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Question:
Explain the importance of routine maintenance of office equipment to ensure the smooth running of a business enterprise. Routine maintenance is by regularly checking and cleaning the office equipment. Well- maintained equipment is likely to perform better and efficiently within a business enterprise. In order for the equipment to be looked after and kept well maintained, it is advisable that: · The employee or employer regularly checks the equipment, whether it is daily or fortnightly. · Replacing of consumables such as toner, ink and paper · Cleaning the equipment · Keeping logs for each equipment · Following guidelines/ Instructions

In order for a business enterprise to run smoothly it is a good idea that both the employee and employers, Meet deadlines, for example if they are asked to complete a task that it is done by a specific date, Time management, for example, the employees and employers are managing their tasks within a certain amount of time, Communicating internally and externally, for example employees having to be able to communicate with outsiders (customers)Stress load of employees, for example they may be stressing over a task that may take some time to complete and increase in workload, for example a company may have many tasks going at once so the workload will just increase for both the employees and the employers, which will also cause stress level to rise.

Routine maintenance can help reduce the number of equipment faults. Office equipment such as a __**photocopier**__ can reduce the number of equipment faults, by constantly checking that the equipment is well maintained, such as making sure that there is enough paper. This will help the company to run smoothly because all employees and employees are doing their job correctly by regularly maintaining the equipment, for example making sure that the consumables’ are well cleaned and that the ink is replaced when needed. There may be a number of impacts when trying to keep office equipment well maintained, it may be positive and negative. The positive impacts of keeping office equipment well maintained in a business enterprise to help it run more smoothly is by regularly checking the equipment, by making sure that the consumables’ such as, ink, paper and toner are in supply in order for the equipment to function properly. Also a positive impact could be that if the equipment is working and is functioning properly it will stop the employees and employers from wasting their time because they won’t have to waste time trying to fix the equipment and trying to find the consumables’ that are necessary for the equipment. The consumables’ should also be kept near the equipment, for example the ink should be close by to the printer so that if an employee needs to change the ink, it is there nearby to change so that it takes up less time for the employee. The negative impacts of not maintaining office equipment may be that faults may occur in the equipment, for example a photocopier having a paper jam, this will than waste the employees time, that will than want to use the equipment next because than they will have to try and fix the equipment, when it should of been the person before having to fix the situation. A further negative impact would be if consumables’ are not in supply when needed, such as toners and inks, this piece of equipment would be out of order until was is needed would have to be ordered and wait on delivery for the consumables’ may take some time deeming that piece of equipment being out of order.

In many organizations, a maintenance program is a checklist of the procedures that must be regularly followed, to ensure that the equipment is kept in working order and is also prepared by the person responsible for maintaining office equipment. The employee’s responsibilities will be to always check the checklist, to ensure that if there are any faults with the equipment that it is dealt with straight-away, so that if the next employee goes to use the equipment, they will be unable to use it because they will then have to deal with the issue of having to deal with the equipment being at fault, because the person beforehand had not dealt with it previously. In order for the office equipment to contain the correct consumables there should always be an adequate supply of consumables, such as paper, toner, envelopes, labels, bulbs and building materials. also the employee or employer should check that the employees the consumables on a daily, weekly or monthly roster depending on the size and the needs of the organization.

In order for a business to run smoothly it is important that employee's report and identify any faults in the equipment. If the problem is simple such as a paper jam, than the employee should remove it. However, if the fault is a major problem, the employee or responsible person should organise a service of the equipment. If your job roles include reporting faulty equipment to the service center, you will need to be able to provide the following information: street address and location of your organization and contact person, Account details- your organisation must have an account with a service number, Model Number- this is usually clearly marked on the exterior of the equipment or in the manual and description of the fault which is the employee may need to give a brief description of the fault, or problem with the equipment. Many organisations have a service profile which relevant details about each piece of equipment are recorded. This way the relevant contact can be easily looked up. In order for a company or an organisation to run smoothy it is imperative that out of order forms are filled out and are used appropriately, for example, the servicing to be completed correctly, if sufficient information is written on the forms than the forms could be used to calculate the amount of faults that a particular piece of equipment has. This will help the appropriate staff to decide whether or not a peice of equipment needs replacing.

It is important that all companies and organisations have general signage that need to be allocated around the room, inorder for the company to run smoothy because it informs and educated the employees on how to maintain office equipment during over use. Examples of signage may be that if an equipment is out of order an employee should put up a sign instructing "out of order" because if an employee goes to use an equipment that is out of order, they wont be aware that it is currently out of use because there has been no signs allocated for the employee to know about.

====Inconclusion it is important that office equipment is kept well maintained in an office environment because all employees and employers have responsibilites in order to keep the office equipment well maintained. for example, signs should be allocated, service logs need to be filled when an office equipment has a fault, also all employees and employers must report and identify any faults with the equipment and last but not least, all employees and employers should read the maunual inorder to know how to keep the office equipment well maintained. ====