Excerpt from: ITAD Best Practices: Managing Customer Agreements and Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Minneapolis – Feb 2026
by Josh Feldman, VP, Professional Services
Why this matters
Most SLA failures don’t happen on the due date.
They happen earlier, when something quietly slips out of view.
A job changes status, but the update lives in someone’s inbox.
A device misses a required step, but there’s no trigger to flag it.
A certificate is technically “done,” but not compiled in an audit-ready way.
A customer asks for an update, and the team starts reconstructing the truth from three systems and a spreadsheet.
That’s the pattern behind “unexpected” SLA misses.
Not bad intent. Not weak teams.
Blind spots.
The real issue isn’t manual work.
It’s manual coordination.
The problem isn’t that people scan devices, move pallets, or run tests by hand. The problem is when the coordination layer around that work is manual:
- Status updates live outside the system
- SLA tracking depends on someone “remembering”
- Documentation is assembled after the fact
- Billing and settlement require reconciliation across tools
- Customer updates are reactive, not automatic
- Exceptions aren’t visible until a complaint or audit forces them into view
When coordination is manual, visibility breaks.
When visibility breaks, SLAs become a gamble.
This matters even more when you’re balancing resale decisions, downstream routing, and throughput targets under tight margins.
Where SLAs actually break
Most ITAD leaders recognize the obvious pressure points: volume peaks, staff turnover, floor space constraints.
Those are real.
But the more consistent root cause is simpler:
the operation moves faster than the oversight.
That shows up in practical ways:
1) Workload doesn’t match reality
No reliable view of what’s in progress, blocked, or about to breach → staffing decisions are late → teams react to yesterday’s picture while today’s work piles up.
2) Required steps aren’t enforced
Process flow depends on human discipline instead of system logic → variation creeps in → one missed step becomes rework → rework becomes delays → delays become SLA risk.
3) Status doesn’t translate into priority
If it’s hard to see what’s late and why → managers can’t intervene early → SLAs are won (or lost) in intervention, before something becomes urgent.
4) Reporting becomes cleanup
If certificates, settlements, and audit evidence are compiled manually at the end → teams spend time proving work instead of doing it → gaps become stress—especially when enterprise clients expect answers fast.
As enterprise RFPs get stricter and reporting expectations rise, SLAs are increasingly being judged on evidence, not reassurance.
Why this gets worse with scale
Manual coordination can work when you’re small and everyone is in the same room.
It breaks when you add:
- Multiple facilities
- Higher throughput
- More enterprise clients
- Stricter reporting expectations
- More downstream partners
At that point, “keeping track” becomes a full-time job, and still misses edge cases.
And the cost isn’t just operational. It’s commercial:
- SLAs become harder to sell confidently
- Exceptions create margin leakage
- Audits create disruption instead of routine proof
- Enterprise buyers lose trust quickly when transparency is slow
The shift: from chasing truth to running on truth
The ITADs that deliver consistently at scale share one trait:
They don’t reconstruct evidence.
They produce it as work happens.
That’s what a modern ERP should do in this category:
- Capture status and custody as the workflow runs
- Enforce required steps so quality doesn’t depend on memory
- Surface exceptions early, not after the breach
- Automate certificates and settlements so reporting is review-and-send
- Support proactive customer updates (portal access, milestones, self-serve docs)
When the system is the source of truth, SLAs stop being “managed.”
They become built-in.
The takeaway
If SLAs feel harder than they should, it’s rarely because your team isn’t working hard enough.
It’s because coordination is happening outside the workflow, creating blind spots you only notice when something breaks.
Manual coordination creates blind spots.
System visibility turns commitments into something you can scale.
About Makor ERP™
Makor ERP™ is the leading enterprise software for ITAD, recycling, and refurbishment operations, purpose-built to deliver full lifecycle visibility, regulatory compliance, and operational excellence.
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