When an office imaging dealer needs quick and reliable circuit board repairs or a replacement board, the first call many make is to Hytec Dealer Services, Inc. They also depend on Hytec to lower circuit board replacement costs and help improve their first-call effectiveness, which is in keeping with its mission. That mission is providing component-level support and solutions to help service organizations save time and money, and remain competitive.
“The Hytec name has become synonymous with quality, reliability, and savings, and Hytec has grown to be a diversified repair facility, with synergies to provide unmatched quality, customer service, and value,” states Eric Auman, president & CEO.
Hytec is unique in the industry in that it services multiple brands at one location. It specializes in circuit board repair for Canon, EFI Fiery, HP, Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Lanier, Neopost, Océ, Ricoh, Savin, Sharp, Toshiba, and Xerox products. For dealers looking for a one-stop shop, Hytec is most definitely the choice.
Not Just Circuit Boards
Hytec’s service team repairs thousands of circuit boards for customers across North America monthly. All repaired boards are functionally live tested and must pass stringent internal quality standards before leaving the Hytec facility. Its process-driven quality management system ensures consistency, reliability, and provides the dealer with peace-of-mind.
While Hytec has a well-earned reputation for fixing circuit boards, that’s not all they fix. They can also repair assemblies, fuser units, stapler assemblers, and laser scanner assemblies. If it’s an electromechanical assembly, Hytec techs can probably fix it. Plus standard repairs are made with OEM genuine parts.
Repairs are backed by a 90-day warranty on workmanship and parts for all electromechanical assemblies. In addition, many of these assemblies are available through Hytec’s Advance Exchange Service, which provides customers with additional savings.
How long has this been going on?
The Hytec Senior Management Team: from Left) Front Row:
Eric J Auman – President & CEO, Jennifer Amatucci – VP Business Development, Lori P Jones – Controller, Mark Herron – Quality Manager; Second Row: Don Meis – Service Director, Jon Meyer – Technical Service Manager, Kyle Johnson – IT Director
Hytec’s origins date back to 1981 in Orlando, FL when it began doing Canon and Sharp circuit board repair as a division of Delta Business Systems, Inc., one of the country’s largest document imaging dealerships. By 1985 Hytec Dealer Services, Inc. had become an independent corporation.
“We built our business around the idea of what a service department needs to make their job easier,” says Jennifer Amatucci, vice president of business development, who has been with the company for 25 of those 30 years. “We’re always looking for ways to bring value to our customers. We help them make their business more profitable rather than just selling them a service.”
That’s another benefit that customers who do business with Hytec receive, a tenured management team. Most of the management staff has grown up with the business, logging 25-30 years with the company.
It may be a challenge keeping up with all the new products coming to market as well as evolving technologies, but another asset is Hytec’s internal technical capabilities. Hytec technicians possess the experience and technical skills to develop fixes on their own without OEM training.
That said, Hytec has strong, long-term relationships with almost all the OEMs.
“We share with them what we see failing on the circuit boards,” reports Amatucci. “They can then share that information with Japan and make any improvements that are needed while their products are still in production.”
Pick Your Service
Whether it’s Repair & Return Services, which offers savings of up to 70 percent off new board replacement costs; Advance Exchange Services; the Board Bank; Hard Drive Secure Services; or EFI Fiery Support, Hytec has a full menu of programs to meet its clients’ diverse needs. Clients can also purchase new or repaired parts directly from Hytec at greatly reduced pricing.
Hytec Drive Secure Services, the Mechanical Repair Division, EFI Fiery Support, and the Board Bank are all segments of Hytec’s business that continue to grow at a rapid pace. Let’s take a closer look at some of these services.
A Hytec technician repairing a board.
The Mechanical Repair Division
Hytec’s electro-mechanical division has been growing consistently year over year.
“No matter how much effort manufacturers put forth to raise the bar for performance and reliability, a fusing unit or stapler is always going to wear out at some point,” acknowledges John McCabe, assistant production manager. “Hytec has over a dozen technicians dedicated to this area full time, and can pull from other repair departments for additional expertise and productivity as needed.”
In order to provide the greatest value to its customers Hytec continually looks to add support for the latest models and those having the highest demand from the field. As with its circuit board repairs, Hytec’s electromechanical repairs follow the same requirement for live functional testing in the actual OEM equipment.
“We make every effort to use genuine OEM parts in all of our repairs and if a third party substitute is ever required it is rigorously tested in-house before it is used for field repairs,” says McCabe. “Outsourcing your electromechanical needs helps reduce your costs from buying new replacements, helps free up your technicians for revenue-generating activities, and eliminates the need to rebuild a unit at your client’s location.”
Plus all electromechanical repairs from Hytec have a full 90-day warranty on parts and workmanship.
New Hytec customers are often surprised to learn that Hytec has one model of every copier within their location.
“We have 60,000 square feet and have a test bed for every machine we support,” reports Amatucci. “We live check every board in that machine.”
When a customer calls in for free technical support, they talk to a Hytec technician that’s on the floor with that machine. The customer can describe the issue and the technician can then recreate that scenario using the database Hytec has built of failures that it has seen on the board.
“When a technician tells us what error code they see in the field, we capture that information as well as what we see and the repairs that are done to that board,” says Amatucci. “In many cases we can troubleshoot that board further than what the service manual may say.”
Advance Exchange Program
The Advance Exchange Program is Hytec’s most popular service program, enabling dealers to receive a repaired circuit board the next business day. Repaired boards can either be shipped to the dealership or to a service technician in the field.
