Automating vs. Outsourcing – what is best for your company?

When com­pa­nies are look­ing at their man­u­fac­tur­ing prac­tices, there is one thing that needs to hap­pen above all oth­ers – they need to be able to stay com­pet­i­tive. For com­pa­nies try­ing to keep their com­pet­i­tive edge, automat­ing ver­sus out­sourc­ing might become a top­ic for discussion.

There are many advan­tages to out­sourc­ing and automat­ing, accord­ing to Assem­bly Mag­a­zine. As pro­duc­tion lines begin to man­u­fac­ture short­er and short­er runs of items before they change or are updat­ed, man­u­fac­tur­ers may send some assem­bly or fab­ri­ca­tion work out to a third-par­ty manufacturer.

With a third-par­ty man­u­fac­tur­er, the out­sourced work may be cheap­er to pro­duce, which means less cost to the orig­i­nal com­pa­ny for mate­ri­als and labor costs. Of course, when look­ing at out­sourc­ing as opposed to automa­tion, you must real­ize that with out­sourc­ing, com­pa­nies are tak­ing a risk as well. Their prod­ucts are being made off-site, and they have no qual­i­ty con­trol or say over these mate­ri­als or labor prac­tices being used dur­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing. That is not the case with automation.

In the argu­ment of out­sourc­ing vs. automat­ing, some may say that the ini­tial cost of automat­ing is the main dis­ad­van­tage. The cost of automat­ing appli­ca­tions in house is so high that it may not be effec­tive, pro­po­nents of out­sourc­ing may say. How­ev­er, many times, that is not the case.

Automa­tion allows man­u­fac­tur­ers to inte­grate one or mul­ti­ple indus­tri­al robots into their pro­duc­tion lines, work­ing in con­junc­tion with their work­ers. These robots may cost thou­sands of dol­lars, but their flex­i­bil­i­ty and ver­sa­til­i­ty saves com­pa­nies mon­ey with­in the first year, in most cases.

Auto­mat­ed robots can per­form sev­er­al dif­fer­ent appli­ca­tions, instead of per­form­ing just one or two. They can also be fit­ted with vision and sen­sor guid­ance sys­tems, mean­ing that they can adapt to the chang­ing prod­uct lines with­out need­ing to be rebuilt and repro­grammed over and over again as the prod­uct changes. This saves the man­u­fac­tur­er time and mon­ey, as well as allow­ing for less down­time dur­ing production.

All in all, there is no defin­i­tive way for any­one to say whether third par­ty out­sourc­ing is bet­ter than automa­tion or vice ver­sa. Instead, it is up to the man­u­fac­tur­er to research and decide which path is best for their business.

If man­u­fac­tur­ers do decide to auto­mate their prac­tices, they can con­tact Robots​.com for all their inte­gra­tion needs. Robots​.com is a cer­ti­fied inte­gra­tor for Fanuc, Motoman, ABB, Uni­ver­sal Robots, and KUKA robot­ic sys­tems. Our staff works with man­u­fac­tur­ers to find the best auto­mat­ed sys­tem for their facility.

For more infor­ma­tion on automat­ing with Robots​.com vs. out­sourc­ing, con­tact us today online or at 877−762−6881.