Are you looking for an all-around production line for your newly constructed facility? Do you need a system fitted with the latest industrial technologies to keep your company ahead of the competition? Regardless, you have to find the manufacturing solution that best suits your business needs. This will ultimately boil down to choosing between custom production lines and turnkey solutions for your facility.

Need to weigh your options? Here’s a guide to both manufacturing solutions, complete with pros and cons for each!

Custom Production Lines vs. Turnkey Solutions: Which One’s For You?

Before making your choice, you need to have an idea of what exactly you want your assembly line to do. This includes mapping out the processes required from start to finish. Be sure to understand your manufacturing needs if you want to find a system that fits your business requirements!

Custom Production Lines: Built from the Ground Up

A custom production line is put together from scratch and tailored specifically for your company. Equipment from different suppliers may be individually purchased and arranged into an assembly line. As a result of the heavy customization, your system processes will all be optimized and incredibly scalable.

Custom production lines are also often proprietary in nature because of how unique they are.

Pros

• • Covers all your business needs
  • Can be built around your existing business processes
  • Can be installed phase by phase
  • Flexible enough to accommodate additional equipment as specified
  • Provides a unique competitive advantage
  • Designed with long-term goals in mind

Cons

• • Uses up more resources for its development
  • Requires future processes or enhancements to be custom-tailored as well
  • Comes with higher risks, since a unique setup is often a previously untested setup
  • May take longer to deploy

When to Choose a Custom Production Line

• • You’re unable to find a pre-existing turnkey solution that fits your business processes at all
  • You’d like to have the flexibility to incorporate aged but usable machines into your manufacturing line
  • The company has the right in-house tech support to take care of the system
  • The company has the time and budget to put together a custom production line

TIP: It’s highly advisable to get expert insight when building a production line from scratch. Professionals with in-depth knowledge of assembly technology can even advise you on certain machines or features you might have overlooked.

Turnkey Solutions: Right Off the Shelf

Turnkey solutions get their name from how they’re so complete, they just need to be switched on with a turned key. They’re also referred to as out-of-the-box solutions. Depending on your industry, there may be countless readily available turnkey solutions for you to choose from.

Manufacturers and distributors who offer turnkey solutions will often have technicians on their end to help you out, from installation to maintenance. While this doesn’t completely eliminate the chances of a system glitch, it certainly minimizes the possibility! You may also be able to ask your supplier for company training so that your employees can perform basic repairs and maintenance by themselves.

Pros

• • Poses less risks because they’ve already been tried and tested
  • Comes with a rich selection of features by default
  • Costs less, with lower upfront costs that small and medium businesses can afford
  • Only requires negotiations with one company
  • Often has readily available support
  • Enhancements can be provided by the vendor

Cons

• • Not very customizable or scalable
  • Existing processes may have to be adapted to the new system
  • May include maintenance and per-seat costs
  • Can turn out to be unnecessarily pricey if some pre-packaged options are not used

When to Choose a Turnkey Solution

• • You’re keen on having a feature-rich and well-integrated production line from the get-go
  • Your company has yet to hire its own team of technicians
  • Your business processes have wiggle room to adjust to a ready-made system
  • The company lacks the time or resources to purchase every piece of equipment separately or build a production line from scratch

TIP: You can find turnkey solutions of the highest quality by browsing the catalogues of reliable equipment suppliers like Elixir.

Customized Turnkey Solutions: A Third Option on the Rise

Some companies have started to come out with turnkey solutions packaged with customizable support. This lets you start with a strong ready-made production line which you can simply tweak to fit your business needs. Find an industrial equipment supplier who offers customized turnkey solutions, and you can get the best of both worlds for your company!

Pros

• • Modifications to pre-existing solutions can be done quickly
  • Might offer flexibility with legacy and future systems
  • Can provide your company with a competitive advantage due to customization
  • Vendor can still offer direct support

Cons

• • Costs still depend on degree of customization. If you tweak your production line too much, you may end up spending just as much as if you built your system from scratch
  • Depending on the production line, you might not be able to add certain features and functions through customization
  • The benefits of your customization may be diminished if you’ve chosen the wrong off-the-shelf solution to begin with

When to Choose a Customized Turnkey Solution

• • You’ve found a turnkey solution that covers most of your business needs and lacks only a few critical functionalities

TIP: It’s a good rule of thumb to pick a base solution that fits at least 80% of your core businesses needs. That way, you can avoid spending too much on excessive customization while preventing potential issues with system performance.

ALSO READ: Business Owner’s Checklist: 9 Attributes of a Reliable Industrial Equipment Supplier

Again, you’ll be looking for the manufacturing solution that best fits your company’s requirements and goals. Take note of the above comparisons, and you can narrow down your choices to find the right system more easily.

Still need help searching for the right manufacturing solution? Feel free to inquire with Elixir and see what we have to offer you. For 25 years and counting, Elixir has supplied both individual machines and all-around turnkey solutions to its Philippine customers. We also provide after-sales services and professional technical support to help you get the most out of your new production line. Contact us today to find out more!

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