Benefits of the Advance Exchange Program include:
- Next day order fulfillment
- Reduced inventory costs
- Reduced inventory carrying costs
- Reduced freight costs for incoming rush freight
- Online tracking of open exchanges & courtesy reminders
- Ability to drop ship directly from Canon, Ricoh, Sharp & Toshiba
The Board Bank
Hytec’s Board Bank program is an inventory management service where Hytec manages a client’s circuit boards at its facility, repairs them, and ships them back to the client when needed. This service is often beneficial for multi-branch service or manufacturer-direct field support operations. The company now manages thousands of boards for office equipment dealerships at its facility in Orlando, FL and two warehouses in Canada.
The inspiration for the Board Bank was based on the challenges dealers faced of maintaining adequate inventory for a variety of equipment at the lowest carrying costs. Repaired boards are received with a reusable box that precisely fits that board, a prepaid RS shipping label, and a tag for easy return to the dealer’s board bank at Hytec. There is a small handling fee for this service, in addition to Hytec’s flat-rate repair price.
The benefits of the Board Bank Program are:
- Reduced inventory costs
- Reduced inventory carrying costs
- Reduced cycle time to receive a repaired board
- Reduced freight costs for incoming rush freight
- Online Board Bank access 24 hours a day
- Track boards by your branch ID, technician ID, part number, etc.
- Boards can be shipped directly to your branch or field service technician
- Save space at your facility
The Board Bank service continues to grow and at press time Hytec was in the process of finishing a 15,000 square foot expansion to accommodate that growth.
EFI Fiery Support
Hytec recently expanded its relationship with Electronics for Imaging (EFI), the manufacturer of Fiery print servers. That’s not surprising because Hytec has had a close working relationship with EFI for many years, helping provide authorized warranty and out-of-warranty support.
“EFI works exclusively with Hytec to improve the serviceability of their print servers,” explains Jon Meyer, technical service manager. “This partnership allows Hytec to provide world-class support on the EFI product, across all OEM lines.”
In addition, EFI provides Hytec with direct access to EFI engineers and all engineering data and schematics.
The relationship with EFI is particularly important to the channel because in order to protect the proprietary software built into the Fiery print servers, it isn’t possible to swap motherboards between units. Rather, it’s necessary to purchase a motherboard kit from the OEM in order to replace one. If the tools provided in the kit are not available, the new motherboard will not work.
“Hytec is the only repair facility within our industry that can provide motherboard replacement kits with all of the necessary security tools to facilitate motherboard replacements in the field,” maintains Meyer.
Hytec also offers whole server repairs. Because of the complex nature of the print servers and the potential for dealers to create problems by swapping boards, Hytec will accept whole servers from dealers, troubleshoot them, and make the necessary repairs. The company offers a general, non-refundable diagnostic fee to let dealers know what repairs need to be done. This fee includes trouble shooting of the unit, secure data destruction of the existing hard drive and system software reload. Any necessary board repairs are offered at an additional cost.
“Sourcing the whole servers to Hytec can save many hours of time in the field, and will ensure a fully-functional server upon return,” maintains Meyer. “We look forward to the continued success of our partnership with EFI and being able to provide ongoing support and increased offerings to the dealer community.”
Hytec Drive Secure Services
Hytec is serious about hard drive security.
Hytec has always been a leader in hard drive sales to the office imaging industry. However, as concerns regarding data security have become front and center in the industry, Hytec has added services to provide dealers with options to reduce their risk, protect their clients’ data, and potentially create a new revenue stream for themselves.
“This new offering is referred to as Hytec Drive Secure and is a turn-key client solution, enabling the dealer to provide secure data destruction without the risk,” explains Don Meis, service director. “Hytec Drive Secure provides full hard drive sanitization and data destruction services based on the dealer’s needs and can provide a secure chain of custody to the dealer and their customer.”
The Hytec Drive Secure program is fully insured and bonded, and Hytec is a member of the National Association of Information Destruction (NAID).
Hytec also offers client-direct services for a dealer’s clients who would prefer to handle the disposal of their hard drives themselves. Besides eliminating any potential dealer liability, this method also allows the dealer to provide a value-added solution.
Listening to and Communicating with the Customer
Hytec excels at customer service.
Hytec couldn’t have achieved the longevity it has in the industry without close customer relationships. The Hytec sales team meets regularly with customers—parts managers, warehouse managers, service managers—to learn more about their process, what they’re struggling with, and to help them identify the parts they can source from the Hytec Repair Center to keep their technicians on the road and completing service calls.
“We have a comprehensive report card that shows the dealer how they measure up to the national average on board usage and how they order those boards, using Advance Exchange or the Board Bank, and how knowing more about our services can enhance response times for the technicians out in the field and help them get that product up and running so they’re not losing money.”
Looking Ahead
As the office imaging industry continues to evolve and diversify, Hytec will be evolving and diversifying right along with it, diversifying not only in office imaging, but other emerging markets, leveraging the infrastructure it’s built over the past 30 years. That success and the support of its customers is something that’s recognized and valued by everyone at Hytec.
“It has been an honor to serve the imaging industry for over three decades, and on behalf of the entire Hytec team I would like to thank all of our very loyal customers and OEM partners for trusting in our services,” concludes Auman.
Contact Information
Hytec Dealer Services, Inc.
3600 Vineland Rd.
Orlando, FL 32811
(800) 883-1001
(407) 297-1001
Fax: (407) 297-4310
Tech Hotline: (888) 883-2001
