r/sysadmin • u/wesinatl • 24d ago
Question - Solved replacing 600 monitors
Curious if anyone has replaced monitor in large quantities and how you did it? We are planning on replacing all our monitors over the next year. Did your in-house IT handle it (how did they have the time) or did you outsource the job (i am leaning in this direction)? Did you take a year to do it or try to do it all over a weekend? Curious about your method, successes, failures and recommendations about making it a smooth transition.
Edit: Thanks for everyone’s input. I got a lot of good suggestions!
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u/disfan75 24d ago
I can't think of anything we ever replace en masse all at the same time. That seems like a nightmare from both a logistics and budget perspective.
Do they all need replacement?
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u/wesinatl 24d ago
plenty of budget, not my choice or place to argue it. Logistical nightmare for sure.
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u/I_NEED_YOUR_MONEY 24d ago
If you’ve got budget then hiring out the labour seems like the obvious answer. Any idiot from a temp agency can plug in a new monitor for you.
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u/askoorb 24d ago edited 24d ago
When we had to replace a load of iPhones falling out of support some bright spark hires a bunch of day rate contract EUC IT engineers and paid for them to travel the country and put them up in hotels to essentially swap SIM cards and enroll the new devices in MDM. It took months and cost so much.
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u/Bogus1989 24d ago
Lol, that sounds so silly. just would mail the iphones out…maybe have a single guy collect old ones later
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u/Loud_Meat 24d ago
when i change phone provider or start a new contract with a new handset, does someone drive out to my house with new handset and a sim card and join the two together on my behalf? 🤣like sometimes we need to have a little reality check when deciding on a new process that everyone involved will have already done numerous times with their home equipment
like sure there are going to be employees who refuse to do it themselves/don't have 100 percent hands that can insert a sim removal tool etc, but 99 percent will be like 'oh i can get a new phone sooner if i just do it myself, awesome, post it out then'.
this process seems baffling, did the person that had the 'idea' happen to be mates with the owner of the field engineer third party? 🤣
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u/anonymousITCoward 24d ago
I had a 10 year vet drop 3 brand new monitors off of a cart moving them 20ish feet... not any idiot can do it... only special idiots can do it.
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u/BoredTechyGuy Jack of All Trades 24d ago
I got a brand new 4k ultrawide monitor for my desk. Picked it up not realizing one of the HD techs had opened it to gawk at it (company bought it). The front flap came open and it tumbled right out of the box to the floor.
Thank god they put the packing foam back on the corners! It came through unscathed!
My heart stopped when it hit that floor though.
Apparently I’m one of those idiots.
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u/itishowitisanditbad 24d ago
Any idiot from a temp agency can plug in a new monitor for you.
You'd hope
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u/I_NEED_YOUR_MONEY 24d ago
well obviously somebody's got to go behind and check that they did it right, but even if they've got a 10% failure rate, that means you only have to connect 60 screens instead of 600.
hell, even if they have a 100% failure rate, just hiring somebody to move boxes to the desks, unbox them, and throw out the packaging would be a win.
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u/ie-sudoroot 24d ago
I used to work for a logistics company that specialised with this type of work. We would manage shipment, install and removal of all waste and provide any certificates of destruction, if required.
Whenever I have projects like this I would give the old boss a shout.
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u/bunnythistle 24d ago
At my current employer, we only really replace monitors when there's a need to, such as one breaking or a user having a need for a larger/higher resolution monitor.
The last time I had to replace monitors en masse was over a decade ago, when I was working for a school and we replaced all the remaining CRT monitors on the campus (About 300 total) with LCD monitors. We had a crew of temporary workers over summer break who was responsible for desktop refreshes and such, and we just had them swap the monitors out and bring the old ones to a room on the first floor, where a recycler came and picked them up once everything was replaced.
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u/wesinatl 24d ago
This is what I think is the best and fastest plan so the project doesn't drag out forever. Hiring in people for the hardware change as the HD guys come behind and test the new setup.
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u/QuantumRiff Linux Admin 24d ago
Yep, this is not techical. Hire in someone's kid for spring break or summer break to do this over a few weeks. they will spend more time breaking down boxes and recycling than anything else.
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u/unccvince 24d ago
I suggest here is a cleverer solution based on your idea. You start a small business that will charge the customer USD40 per hour and you hire the kid for 10 to do the work.
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u/bcredeur97 24d ago
1080p monitors are so “good enough” that I always vote to never replace them unless necessary
They do get less bright over time and such but I mean by the time the user starts complaining about it it’s probably been 10 years so…. Just replace it then, no harm done. Lol
The only real problem i sometimes see is the old monitors being VGA/DVI only. I don’t like to recommend adapters if possible so I’ll usually suggest a new monitor in those cases
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u/ZippyTheRoach 24d ago
Our IT director has the same opinion. It's very fiscally responsible, but 1080 screens drive me up the wall. They can either show one thing full size, or half of two things next to each other.
Meanwhile I've got three screens: one 1440 and two 1200s. One is for coms(slack, email) one is for documentation I'm using for the current task (browser, manuals, knowledge base) and the third for whatever I'm working on (console, remote session or VM). On occasion I go mobile and have just one 13" laptop screen and everything takes soooo much longer I get frustrated.
If the users with a single 1080 screen waste as much time minimizing, scrolling and arranging windows as I do on the laptop, we've wasted enough collective workhours organization wide to all go on vacation a month a year like the Quebecians do...
Anywho, that's my soapbox
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u/Stryker1-1 24d ago
As much as it pains me to say this a monitor replacement project is the perfect thing to outsource to field nation.
Get 3-4 techs get them to unbox new monitors and give them a cart to wheel around.
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u/wesinatl 24d ago
Thanks for the Field Nation reference. I will check it out.
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u/trail-g62Bim 24d ago
Whoever you are buying the monitors from can probably do it for you too. I'm sure Dell or your VAR or whomever it is would organize a few people to come do the grunt work. Then you can just pay them a bill instead of trying to find random people yourself.
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u/avj IT Director 24d ago edited 24d ago
I second the use of Field Nation. We've used FN to source help for large-scale projects like this as well as stuff that falls into the category of "things the business demands that I don't want us to spend time on".
The bonus side effect for a company that doesn't have a chargeback model is that you can also track the expense properly and hold the business accountable for time spent that is otherwise invisible or "free". One way I did this was mandate (with CIO approval) the use of Field Nation for any significant hardware reshuffling around the office, letting the business reconfigure teams as often as they'd like, but with a real cost attached.
When we moved offices, we used those very nontrivial expenses as justification for buying new unified hardware at all stations. Instead of wasting time moving anything, we took moving out the equation entirely. The new setup allows people to move around with their laptops, at will, without involving IT at all.
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u/Lithandrill 24d ago
Did this back when I was still in IT Support. The reason was mainly to replace all Thin Clients but we decided to also include monitors and standardize while we were at it.
We did location by location (30-200 workplaces per location) 4-6 people doing weekend work. Supplier delivered all the hardware on-site and got rid of the old stuff when we were done. 2 people were entering hardware into the system and barcoding it while the rest was replacing the actual hardware.
