[gregpilling]

I recently spent $100,000 on some automation for my factory. The first $60,000 was for a machine that will take an outside supplier cost of $5000 per month, and replace it with a machine payment of $1000 per month. I now need to supply an operator, space, electrical and consumables, but I save $4000 to do that with. My 'new' worker will be just one of the existing workers (or myself) who will push the buttons on this mostly automated machine. The human still needs to load and unload the machine.

The other $40,000 was spent on NEW machines that automatically do NEW processes which we could never do before. I have a lot of pressure from the market to deliver new goods, and I have a lot of competitors both in the USA and in China and India copying my existing products. So this investment is about new streams of revenue (and I like toys/equipment!) . This is a $500 per month investment on the lease.

I have a reasonable expectation that the new machines could help us achieve a sales doubling in the next three years.

So in my case, 18-24 months salary replacement was never the thought process. It was honestly more about getting rid of a supplier, bringing it in-house to control quality and output, and saving money. I have a lot of automation, and I think the bigger concept most don't get is that the automation is way way more accurate and repeatable than a human. Quality goes up as costs go down. The quality part is a big big part of it.