I think you should compare the cost of doing it manually (not the cost of
outsourcing to the board builder) with the cost of buying and using the
machine, so the savings is only the $2 per board you estimated, not $12 per
board. Unless you're being forced to stop coating manually...you have to
compare what's the best you can do (economically) without the machine to
what you can do with the machine. That gives payback in about nine
years...probably not acceptable.
(just my $.02.)
Tim Reeves

> ----------
> From:         Bob Sechriest
> Sent:         Wednesday, December 15, 1999 8:36 AM
> Subject:      econ 101 for engineers
>
> Need some very basic advise on cost calculations for equipment purchace
>
> Trying to justify the purchace of a conformal coating machine for several
> of our PCB assemblies. We have been performing the operation manually at a
> cost of  $10 per board less than that quoted by our board builder. My
> estimate is that by automating we can reduce the price per board another
> $2 below the quote. So for a $50000 machine, we can recover our investment
> by producing (50000/12) = 4167 boards. This gives a payback in <18months.
> Sounds great! also sounds too easy. Am I missing something?
>
> Thanks in advance!!!!!!!!!
> Bob
>

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