Asking for advice and opinions

[Robert Tepper]

Good evening to the group.

In July 2012 I purchased a Trotec Rayjet 300, 80 watt system. For the first two weeks everything I tried to engrave I either melted or set on fire. Finally I got past that stage!

In September of 2012 I stumbled upon a product and it has been a God send. I make a product for the arts and crafts industry. I have become a job shop for four companies. My situation is this. These companies have come to depend upon me and on time delivery. My machine has never been down more than one day and that was from a bad laser tube. The machine is running seven days a week and has never skipped a beat.

I am at the point now that if I was to go down for a week I would be in serious trouble with the companies that have come to depend on me. I am seriously considering a second machine just as an insurance policy. Has anyone else been in this situation and what did you do? Purchasing and payments are not my concern.

What I would like opinions on is if I should purchase a CO2 and flex laser. I currently have no market for the flex, but once I have it I feel there will be work by word of mouth.

Has anyone purchased a second machine just to have in the event your machine went down? My feeling is that I would purchase a Speedy 300, 80 watt flex system. If things did not turn out as I expected, I could sell my original machine.

Please excuse my ramblings, just looking for some input.

Thanks to all that might respond.

Robert

[Bruce Dorworth]

Robert, that is a double edged sword. It is great to have that much work, but can be very stressful to work non stop under those conditions. If you did buy another laser could you get you work done twice as fast and maybe squeeze in a weekend off every so often? You could also hire someone to come in and run the second laser. Another possible solution if your laser happens to go down would be to sub out some work to someone on the forum util you are up and running again.

Either way congrats on the business.

Bruce

[Joe Pelonio]

I was in that situation for several years, but managed without a second machine thanks to having good local contacts with lasers that were able to help me out when I was down for a tube or motor replacement with a looming deadline. Spending another $15-20,000 for a backup machine is not cost effective. Reduced profit from having to pay someone else for 1-2 jobs costs a lot less. In my case, with the speed of parts from Epilog, I was never down more than a day or two.

[Ross Moshinsky]

I believe in redundance of equipment for the reasons you've stated above. You need to be reliable in business. With that said, I can't spent your money. I see a few options.

Do as you plan. Sounds expensive but if you think you can make the investment work, go for it.

Buy a cheaper laser. If you're looking at this second laser as insurance, then you don't need to have a 60k insurance policy when a 5-10k laser probably would work.

As stated above, find a local laser shop to work with in a pinch.

[Mike Troncalli]

Just thinking out loud here, so way open to debate. Every option that has been mentioned above has their merits but may not fit your needs 100%. What if you were to stock those items that you know can and will go bad? Power supply, stepper motor, maybe a spare lens. A lot cheaper than a new machine but if you did have something go out you would have most of the usual suspects on hand for a quick swap out.

If downtime is your biggest issues and you do purchase a second machine, make sure it is from a manufacturer that you KNOW you can get reliable fast service from.

[Tristan Ranatza]

I would also go with what Ross and Joe are saying, you can sub your work out and pay a little extra to get it done. This may not be profitable in the short term but will keep your customers happy.
That being said... depending on the type of work you do it may be worth doing what Bruce said. If you are running something like tile mosaics for 12 hours a day it would be well worth getting a second machine, your setup time would be minimal and it would cut your man hours in half for jobs.

Explain what type of stuff you are doing to get some better advice is my advice ;)

[Richard Rumancik]

Are any of the products that you make repeat jobs (and not personalized)? If so, maybe there is another opportunity that has not been mentioned. If a company typicallly buys x items/month can you build ahead at all? Yes, I realize your capacity is currently limited and you may need some help but if you talk to the companies and explain your concern maybe you can work something out as to larger orders with scheduled deliveries. This would keep their cash flow at an acceptable level but provide a buffer - even if it is only for some of the products. I realize that JIT (just in time) is the optimum and holding inventory is old-school but sometimes JIT alone does not work so well. It would seem to me that at least in the short term a bit of inventory (along with some spare parts as mentioned) would keep you going for a few days. In the meantime maybe you can look out for a deal on a 2nd machine.

I wouldn't buy a machine as a "spare" - it needs to be integrated into your process and actually used, not just sitting there. Otherwise when you need it, it might not be ready to take over. So it may mean duplication of some supporting hardware and of course requires shop space.

On another topic - do you actually have someone else trained for your machine? What if the operator goes down for a week?

[Mike Null]

Robert

Some time recently we had the "flexx" discussion and the consensus was that it would be a bad choice compared to buying two separate machines. That is my opinion as well. But in your situation I would opt for an additional CO2 machine for the following reasons.
1. You are at capacity and running 7 days a week. I think that is a risky and possibly costly option. (depending on your pay scale)
2. While I have been in an almost similar situation and considered an additional machine I have two reliable friends who can bail me out of a jam without poaching my customers. You may not be comfortable in doing that.
3. I take it that you want to increase your business. Without the new machine you cannot do that.
4. You are financially able to make the move without burdening your company.

[Robert Tepper]

Thank you all for the many ideas.
I will keep working at full speed for now, ultimately a second machine will be required.

Robert