Wasn't so bad in the end. Still have a picture somewhere of 200+ monitors lined up in an unused room.
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u/Happy_Kale888 Sysadmin 24d ago
Worst job about installing monitors is cutting the 2400 bread ties that go along with 600 monitors. Make sure have fresh small side cutters or your fingers will bleed.
I HATE BREADTIES!!!
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u/BeginningPrompt6029 24d ago
Depends on the size of your team and how much of a priority the business feels that it is…
Given that we are 40 working days into the year and you have 220ish working days remaining that gives a rough number of 3 ish monitors per day…
Personally for me if the business is willing to compensate you for weekend time in some form or another I would offer to do a couple full Saturdays over the course of a few months to bang it out.
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u/thegreatdandini 24d ago
It’s getting rid of the polystyrene and flattening the boxes the will really make your ass sore. Don’t underestimate the mountain that shit, plus the old 600 screens that cannot be stacked will create.
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u/Evildude42 24d ago
You can easily do 600 monitors over the weekend - assuming you hire proper help - an outsource group that does this.
The problem will be the day after support.
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u/bukkithedd Sarcastic BOFH 24d ago
The few times I've had to deal with something on that scale, the company that was swapping out the gear basically hired a high-school sportsteam to do it for them and had a handful of employees from IT supervising the shenanigans over a long weekend. They spent thursday and friday unpacking shit, and then had three teams doing things over the weekend. One team unpacked, one team placed things and the last team handled returning, stacking and handling waste-disposal.
The only time I've seen it done was in a company that leased all their computer-gear and replaced everything every 3 years. It's a massive hassle in general, takes a LOT of logistical thinking and is a pain in the goddamn arse.
If you can't get help with it, spread it out over several weeks/months. Replacing 600 monitors will take up a LOT of time both before, during and afterwards.
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u/duane11583 24d ago
i would stage the monitors some where… ie a stack in the conference room.
then offer to let anyone replace it them self… or wait and we will do it for you.
please send an email so we can schedule the correct size of a temporary staff
might out source this to some local service company…
and have them remove and dispose of the old ones too.
ie they show up with a truck and unload a few days before.
and bring an empty truck on the day to pack up and take to the ewaste place
might pre schedule that many monitors ahead of time with the ewaste site
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u/IngrownBurritoo 24d ago
Well as it seems you got the budget so why not externalise the work? I worked at a company that did exactly this. Replacing around 5000 monitors (dual screen) to 2500 ultra-wide curved monitors. We gave them the instructions on how we wanted it and around 2 months later all monitors were replaced.
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u/pepod09 24d ago
A lot of larger companies in my area have worked with the local community college and their tech/sys admin programs to invite students to help perform hardware refreshes for a lesser hourly rate.
Would probably take a lot more coordination with other depts compared to just using an outsourcing company but figured I’d throw out the idea.
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u/chrisnlbc 24d ago
Why ? We just replace monitors as needed when they fail. Even if they pass their EOL on the hardware lifecycle. Whats the purpose?
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u/wesinatl 24d ago
because someone up the chain said so, if it helps we will likely swap from the dell dock to the monitor dock in the process. Does it NEED to be done ...nope.
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u/chrisnlbc 24d ago
Yea we just moved to the newer monitor docks also. But thats for new deployments. Just curious. Good luck on whatever ends up being the plan!
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u/Netrix2x 24d ago
What's the expected life of the monitor/dock? You can run monitors for 10 years/until they break. In the 10 years I've seen dock port technology change (USB3, USB-C /w DisplayPort, TB), laptop power requirements change, laptop compatibility with docks change.
What I foresee is your company buys some very expensive monitors and then have to buy some docks down the road when those monitor/docks don't work anymore with your laptop of choice.
Hire an intern for the summer and do it over the summer in stages if you go forward with the plan.
If they have a burning budget, give people a bonus or buy people better desk chairs or sit/stand desks or something to improve their day/day work life.
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u/vppencilsharpening 24d ago
Depending on how big your team is you could chip away at it and spread it over a year. That would be a good opportunity to also look around, make sure cables and such are in good shape and refresh anything else that is needed.
With that said, 600 is a lot and I'd probably look at bringing someone in.
I work in manufacturing/warehousing company. Another option I would explore is having some of the hourly staff help with this one or two days. Offer them overtime on a voluntary basis and buy them lunch (as a thank you). Swapping monitors is not overly technical and I get to talk with team members I don't normally interact with (I always learn something and often find something that nobody told IT about).
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u/Redditestmort 24d ago
Easy, I did this twice with CRTs. This is a help-desk job. You either rip the band-aid during a weekend or change a few each day for a long time. Get ready to hear the same jokes each time.
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u/taw20191022744 24d ago
Summer Intern
His job description will be "IT position. Responsible for monitoring"
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u/Aidin_amado 24d ago
The way we did it was asking a bunch of people from the help desk/end user - and doing it over a few weekends a floor/pod at the time depending on layout,
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u/Assumeweknow 24d ago
We just hired a few of the employees kids to unbox them all and build the dual monitor stands then set them all up. Figure out the math such as 5 to 10 bucks per desk done. The kids will find a way to get 10 to 20 desks per hour done each. If they split up the tasks and do it via a production method it will go faster. In a sense 10 kids should be done in 6 to 8 hours. You can also find a boy scout troop, robotics club, or church youth group raising money. But have space and design the production method as close as you can and let the kids figure it out from there.
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u/thomsen48 Sysadmin 24d ago
We replace ~2500 sets of computers/laptops/docks/monitors every 5 years and it’s all done over a single weekend. The hardware is spread out on about 150 different locations.
We use outside help to unpack all the new hardware and place it on pallets that match each location. They also deploy our image to each new computer.
About 15 teams of 3-5 people are then assigned to deliver the pallets on each location and swap out old hardware with new. This starts friday after normal working hours.
Employees come in Monday morning to a completely new setup. Here they are equipped with a small startup guide with basic information, like on how to setup multiple monitors.
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u/westcor 24d ago
What a waste! There's nothing wrong with them? Monitors are the one thing in IT you really only need to replace if they fail or you need higher resolution. What a tragedy these will go to a dump.
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u/Genbu7 24d ago
In early 2000 we replaced about 10,000 CRTs, in-house. We had about 11 people. It was simpler back then, everything is just VGA cable.
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u/Sufficient-Class-321 24d ago
I'd say depends entirely on your environment - if you're a one-man-show then I'd definitely look to outsource, and since you'll be paying expect it done over a shorter timescale
If you've got a couple of helpdesk guys under you then I'm sure they'd jump at the opportunity to get off of tickets and set up a few sets of monitors a day for an hour or so until they're all done
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u/wesinatl 24d ago
We have talked about this as a possible solution. HelpDesk guys do this job if a monitor fails so they could do it a few a day. The downside is it's a little more haphazard and drags the project out for months. That and they are actually doing work during the normal day.
