Most people simply think of the price and lead time of their systems. For example, a system may cost $15,000 and take 4 weeks to receive it. But...you need to consider the following:
IMPLEMENTATION
How long will that take to implement for your purposes? Don't forget the mechanical, electrical and software installations. Then, who is going to program it? At $1000/day over another 4 weeks, the price becomes $25000 with an 8 week lead time.
MAINTENANCE
How often do you plan on maintaining the system? Cleaning? Lubricating? Tightening belts? Re-tuning the servos? Taking a system down for a day can easily cost $1000 just in labor. That doesn't begin to include the lost production time.
REPLICATIONHow easy will this system be to replicate if you need to? How about the ability to duplicate it even after 10 years when many of the parts will be obsolete? Having two systems that are different from each other can give you varying quality and make them more difficult to support.
COST OF QUALITY
What is your Cost of Quality? If the system doesn't meet your needs, what will that cost you? How easy will it be to "upgrade" to the next step? How about the reliability of your system and whether it consistently meets your needs or not? What does downtime cost you...an hour? A day? 4 weeks?
THROUGHPUT
What does your production throughput cost you? If upgrading to a $25000 system, instead of the initial $15000 one, doubles your system's production capability, your system could pay for itself sooner rather than later.
SUPPORT
When something goes wrong with the system, what do you expect to pay to get it back up and running? How long do you expect that to take? Do you want immediate free phone support? How about local field support from a knowledgeable engineer? How about yearly maintenance fees simply to keep your system up to date?
WHAT NOW? HOW DO I FIGURE OUT MY COSTS?
Call us! Information that will help us help you includes your:
- Labor rates
- Cost of production loss
- Desired system life-expectancy
Contact Valin today at (800) 774-5630, or
online.
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