by Thelma Vance

Created on: July 24, 2008

Where do you go to get used manufacturing equipment?

That is mater of just where you are located and where you plan to establish yourself. How much are you willing to pay for it? Do you have a particular Product that this equipment must produce? Do you need this equipment in "mint" condition or do you have someone in mind to refurbish it? Does it have to be adapted to your Product?

Let us assume, for the sake of discussion, that you are a machinist and are in the market for NCM (numeric control machining) equipment. And, you are already established and are looking to increase you capacity. You cannot relocate.

The very first place to look is on the Web. You have to do a search to find the equipment so your Google search would look like "used for sale in ". This will give you quite a list. Supppose you find one? Now you make contact via e-mail to find out price and delivery.

This now gets a bit sticky.

The equipment will be in a location that transportation will NOT be included in the price. You will have to include the transportation cost into the overall price of the equipment. So, you go to Google again to get equipment transportaiton companies and most likely call them to get a rate quote from the location of the Seller to your facility.

Oops. We have a problem. What about loading it onto the transportation system (truck or train) and how to uninstall the equipment at the Seller's location. This can be a very big problem in the realm of logistics, riggers and loading.

Now we have to figure in that cost as well.

Does this Seller's price make sense when we add all of this cost?

Will the Seller comedown on price or help out with some of the logistical issues?

At this point we found the equipment from a Seller that has just what we want. We can get the equipment to our location. Now, add in the cost of your time and multiply that by your normal wage on a per hour basis.

Does the used equipment price make sense against the price of new?

Let us take another case study. We are a manufacturing company and we are small. We make exotic Product and Sales are good. We need to increase our capacity. What do we do?

Well we search the web as in the previous example. We locate the right make an model of equipment for the Production Line and we get what seems to be a reasonable price. And we can get it shipped with one of our current vendors.

But, what condition is the equipment in? Well ... We have to send our Line Supervisor out to get an idea what will need to be done to bring into compliance with ISO and OSHA. This means that the Production Line will be down for the time it takes to get the equipment checked out.

The Line Supervisor says that it will take of dollars/euros and may take as high as to get it working correctly.

Add all these costs up and see how the used equipment stacks up against New Equipment. Does buying this equipment make sense?

Other sources of equipment is to find a Company that failed and there is a Bank Asset Auction. This could be a good source of the equipment and the price will be whatever you bid. There may be one but not more that 5 people bidding on the Assets. Most of these will be Equipment Brokers. If you do not get the equipment at the Auction, you just may make a good contact with one of the Brokers. These folk WILL always negotiate. And, they may be source for future equipment purchases.

Always do your homework and make sure that you ARE saving money and time by purchasing the used vs new equipment.

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