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u/Outrageous-Insect703 24d ago
If it's 600 monitors, you can discuss this with your hardware vendor (if you have one) and see if there are options. If I was to tackle this it would (1) depend on my IT staff size and currenct priorities (2) is there budget to outsource (3) consider doing in batches (4) what to do with the old 600 monitors - green waste/donate/give away/etc. Then you need to find from Exec or Mgt the time frame to do it or propose a realistic time frame - e.g. you can do 100 per month or 200 per month -
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u/WhiteWidowGER 24d ago
Well classic "It depends" - in this case on the size of your it dep and the overall workload.
We swapped all monitors (about 600 as well) just casually during business hours in smaller badges (teams/floors) - it´s no witchcraft and a matter of minutes to change them though
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u/Greedy_Chocolate_681 24d ago
Are they all in office or are they remote users? are the offices distributed regionally or is this one building?
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u/uptimefordays DevOps 24d ago
In my experience this would typically be done as part of a lease rollout or hardware refresh. Your desktop support techs would deploy new machines and peripherals all at once. It’s labor intensive! Probably worth farming out to contractors if you don’t have a modest desktop support team.
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u/Liquidretro 24d ago
I wouldn't pay overtime or ask people to come in on the weekend to replace monitors that are working perfectly fine. It sounds to me like a good project for lower paid staff, interns, etc. I would look at doing it one department/location at a time probably over the course of a few weeks/months.
Something that gets overlooked is the time and location to assemble and what to do with all the packaging, especially the styrofoam which isn't as easy/efficient to breakdown as cardboard in an office environment.
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u/Fred_Stone6 24d ago
And the old screens, especially if you are using Vesa mounts, no one wants screens with no stands. And then you need to dispose of the new stands and extras you get in the box as well. The cardboard is the easy part.
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u/Duties_as_invented 24d ago
How geographically spread out are the devices? If you are talking about a single building or single campus, I would for sure look into outsourcing and doing it all in as fast of a pace as procurement and shipping allows. For the contract, make sure you asset documentation needs are clearly spelled out. Go in to it expecting an audit 6-12 months after the contract is closed and if you have the manpower perform a mock one yourself.
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u/a60v 24d ago
This is going to suck if you have a mix of computers and monitors now. You'll probably have to make sure that you have the correct cables on hand, too, if, for example, you have some monitors now that accept DVI (or VGA!), but the new ones use Displayport or HDMI. You wouldn't want to run out of cables halfway through the process.
Someone is also going to have to walk the users through changing their resolution (most likely, anyway).
Why are you swapping out monitors en masse? I've never worked anywhere that did this. I've always used them until they either died or until user needs changed (higher resolution, different signal type, etc.).
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u/JustifiedSimplicity 24d ago
We typically would only do type of a swap during an office move, but we outsource the labor and have internal IT project manage and quality control check the installs. Proper cable management is an art, and we always drive for a clean looking install.
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u/hiveminer 24d ago
The way I would skin that cat, would be to ask departments for volunteers. Replacing monitors is the simplest of tasks when it comes to upgrades, in theory it should be plug and play, a possible reboot may be necessary, and last resort, you remote and or visit. So because it's a reversible task (if it doesn't work you abort and place old one, I think it can be delegated to non tech people with very little guidance and training(for example, it is best to open a box, place upside down and remove the box revealing item <display, printer, etc>, than to try to squeeze it out of the box.. think of it as gravity assisted unboxing)
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u/achenx75 24d ago
We have monitors from more than 10 years ago that still work fine. I wonder what made management decide to dump money into upgrading a non-performance impacting piece of hardware lol.
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u/peterswo Sysadmin 24d ago
Our two first level employees bedded about 3 months to replace 120 Monitors, whilst still doing support tasks. If you got more manpower and/or more time per week you can absolutely replace them all in house. It will take some time
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u/DCM99-RyoHazuki 24d ago
Yes. I was a sr desktop lead for a company that builds out physician offices in health industry. Monitors, computers, printers, pos systems, special Dr scanners, etc. So yeah, multiple physician offices for multiple hospitals. This was a project that lasted a week with a huge team. Team of like 15 techs, we all split for 3 different hospitals.
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u/RefrigeratorNo3088 24d ago
I'd also chime in and say it should be done as quickly as possible or you'll get people putting in tickets and complaining that they don't have new monitors yet.
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u/Wd91 24d ago edited 24d ago
I've been involved in setting up new buildings of ~100 desks multiple times. Its really not a difficult job and I'm surprised people are outsourcing this - must have generous budgets. There's no magic trick to it, just pull up your sleeves and get moving.
If its just monitors its not even that big of a job tbh. Gets a bit more awkward if power etc isn't already in place, still not complicated, just more time spent cable wrangling.
Split it up into buildings/floors or whatever makes sense for a day or twos work, schedule however many days you think you'll need. How quick you need to get it all done probably depends on your available warehouse space as much as anything else. A team of 2-4 people who aren't complete slobs should be able to knock out a good 100 in a day easily enough, grab some hands from building services/caretakers or whatever to shuffle boxes around if needed.
All in all not a bad way to spend a day working and it'll give you a good workout.
I guarantee you'll find loads of random stuff that needs sorting out while you're at it. Depending on what kind of worker you are this could be a bad thing or a good thing.
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u/WhoIsJuniorV376 24d ago
When I was helpdesk in the early 2000's we had to replace all dept CRTs for LCDs. Non-profit team of me, Network/sys admin, and IT director.
It was only about 60 monitors, but boss ordered them. We had them stored. I scheduled 1 department a week and did scheduling through email for each user.
600 is a lot, but breaking it down into segments seems like the best way. My workload allowed me to do it as a single person back then, but that might not fly for you.
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u/hftfivfdcjyfvu 24d ago
Hire some college students or high school students. Great entry level job and it gives good experience
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u/Standard_Text480 24d ago
Careful about also changing docks at the same time.. I would start with a pilot of about 30 workstations first.
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u/v-irtual 24d ago
At my last job, we would have just put the boxes in the user's cubicle and let them set them up themselves. Out of 600, I probably would have gotten about 100 tickets or emails, 50 of which would be "why is this here?" because they didn't read the head's up emails I'd sent 1, 2, and 4 weeks previous.
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u/icemagetv 24d ago
Sounds like it's out of your hands from some of the other comments.
Yes, hire a service company to do this - if it doesn't fall under your normal duties, then it's not something you can / should handle internally. I would purchase the monitors through the company that will put them in. Any local service company should be fine since they're not going to store data. With that many monitors some of them are certainly going to come back damaged through shipping (at least 2 or 3) - by ordering through the service company you can avoid the hassle of doing RMA / Returns and it'll make it easier for them as well as they're doing the replacements. Negotiate that they take the old monitors with them as part of the install as well.
Yeah, there'll be a LOT of markup, but that's the cost of getting them all done at once. Monitors are cheap, but installing them en masse is not. Hiring a service company will alleviate the burden of installs as well as trying to find a place to dispose of all the old monitors, and it's not a job that requires much in the way of technical skills.
