Module 1: Introduction to Equipment Acquisition
📘 Module 1: Introduction to Equipment Acquisition
Why acquisition strategy matters
Lifecycle cost of ownership vs. rental costs
Typical use cases: High volume vs. Low volume sites
ROI and TCO considerations
Title: Buy or Rent? FSMA or T&M? Understanding the Right Model
📘 Acquisition strategy is not just about getting a machine — it's about efficiency, cost classification, workflow, and long-term value. Organizations can acquire devices in three primary ways:
💡 1. Capital Expenditure (CapEx) – Buying
Buying a machine is a CapEx decision, recorded as an asset in the balance sheet.
It requires full procurement workflow:
Quotation comparison
Approval from multiple departments (Purchasing, Accounting, Stock/Warehouse)
Asset registration
Every time you need new toner, drum, or service:
You must request from stock
Go through procurement process again
Risk: May lead to downtime, low-quality 3rd party supplies (due to cost-saving), and voided warranties.
💡 2. Operating Expense (OpEx) – T&M (Toner + Maintenance)
Still technically OpEx, but…
Requires 2 quotations and full procurement cycle each time (if cost isn’t small).
Delays of 4–7 days are common.
Often ends up sourcing low-quality 3rd party toner/drums, leading to:
Machine damage
Void warranty
Toner dust issues damaging internal parts/PCBs
💡 3. Operating Expense (OpEx) – FSMA (Full Service Maintenance Agreement)
Smartest choice for business-critical print environments.
No need for new approval each time — just a phone call for service or toner.
Billing at month-end, based on actual print usage (per print cost).
Includes:
Factory-trained FSEs (not third-party techs)
Genuine parts and toner
Preventative Maintenance (PM) every visit
Inventory-friendly: You don’t need to stock toner/drums.
Always-brand-new print quality: Consistency guaranteed.
🏁 Summary Comparison
| Category | Buy (CapEx) | T&M (OpEx) | FSMA (OpEx) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Type | Asset on balance sheet | Expense per use | Monthly print-based billing |
2 | Approval Needed | Yes – multi-dept | Yes – each time | One-time agreement only |
3 | Inventory | Yes – manage stock | Yes – request each time | No – all included |
4 | Quality | Depends – risk of 3rd party | May compromise | Always original parts, trained FSE |
5 | Downtime | Likely x 7 days | High risk | Minimal- next day |
6 | Warranty Safety | Risky | Can be voided | Fully covered |
📺 YouTube
🎥 Title: CapEx vs. OpEx: How to Choose Your Printer Strategy
Watch: https://youtu.be/FSMAvsTnM (Placeholder)
Length: 6 mins
Covers: Buy vs Rent, T&M vs FSMA, and risk of poor procurement habits
❓ FAQ (Dual Language – 1 Line)
| # | English | Myanmar |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What is CapEx in printer acquisition? | CapEx (Capital Exp) စက်ဝယ်ခြင်းအတွက် ပိုင်ဆိုင်မှုကုန်ကျစရိတ်။ |
| 2 | Why does T&M often lead to delays? | T&M တွင် လုပ်ငန်းဌာနများ အတည်ပြုမှုလိုသဖြင့် နှေးကွေးစေသည်။ |
| 3 | How does FSMA reduce downtime? | FSMA သည် တစ်ခါတည်းသဘောတူညီချက်ဖြစ်၍ ချက်ချင်းဝန်ဆောင်မှုရသည်။ And pay later as per contract! |
| 4 | Is inventory management required in FSMA? | FSMA တွင် Inventory Process မလိုအပ်ပါ။ |
| 5 | Which model ensures best print quality? | FSMA သည် အမြဲတမ်းအသစ်လိုအရည်အသွေးပေးသည်။ Always using original toners, drums and part. |
Thanks for your clarification. Here's the corrected FAQ (x5) and MCQ (x10) for the eLearning module on "Buy or Rent? FSMA vs T&M?" using the 1-line dual format that follows your example:
❓ FAQ (x5) – Dual Format (Q + A per line)
1. Why is FSMA faster than T&M? | FSMA သည် T&M ထက် အချိန်ကုန်သက်သာသည့်အကြောင်း။
→ No approval needed, just a phone call | ခန့်မှန်းထားသည့်ကုန်ကျစရိတ်ဖြင့် ဖုန်းခေါ်ပြီး ဆောင်ရွက်နိုင်သည်။
2. Why does T&M risk poor print quality? | T&M ဝန်ဆောင်မှုတွင် ပုံနှိပ်အရည်အသွေး ကျဆင်းနိုင်ခြင်းအကြောင်း။
→ May use cheaper 3rd-party toner or drum | စျေးနည်းသော်လည်း အရည်အသွေးမကောင်းသော တိုနာနှင့် ဒရမ်များ အသုံးပြုနိုင်သည်။
3. Why is FSMA more cost-efficient long-term? | FSMA သည် ရေရှည်အတွင်း စရိတ်သက်သာစေသောအကြောင်း။
→ You only pay per print, no inventory or emergency costs | ပုံနှိပ်သလောက်ပဲပေးရပြီး တိုနာ/ဒရမ် စတော့မလို။
4. What is the benefit of factory-trained FSE visits in FSMA? | FSMA တွင် စက်လုပ်ငန်းသင်တန်းယူပြီးသော စက်အင်ဂျင်နီယာများလာပေးသည့်အကျိုး။
→ They also do preventive maintenance each visit | လာသောအခါတိုင်း Preventive Maintenance ပြုလုပ်ပေးသည်။
5. Why does T&M involve more admin burden? | T&M တွင် စီမံခန့်ခွဲမှု အလုပ်များကြီးသောအကြောင်း။
→ Requires purchase, stock, and finance approval every time | တစ်ခါသုံးတိုင်း ဝယ်ယူ, စတော့, ဘဏ္ဍာရေးခွင့်ပြုချက်လိုအပ်သည်။
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