From trial unit to fleet: planning a rollout

Consulting and configuration

A rollout starts with a conversation, by phone or on site. More than 1,000 configuration options stand behind every lean cart — chassis, interior, screen size, mounting, client, power supply, accessories — and the job of the consulting step is to reduce that to the two or three configurations that actually fit the work. Settle the things that are hard to change later first: cart family, width, storage, screen size, and whether the cart runs on a lean LiFePO4 power supply or on an all-in-one panel PC with swappable batteries. Accessories such as printer shelves, scanner holders, drawers, fold-out side tables and USB hubs can be added as the picture gets clearer.

Trial units under real conditions

Before anything is ordered in quantity, request a trial unit from the demo pool and put it into real operation — on the ward, at the line, in goods receipt. A trial is also the fastest way to compare several models side by side, and it answers questions no data sheet can: whether the cart passes the narrowest door on the round, whether the keyboard height suits both a tall and a short user, whether the battery really covers a full shift with your client and your monitor. Collect the feedback of the people who use it. Their objections are cheaper now than after 60 carts have been delivered.

Pre-installation and commissioning

On request the clients are pre-installed before delivery and the carts are commissioned together with your IT department. Arrange that early, because it moves the work that scales badly — imaging, domain join, naming, asset tags — away from the delivery day. Clients can come from Dell, Lenovo, HP, LG and other manufacturers; thin clients with IGEL OS are managed centrally through IGEL UMS, and as an IGEL Managed Service Provider lean licenses IGEL OS flexibly and credits existing IGEL licences. Agree on who does what: who unpacks, who installs, who signs off a cart as ready for use.

Retrofit of existing carts

If the existing carts are still in good condition, retrofitting them with IT is usually faster and cheaper than replacing them. The process runs in five steps: your requirements for use and IT equipment are recorded; specialists assess the existing carts, for which good photos are often enough; you receive a quote for converting one prototype in the workshop; you test that prototype in practice and your feedback goes into the fixed-price quote for the remaining carts; the conversion then takes place at your site, so carts are out of service for only a few hours and no transport costs arise. Four requirements apply: at least two conductive castors per cart, carts provided on schedule, suitable rooms for the conversion, and a responsible contact person on site.

Spare parts, service and the fleet portal

Operation is the long part of a rollout. Spare parts, repairs and on-site service are available when you need them; on-site service covers Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and projects in other countries are agreed individually. An optional 5-year warranty is available for the carts. The fleet portal keeps the entire lean cart fleet in one place online — which matters as soon as carts are spread over several buildings or sites and nobody remembers which configuration went where.

What to plan for

Five practical points decide how quiet the first weeks are. Charging: define where carts are parked and charged. A lean LFP power supply holds 720 Wh, runs a typical cart for more than 12 hours and is fully charged again in under 3 hours, so one charging point per cart at a fixed parking spot is usually the simplest arrangement. Network: check wireless coverage along the routes the carts actually take, not only in the rooms where people sit. Training: a short handover per shift is enough, but it should cover height adjustment, brakes, charging and who to call. Spare parts: agree on a small on-site stock of the parts that wear — castors, cables, input devices. And name one contact person per site who owns the carts; rollouts stall wherever nobody feels responsible for them.

Read more on our site

• Services
• Mobile power
• Request a trial unit
• Frequently asked questions