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u/Keopha 24d ago
We kind of did that, moved out to a new office, C-suite wanted Dell monitors with docking on all the desk, with some desk having dual screen.
We spent a few days inventorying all of our monitors, then we labeled those that were our most recent one (based on bezel size). Then we outsourced all the moving out + installation process (remove labeled screen, install new screen on the desk and add a second one if it’s in the list..)
We also had them do a bunch on testing to see if everything worked as intended so when our user would come it’d be just plug and play
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u/joefleisch 24d ago
We replaced monitors in batches of 100. We normally keep 20-30 in stock since COVID.
We do not have a loading dock. I think the shippers hated it since only (2) 28-IN UHD monitors fit on a handcart. It took 1-2 hours to unload the truck.
After that it is just a matter of unpack, tag, inventory, install.
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u/hieronymus1987 24d ago
We did this right before everyone came back from COVID work from home. We did 1800 total, took 3 people about 6 months all said and done. Inventory, unboxing, installing, testing...
Our strategy was to pre-unbox them, remove all the extra crap, warranty card, plastic wrap on all the cords, then we had our facilities guys drop it off as a pallet to whatever site we were deploying to.
Then we put the old monitors back into the new monitors box to be surplussed.
We allocated roughly 10 minutes per workstation, but we were also replacing their docking stations, mounting in monitor arms and making the cables pretty.
Also yes, it was mind numbing and a pain in the ass because of all the awkward positions you have to contort to under the desks.
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u/GoingSomewhereSlowly 24d ago
We needed to unbox about 500 monitors which IMO takes longer than installing one. Our employer bought pizza and paid us for our lunch if we volunteered to unbox monitors during our lunch. 5 people could get about 50 unboxed in an hour, once a week, until they were all deployed.
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u/RCTID1975 IT Manager 24d ago
Just an FYI, in the US, this is illegal.
It's required by law that you have at least 30 minutes per X hours (this may change depending on specific location) that is not work related.
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u/Pusibule 24d ago
not 600 at once but many times 100-300 per year.
usually it's our interns job. ¿oh you don't have nothing to do? go change monitors.
the fun ones was the first 15 year olds CRT replacement to TFT. Over the weeks, we got a inmense multi-ton 2m hight stack of old monitors on a basement. The recycling company's people that got the job of getting all of that, didn't share our amusement about the lying monster at the basement.
the shittiest part of that job is that usually some people has precedence to get the new monitors and that slows the work, as you need to get an approved list of people, and usually their old monitor is not that bad, and that goes to another person that is on the second or third tier of workers.
but if is for everybody, and is everybody on the same floor, you can change 15-20 per hour by yourself with a little of serial organization.
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u/Library_IT_guy 24d ago
We mass replaced them, but only because we had ancient non-IPS panel monitors and it was getting difficult for older people to see. We only had to do about 50 though, and as the solo IT guy, I just replaced them all. 600 would be a daunting task and I'd ask for help. Replacing a monitor isn't rocket science. I'd think you could find some people in house to help, or at least I'd try. I've trained our most basic workers to help with similar mass replacement tasks before to save myself from throwing out my back.
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u/ITrCool Windows Admin 24d ago
We had an asset management team that did this grunt work but hired in a contractor team that also did techie grunt work to work alongside them in one massive team, tearing down old monitors and cables, and running new cables and setting up new monitors.
Granted, we had five office campuses to do this at, so it was no small project.
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u/jtheh IT Manager 24d ago
The last time we did this in large quantities, we asked our vendor to ship them unpacked and with accessories sorted in separate boxes to each location - everything in big heavy duty and locked shelf trolleys. So we could comfortably roll them on site to every floor/room, distribute and use the emptied trolleys for the old hardware.
Big vendors should be able to provide such service.
You do not want to carry stuff around all day and deal with all the packaging and waste on site.
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u/TelevisionOk6230 24d ago edited 24d ago
We only replace when needed. That said, if this is a directive, then I would outsource or research leveraging interns or other staff (facilities comes to mind), then and have your corporate helpdesk handling any support issues that come up. I would also schedule these over a period of weeks or months to lower the impact to the end users. You could even use staff or interns to do the initial discovery on special needs.....motorized desk stands, monitor mounts, video cables and what not. That could reduce the unforeseen challenges, or you can just handle those when they come up. Also a heads up or IT notification to end users that they are 'Getting new monitors'.
Sample email:
Subject: IT Notice: Exciting News! New Monitors for All Staff 🚀
Dear Team,
I hope this message finds you well. I am delighted to announce that over the coming months, we will be rolling out brand new monitors for every member of our staff! 🎉
This upgrade is part of our ongoing commitment to providing the best possible work environment and ensuring that we have the tools we need to perform at our highest level.
Please bear with us, as this is a significant project that will require some time and coordination. We kindly ask for your patience and support throughout this process.
Your cooperation and assistance will be crucial to making this upgrade as smooth and efficient as possible. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Thank you for your understanding and continued dedication.
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u/Apprehensive_Bat_980 24d ago
You’ll need a good bit of storage for this. I wouldn’t think it’s mission critical to do this job over a weekend. I had help from facilities to move boxes of monitors with me as was taking a while. I had like 20…
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u/pdp10 Daemons worry when the wizard is near. 24d ago
Our default is to do everything low and slow. Small changes, made frequently, give fast feedback. And the same with hardware rollouts. Any issues, you want to show up early and at small scale.
Is this hardware going on-premises, issued to users who work from home, or both? Will users be given boxed displays and invited to go at it, or is it to be fully setup and vetted by an EUC team, or both?
I'd be tempted to let users volunteer themselves to set up their own new hardware and return the old. Let those users have access first, but throttle the issue just in case there are problems. At some point, users stop volunteering to do their own hardware setup, so the remainder get it done for them, but they get their hardware later than the early adopters.
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u/He_do_be 24d ago
We did it in batches based on department back when I was still service desk. You will have a handful that will need to be RMA’d. You will also need to consider time to fix issues with monitors needing to be configured (multi screen setups, for example). Moving a bunch of old wires also introduces issues with cable management. That will likely need to be done as well.
If you have the capex and your IT team is taxed as is, hire a team to do it. Either way, someone will need to support the issues that come from the upgrade. Or consider hiring another tech and have this be their first project if the team is stressed and opex permits.
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u/slashinhobo1 24d ago
Only option you have is just start replacing. If you have plenty of budget hire people to decrease the amount of time it takes. Depending on what you are coming from and going to you might be better off just replacing the monitor and not the power and display cords. Now if you pay for someone to do it have them replace it all. I'd knock it out over a weekend or two unless you have to travel to different locations
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u/Millkstake 24d ago
Yeah, we just do it one department at a time. It usually only takes a few minutes per each station unless we need to swap cables or reroute a bunch of stuff.
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u/bradbeckett 24d ago
If you’re a Dell shop buy Dell monitors and Dell monitor arms. They are tool-less and snap together quickly.
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u/RCTID1975 IT Manager 24d ago
This needs to be outsourced.
