There is more to giving original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) tools for gaining a competitive edge than just a controller or re-labeling an operator interface. Doug Burns, global OEM business development director at Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation, stresses that OEMs should consider entire life cycle costs.
“No matter how lean a business is,” states Burns, “OEMs are always looking for opportunities to save money and resources, as well as for tools or methods that can ultimately make them more profitable. The first step to trimming expenses is looking at the costs of each stage of a machine’s life cycle: from design and start-up to support and sales.”
Design
• Programming alone can consume up to 80 percent of a control system’s design budget. What can you do to reduce programming costs?
• What can be done during design to reduce rework needed for global markets?
• How can machine testing and time spent correcting problems after delivery be reduced?
Start-up
• Will pre-assembled components reduce time and expenses during start-up?
• How can a design of placing components directly on the machine save expenses of testing the wiring and input/output devices?
Support
• OEMs that provide quality support after a machine is delivered and installed at a customer site will decrease downtime and increase efficiency for their machine.
• What is the best way to provide support after the sale?
• What level of support is necessary? On call? Remote monitoring?
• What technology is best to add remote diagnostics capabilities to the machines?
See the story that goes with this sidebar: Mixing the Right Flavors Makes Competing Sweet
