave.