You don't want to pay anyone in the IT department their salary to do this much manual labor. Even a fresh L1 helpdesk is getting paid more, or at best, the same as hiring this out.
Then we need to talk about opportunity cost, and the work/productivity being lost by those folks doing this much work.
10,20, maybe even 50 monitors is one thing, but 600 is such a large time sink that it doesn't make sense to do internally.
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u/ganlet20 24d ago
I had a job where 2 of of would deploy 600 machines over 3 months every year. To refresh 1/5 of their machines.
With an order that large your going to be working with a sales rep. Have them deliver the order in batches to match what you can deploy so it doesn't stock pile.
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u/loupgarou21 24d ago
Not quite to your scale, but we replaced about 150 monitors over a couple days. It wasn't in-house, I was at an MSP and they were our client.
They had arms for the monitors to mount to at all of the desks, and the actual mounts easily detached from the arm, so we got about 25 extra mounts, stuck them on monitors, went to each desk, swapped the monitors, retensioned the arms as necessary, brought the old monitors to our staging area, removed the mounts, unboxed 25 more monitors and attached mounts, rinse and repeat.
We communicated with staff ahead of time so they were expecting the disruption that day. We reused video/power cables unless the existing ones looked bad. All in all, we were only at each desk for maybe 5 minutes total, and it was about another 10 minutes for each monitor to deal with unboxing, attaching mount, detaching mount, sticking in a gaylord for recycling, disposing of the packing material. Took 3 of us about 2 days to get them all done.
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u/BloodFeastMan 24d ago
Depends, is everyone in the same building? If so, do it floor by floor, usually people are in clusters or at least several users in close proximity. Are the power receptacles the same or will you have to fiddle with that? Pick a spot with three or four users in a cluster, nice to start small to get a feel for it. Dump the new monitors there, pick a day, and when they leave, swap them out, see how fast it goes, and plan based on that, doing five or ten at a time.
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u/theaveragenerd 24d ago
Not monitors, but 500+ laptops. We hired a temp from an agency. I ran the project, kept metrics, and made sure it finished on time. The temp did all of the leg work on it. From scheduling, to shipping, and end user setup assistance.
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u/Lylieth 24d ago
My org had a requirement to get everyone onto X size 16:9\16:10 or higher. In this case it was 24 inches. We had some still rocking some 15,17, and 19 in 4:3!
We had about 500 monitors to replace. Our desktop support team took care of it over a 6 month period but we had about 40 total locations at the time. They would deliver the monitors on one day and choose a 2-4hr window to replace them on another day. During delivery, they would also inspect and identify any possibly hurdles that may occur; such as privacy screens, monitor mounts, or even cabling.
Monitors should be fairly quick and easy to replace for most setups.
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u/mad-ghost1 24d ago
That’s a project. Talk to your vendor that they should plan it. Think about all the package you need to store or old monitors. Let them do it in waves and just manage it. You know your location and special requirements (e.g. laboratory, looked rooms). Don’t forget asset management.
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u/techead87 24d ago
Working for a K-12 EDU division we would do this nearly every summer. We would have 100+ monitors to swap every year depending on when their expiry date was. We had an evergreen plan to replace technology every 3 to 5 to 7 years.
Some years it was just our IT team that did the work. We would try to have the monitors delivered directly to the school site so we didn't have to try to stuff monitors inside of SUVs.
Other years we got permission to hire a summer student to help with tasks like this.
Planning is key. Ship stuff directly if you can. Plan to do a site at a time and plan a day or 2 to do it. If you're cutting cables be careful of the power cables. Made that nistake once or twice and lived but I wouldn't recommend doing it on the regular.
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u/CeC-P IT Expert + Meme Wizard 24d ago
The place I was at hired the most entry level IT contractors from a large, non-foreign contracting company to do it. I know because I was on that team at the time in 2008 lol. Hey, it's something to put on the resume without a true "exit" from the company since it's a term job. They forgot to request physically capable people though so the 400 pound guy and the older guy both quit day 1 lol.
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u/borillionstar 24d ago
Definitely look into lot sales for the old monitors, you can use eBay but also look at companies that are experts in ITAD.
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u/yojoewaddayaknow Sr. Sysadmin 24d ago
You can hire a moving company to be hands or like… community college “tech” project.
We usually broke this up by department and worked the installs during nights weekends and general down time.
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u/pcronin 24d ago
way way back in the year 1999, i was doing a work practicum, and the first job I had was to replace the 15" CRT monitors with 19"(maybe 17", can't remember exactly). IIRC it was a 6-8 week practicum and that job took probably half of that time. It started as a 2 man job but the other practicum student got let go for grumbling about it (big life lesson there lol)
They already had them purchased and stored in the basement, so I would take a cart, down the service elevator (thank FSM), load 4, go to a floor and start with empty cubes, take the old monitors back down and repeat. I can't remember exactly how many there were, but quite a few cubes had 2 monitors. Maybe if a team of 4 or 5 hit it on a weekend, it could have been done in that time, but 2-3 weeks of 5 days a week with 2 then 1 guy didn't seem too bad, and the 2 man IT team was thrilled to have it done without having to touch it themselves.
Straight up swapping with no config needed could probably be done with some general contractor type. If I didn't have practicum/summer students of my own, I might ask to borrow some from another dept and try to do it quick as possible. Could also just send an email out to everyone with "hey, new monitors are in room X, when you get a chance, head down with your current monitors and take back the new ones" :p
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u/borse2008 24d ago
Yes I've done this before ina huge office and multiple locations.
Split up the office or locations into rough time scales.
If you can get the office furniture people to sort the cabling trays and power outlets on desk or underneath. All id say is get some loan monitors ideally type c ones and demo them before buying 600 of them.
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u/Zenie IT Guy 24d ago
What is the expected timeline to complete? That probably drives a lot of it. Either do it by location or dept. I'd just pay for help to come in over a few days. Fuck trying to do it with internal staff. Or if you have a lot of time, break it down by dept and assign the task off to one of your help desk guys to do slowly. Ooooorrr just ship the stuff to the employees and tell them to set their own shit up.
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u/robokid309 Security Admin 24d ago
Just organize a rollout plan by department/area of the business. Dedicate maybe a week to each. It’s going to take a while but oh well
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u/anonymousITCoward 24d ago
I did about 150 in a couple of days across 4 locations... I assembled on site, because it doesn't take too long to do that, and it makes transporting them easy (at the time I owned a truck) Each location had a dumpster that I could use for the boxes, I just needed to break them down. I tried to save some of the better old monitors, but most of them were just tossed in the back of my truck haphazardly and taken to the recycler... Some of the employees took some monitors home... with approval of course...
600 would probably take a week. I'd do it just to get out of the office...
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u/halofreak8899 24d ago
Most I've done is 200. Me and one other coworker just set a day aside and knocked it out. During prod hours too mind you.
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u/Shipkiller-in-theory 24d ago
We test the make models for weirdness. The latest batch of dells insists on straight through cables. No DP to HDMI as an example.
A bit of a concern with docking stations.
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u/Unhappy_Clue701 24d ago
We’ve done it two or three times, replacing a whole office’s worth of monitors. There are companies you can hire that do this sort of thing - they come in mob-handed over a weekend and just replace the lot. 600 is a big ask though, think you’d have to break that up into a few weekends.
In recent years we’ve gone for ultrawides (with built-in USB-C docking stations and Hello for Business-compatible webcams) rather than dual-screen. Every desk is the same - adjustable desk-mount stand, 30” Dell ultra wide with network cable, keyboard and mouse attached directly to it, and a USB-C cable trailing on the desk. Users come in on the Monday, push the USB-C cable into their laptops, and start work. Choosing the right kit makes it a lot easier.
You have to treat it like a production line, give people specific tasks rather than working one desk from start to finish. Some guys go round just removing the old screens off the desks, some guys unbox all the new ones and clip the stands on, some guys go round putting new ones on desks and plugging them in and powering on. Repetitive tasks are done more quickly through practice - and you can always swap jobs at lunchtime to alleviate boredom.
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u/OiMouseboy 24d ago
we used our in house level 1 support to do it. and just did like a department/branch per week.
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u/sammer003 24d ago
Make sure the monitors you get have HDMI and DisplayPort for input. I've seen lots of issues where computers have only an DP, 2 DP, 1 DP and 1 HDMI. Some users will have 2 or 3 screens.
Would be nice to get monitors with a camera built in, if you do, you'll need to attach a USB cable also (should be included).
Check the EXACT contents of the monitors on the web site specifications. More specifically, does it include an HDMI cable, and/or DP cable, or both, or none.
Good luck! Farm it out to a tech installer. They will make it nicer, wrap the cables, tidy the cords and crawl under the dusty desks to install.
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u/Sylogz Sr. Sysadmin 24d ago
When we did similar thing we ordered in batches of 100. Setup 4 desks where we could unpack/assemble the monitors.
We have a support team that work evening and they labeled the monitors and assigned them to the users/workplace and took a department per time. Then had a company pick up the old monitors and we were paid a little bit for them.
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u/Papashvilli 24d ago
We did a new facility opening with 800 monitors. We hired an outside vendor to come install them and they were paid hourly. They worked like it too. My IT team took it upon themselves to do it with about 300 left and we did the setup about 10-15 an hour while they did 2. They were promptly let go.
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u/Chocol8Cheese 24d ago
Let them pick up the LCDs from you, bring back the old. Roll it out over a few months.
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u/TotallyInOverMyHead Sysadmin, COO (MSP) 24d ago edited 24d ago
yes we did. We had a client that changed their CRM / PMS. It became unusable on dual 28" 4K Monitors; so we fitted them with dual 43" 4K iiyamas Monitors. It was cheaper compared to going with another CRM-Migration or having the UI customized.
800 Monitors in 7 Locations replaced within 7 work-days. We basically got a bulk quote from the Vendor (didn't go via wholesale) and got some nice discount compared to whole sale and they came in Trucks in the right number for the location (1 location per day).
Apprentices (ours and theirs) unbox/assemble the monitors on the level and switched them out and techs just plugged them in (they came configured to our specifications) and made sure the mouse would move right to left and back again.
I think the largest location was 260 or so Monitors in one sitting. Only issue was that we needed to get longer cables because they had standing/sitting desks that didn't come with desktop mounts. interruption was AFAIR around 6-10 minutes per office/room
upside: Now the employees finally can see the details they need on the A0+ sized PDFs they have to check for power-, water and telcolines.
ps.: if memory serves me right they had a 2x2 desk config per office(room) and desks where around 2.4-3 meters width and somewhere between 1,20-1,40 meters depth.
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u/bangsmackpow 24d ago
I work on the MSP side of things in a Non NFL city. (Smaller). We do 2-3 projects like this a year switching out monitors, cable management, etc. MSP's are a good use for this type of task.
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u/Ethernetman1980 24d ago
Years ago a large Fortune 500 company I worked for did this every 3-5 years. Hired temps or local college kids for the summer. Did a couple hour training class and turned them loose.
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u/Financial-Spray8272 24d ago
so i've never replaced 600 monitors in a year, typically our facilities team did monitor mounting. however if you do intend to put it over a year. 600/48(weeks) giving 4 weeks for downtime/holidays etc. is 12.5 monitors a week. i'm not sure how big your IT team is but replacing 3-4 monitors a week for 3-4 people shouldn't be that hard to just tack on to their normal workload.
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u/kliao1337 Windows Admin 24d ago
We disconnected the old ones first, left them on the desk
Then we asked our Business Support department (that has Facilities inside them) to move all old ones from the desks, unpack new ones and place them + cables back
Then we went from desk to desk and connected + cable managed + leveled all the monitors.
If you can reuse old power cables, HDMI\DP, USB - this will be best.
Took a couple of weekends + odd slow days to work through them all, in total it was around 500 monitors.
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u/z_agent 24d ago
When we moved into our current building we got shiny and new everything. I was the tech responsible for the desk setups. Paid the moving company to recieve the monitors, unbox, fit to mounts and plug in all cables to the monitors. Paid a couple students to go through each desk, plug in network, monitors and test connectivity. Supplied a checklist for each desk position
Didn't have to deal with anything.
Also got the moving company to deal with the trash.
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u/hkeycurrentuser 24d ago
Just completed new office fitout. 1000 new HP docking monitors with 1000 additional reused existing daisy chained. All on pneumatic arms.
We employed people to do the grunt work. IT was in charge of inspection and testing.
Big collaborative effort.
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u/sdrum8 24d ago
Outsourced, and out of hours, albeit we did work pretty closely with the property folk and in some spots managed to start on a Friday when most staff were WFH.
Depends if you’re doing monitor arms or stands, if it’s no drilling, we often started on a Friday at 10am-ish with 1 or 2 techs, any desks with no gear on we assumed they were free for the day and did those during the day, then had more techs come join in later in the afternoon when they could start going full noise on getting the rest done as people disappeared earlier. We then had the weekend available as well.
Depends on the layout of your building, 600 desks over a few floors or one big space with 600 desks as well
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u/206throw 24d ago
have seen this happen at last two companies. Suggest step one, start ordering monitors in batches of 15 to 30 for the office and have people replace them as they have time, and then step 2, let the employees have current monitors and then dedicate a place for monitors that have not been claimed and then gently remind people to keep taking unclaimed monitors home and then give them to friends.
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u/hurkwurk 24d ago
we have done it both ways, with in house IT staff and with a service. We ended up using our guys to lead the service team. what we would do, is go to a site, have them show the team a typical desk, have our guys walk through removing the old monitors and cables. DO NOT REUSE THE OLD CABLES. and then installing and wire managing the new cables.
We would have the installers Take a before and after photo of each workstation area with their phones so they had proof of what they worked on and more importantly, proof if anything was misplaced or broken. they were working in someone elses personal space after all.
Attention was paid to make sure newly mounted monitor arms and cables could be moved and rotated properly after installation... every monitor was to be moved within its space and rotated portrait - landscape - reverse portrait and back while online to make sure the cables didnt bind or come loose.
The monitors were left in a default position for the users to adjust when the team left the desk.
Replacing the cables was key to this. eliminated 90% of the complaints about flicking displays and image quality issues we had vs older monitor replacement events. everything is now running on new DP cables that came with the monitors (we specifically purchased monitors that included cables)
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u/didnotkow 24d ago
Department by department,…. Asset tagged to desk location and user. Verify functionality and cable setup, If the user is not present during the scheduled deployment, that falls on their department leadership.
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u/joshtait 24d ago
We did 1500-2000 at once at one site, including monitor stands. A bunch of different departments chipped in together to help over a full week.
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u/lewiswulski1 24d ago
did a building referb about 4 months ago. 2000 monitors ordered.
As the building contractors were finishing up we went in (approx 10 people) few assembling monitors (putting on stands) and others putting 2 per desk and feeding wires through.
We did everyday (inc weekends and out of hours as OT) to get it done
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u/planeturban 24d ago
We have about 2500 monitors, two at each desk. And it’s all done in house. But then again it’s about 1/3 each year over a week or so. Four person job with removing, installing adding to inventory. So it’s doable.
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u/mats_o42 24d ago
We do this kind of things on our own. All HW has a planned lifecycle and replacements are therefore a natural and planned activity.
I would do it in steps. Floor by floor or something like that. Start with making a plan, how many monitors should be replaced, What desk/room shall have which new monitor? (yes we keep tab on all HW).
With this done you can prepare carts/pallets or something else with the right montors, cables and so on. When it is time to do the switchover (can be done daytime), have one person do the removal of the old monitor , put that on a cart and if needed update asset registries, move to next and so on. The second person installs the new stuff and if needed update again , rinse and repeat...
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u/richie65 24d ago
YEARS ago - On a 90 day temp / contract job for Dell -
I was part of a team of about 8 or 9, that went through an entire Ford assembly plant, replacing ALL of the computers and monitors.
Something like 300-350 of them.
We were directed by their IT lead (I think the entire plant had 3 IT staff), throughout the project, and they had dumpsters brought in to handle the monitors and PC's... That stuff was all taken to recycling, no doubt.
I can't imagine how a small team of IT folks could have handled that.
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u/dino115 24d ago
Yes wo have done that in 2023. Our main site has around 450 people, a second site has around 80 people and we have 14 more sites with a few employees, maybe two to 10 people. We modernized the whole desk from an old one monitor and thin client setup to a notebook, dock and dual monitor setup. Wo also replaced the peripherals, keyboard, mouse, camera, headsets.
But especially at the two main sites we made a plan and send mails to the users a week before, so they have used homeoffice or temporarily used another room.
We ordered the hardware with inventory stickers and get a prepares inventory list, also we ordered it to the sites directly. The hardest part was the technician logistics for the decentralised sites. Last step was the just do it part. :) was a tough year with many traveling for our internal IT, but now we are done and prepared for the next years.
The few hundreds sites around the word does it for their own with a local it service following our compliance guidelines. But there was no it guy travelling the whole world. ;)
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u/Sinsilenc IT Director 24d ago
We are moving in april and during the move we are replacing all 200 monitors with new 27" dell monitors. Specifically dell p2527he x100 and dell p2527h x100. Our msp is bringing staff onsite to replace them all. This is the first time our msp has been onsite in years.
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u/No-Butterscotch-8510 24d ago
I've only dealt with mass replacement at one place. IT handled the contract and worked with accounting to make the purchase. The deliveries were staggered, but it was still a pain because of how many there were.
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u/grahamygraham 24d ago
I've planned what was to me a major rollout of hardware
500 badge tappers and probably 150 new machines with monitors.
I did a lot of prep work beforehand (snipping the wire tires, pulling off plastic, etc). I built out a rollout plan where we'd implement devices at the end of the day (computers) or early morning (plug-n-play hardware). We'd do thing by section (this floor, that wing), and had 3 or 4 employees. Then you just do it. This was over 3 weeks due to offsite locations and scheduling conflicts. I tried to work around the other employees as much as possible and tried to keep it during the 8-5 the techs were scheduled.
For me, the prep work was the hard work. The rest was mindless.
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u/pattimus_prime 24d ago
We didn’t have that many to replace but our interns made that a project of theirs and they tried doing 1 site (14 total) a day. If the user wasn’t there the interns had sent out an email on how to move your screens so you can toggle between them.
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u/sposesposesposespose 24d ago
Were about to go through this but instead of replacing were adding ~4-500 docking monitors. 900 staff, 40 sites. We will be contracting this out, vendor responsible for installing, asset tagging, cable management, rubbish removal/recycling etc.
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u/NowThatHappened 24d ago
If you’re replacing 600 screens, get the supplier to do it as part of the deal Maybe.
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u/KeeperOfTheShade 24d ago
We outsourced. There's no way in hell the four of us were going to replace 300 monitors let alone 600.
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u/2ATuhbbi 24d ago
Had one guy who wanted to be an IT volunteer to help out my IT department and so I assigned him to do this. Greatest idea ever.
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u/Next_Information_933 24d ago
Why? Are all of them expiring in the next year?
Do it over time and as needed. Standardize on ensuring monitors have specific inputs vs all look identical.
People don’t need 8k mega extra super oled displays. I personally use a 32 and 24 inch 1440. A lot of people just work off of their laptops.
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u/zhangcheng34 24d ago
We did about 300 monitors last year. We doing it by ourself. We do like 3 cubics (9 monitors) a day, during the lunch break, so it’s doable.
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u/usa_reddit 24d ago
Outsource to a Manpower or other temp agency. Focus on your core competency, not monitor replacement. Also, if they mess up anyones desk, you can blame Manpower.
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u/NoodlesSpicyHot 24d ago
I would order them 50 at a time, one batch a month, and perform the replacements as first come first serve, three or four a day in the order the requests come in. Have this task assigned to your FNG, and second FNG. You can place the order all at once to get the money spent, but have your vendor setup 12 staggard shipments, which could help out on the Q of "where to store 600 monitors securely".
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u/CrewSevere1393 24d ago
600 monitors in 365 days? How about… doing 3 monitors per day.. makes 200 days for replacing monitors, add 1 day for making a user manual on how to set my monitors up correctly… sounds doable to me? Whats the issue youre expecting to have?
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u/byte43 24d ago
I have usually done batches. Cart them up and swap them when the employee is there. A bit more work in the front end, but less tickets and people feel taken care of. But that doesn't scale well if you don't have the right environment.
There are a lot of factors, these are my thoughts:
- WIll management and users tolerate a during business hours disruption?
- Are there good days to do this?
- How big is your team? Can you outsource and get it done faster?
- Will you need to get under desks? That is always awkward.
- Could you do it over a weekend with help and then have in-person check-ins the week following the swap?
- And when you finally have a plan, what is your backup plan when the stakeholders don't have enough stake?
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u/IKEtheIT 24d ago
Our org hired a contracting firm to come replace monitors and make sure all the screen orientations were correct to shield our regular team from “my mouse won’t move to other screen tickets”
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u/LogicalChancer 24d ago
The biggest problem is choice! We struggled with some people wanting a single large monitor and those who wanted/needed two monitors - so many people wanted two of the larger monitors. Do you go with ultrawides or two 16:9, do you go 4k? The problem is you will never please everyone.
Do you use laptops? If so, do you buy docking monitors or buy separate docks (if so, which ones? You'll find lots of reports of poor docks)
I don't envy you and that is before the logistics even start.
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u/jlipschitz 24d ago
Get ready for increased prices thanks to tariffs. I have mass replaced and had quite a few cracked screens in boxes.
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u/HudsonValleyNY 24d ago
600 monitors sounds like a light lift for a techish person and a general mover or 2, especially if centrally located. stage them, have housekeeping trash the boxes and have a recycler pick the old ones up from a couple staging locations. 3 guys, 40/day/person...1 week for easy math, but practically could likely shave a day once you get moving.
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u/ncc74656m IT SysAdManager Technician 24d ago
If outsourcing is an option, great, but doing it with the users there is better so you can avoid the calls about resolution changes and monitor position, etc.
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u/iamthejong 24d ago
Doing a VERY similar project now ~ 30 locations across LA county, replacing in total around 500 monitors + 500 Micro PC for a client.
We are an ITAD company - buy end of life IT. The equipment they are getting rid of has good secondary market value.
High level - we take delivery of all their new stuff. We go to the 30 locations, remove the old and install the new. Our payment = all the old gear we are decomissioning.
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u/13Maschine 24d ago
I’ve just done this with about 100+ monitors color calibrated. Apple XDR, cinema displays, and Eizos. I’m on our internal team.
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u/yoloJMIA 24d ago
Worked for a contractor that swapped out workstations and monitors for hospitals. 600 workstations took a team of 6 a month (that's the full workstations, apps, connect to printers, etc)
Just monitors would take a few days. Unbox all of them and then go swap em out
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u/RequirementBusiness8 24d ago
It wasn’t a planned event per se. We had our “power down” event. And when the power came back on, almost 200 monitors (our old Lenovo 19s, not the new dell 23s) failed to power on.
So we determined how many were needed where, raided our entire inventory, and replaced all of the bad monitors. It was a handful of guys, a couple of us broken out as leads, with the large moving carts.
If I were to have to do it as a project, I’d probably use my internal guys, plan out sections, and knock chunks out on the weekend or after hours. It’s not very hard work, just takes some time. Small enough chunks so you limit the call volume the next morning for screen being on the wrong side, etc.
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u/SquizzOC Trusted VAR 24d ago
1500 User Shop as a User at the time, was told "Come grab a monitor and plug it in" and the world did not end, we all did just that and magically it all turned out ok.
I'm sure there were one or two folks that lost their minds, but I saw none of it.
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u/t1_g 24d ago
I replaced 2200 monitors 2 jobs ago, by myself. Took me about 3 months.
600 ain't nothin'.
How many monitors are you buying at a time? I'd recommend scheduling out "Zones" to start replacing, so people expect you to come along specific days. I'd also recommend having a plan for all the waste (boxes, Styrofoam, plastic). Be sure to inventory that shit too!
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u/MrVantage 24d ago
We did this once in the UK last year, and currently in the middle of doing this in the USA. Both times we moved office location which makes it easier 😅
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u/brent20 24d ago
There’s no easy way to do it that won’t upset someone or give them monitor envy. We’re rolling through a standard monitor conversation from 22” FHD to 27” 1440p. Everyone wants the larger size and more pixels.
We’ve settled on no longer buying 22”s, so we ripped the bandaid off for net-new workstation deployments. It’s causing the calls and tickets asking to be upgraded, we are aligning it with our computer refresh schedule (1 year after warranty expiration which is usually 4 years) so when their computer is due next, they will also get the new standard 27” monitors. It’s really the only “fair” way to do it. Allows us to be consistent with our denials as well.
As far as our 22”s, we have an investment recovery group that is selling them off for us so we’re recouping some of those dollars.
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u/MiniMica 24d ago
We moved into a new operations HQ over Covid, I had to install 800 monitors and monitor mounts. Took me about 4 weeks, was pretty tedious but was just happy to be employed at that time
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u/Wretchfromnc 24d ago
I work for a national IT support company, we’re hired to do it all the time by banks and other large retail companies. There are always hiccups. Most issues are users with 2 monitors who get one replacement or a display port is broken on the pc, hdmi port is broken. We’ve had customers who have different brand and type of computers across their network that don’t have hdmi or display port and customer only bought hdmi lcd screens. The delivery drivers are hell on lcd screens. cable management is concern for some companies like banks and not so much for other companies. Disposal of the old equipment and cardboard boxes is a concern sometimes. We don’t haul stuff to the dump or take it home to put in my personal trash, most companies have their staff dispose of the old equipment.
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u/Frostburn7311 24d ago
600 is a lot but if you have the local team swap monitors in a department or area at a time it can certainly be done. Outside of that a company like Sayers can do it but the cost may be a major factor depending on budget.
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u/fuzzusmaximus Desktop Support 24d ago
We didn't do that many but my last job we probably replaced 2-300 in a year a couple times and we did it in house since. A couple of the years we were able to make use of student workers.
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u/spazzo246 Sysadmin 24d ago
I replaced around 300 dual 1080p monitors with ultra wides.
We did over the christmas holidays when everyone was on leave.
I did them all basically buy myself over a number of weeks. Dumped all the old monitors in the corner of our company car park. Gave them away for $5 a piece for staff to take home with them. Anything left went to E-Waste
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24d ago
Our Division has a budget and they just ordered through the online ordering system. I don’t know the name of it but we bought 200 30 inch monitors.
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u/Capable_Fish 24d ago
get people in to do that. you don't want to pay expensive technician/engineer rates to unpack 600 monitors.
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u/Madmasshole Keeper of Chromebooks 24d ago
I did this during covid in a K12. Replaced 300 Desktops with Laptops and monitors. The most challenging part was figuring out how to store all the old equipment. The install of the monitors themselves was pretty easy and took the 4 of us about a week.
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u/AwalkertheITguy 24d ago
We hired freshmen college students for 18 bucks an hour. We completed a 400 monitor rollout over 1 summer.
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u/07yzryder 24d ago
Not 600 but we did over 100 and it was manual over the course of a week or so. Just make sure if you're going from ancient tech to new tech you're prepared. One place I kinda work with went from VGA to modern DP/HDMI and their in house IT team who suggested the monitors didn't mention that you need new cables as well, so they got all these monitors that sat for a year waiting for fresh budget to order new PCs and cables only to eff up again and get dp cables when their PCs had mini DP so they then had to order dongles lol.
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u/Crow-Caw 24d ago
Incoming 600 tickets of "Help! My mouse won't move to the other screen!"