Evaluate vendors on their assumptions, not their numbers. Any supplier can produce a favorable payback figure by choosing a generous labor model and quoting a peak rate. The comparison only becomes meaningful when you make every vendor show you the same things: how the rate was verified, what is inside the installed cost, what sustained throughput they will commit to on your product, and what happens on the day the machine stops.
This is a framework you can use with any automation supplier, including JLS. If a vendor cannot answer these questions clearly, that is itself an answer.
Payback is dominated by the labor assumption, and labor assumptions vary enormously between plants. Ask which wage rate was used, whether it is the fully loaded rate or the base wage, how many shifts, and how many positions. Then substitute your real numbers. A payback built on three shifts collapses if you run one.
For context, JLS commonly sees projects evaluated against a payback in the 24 to 36 month range, but the honest version is that it depends on your equipment investment, labor model, operating schedule and how much upstream capacity the automation unlocks. Treat any vendor's single headline payback figure as a starting point for your own math, not a finding. We wrote a full framework for running that calculation yourself in how to calculate ROI on robotic packaging automation.
Machine price is not project cost. Ask each vendor to state explicitly whether their number includes integration with your existing upstream and downstream equipment, controls integration, installation, commissioning, operator and maintenance training, recommended spare parts, and tooling for every SKU you intend to run. Quotes that exclude two or three of these will look cheaper and cost more.
Tooling is product-specific. A system priced around three SKUs is not priced for the eight you actually run. Make the SKU list part of the scope conversation early, and confirm what adding one later costs.
Most vendor ROI cases count direct labor and stop. The items that usually go uncounted — turnover and retraining at repetitive stations, absenteeism cover, workers' compensation exposure from repetitive motion, product giveaway and rework from inconsistent manual handling, and upstream capacity you cannot currently use because the pack-out station is the constraint — often matter more than the wage line. Ask each vendor which of these they included, so you are comparing like with like.
This is the single most useful question in the evaluation. A peak rate is what a machine achieves under ideal conditions with perfect product presentation. A sustained rate is what it holds across a shift with real product variability, real infeed conditions and real changeovers. Ask every vendor, in writing, what sustained rate they will commit to on your product — and what conditions that commitment assumes.
A number in a proposal is a claim. A number demonstrated at factory acceptance testing, on your actual system, running your actual product, before it ships, is evidence. Ask what the FAT protocol covers, who signs off, and what happens if the machine does not meet the agreed conditions. Ask separately whether they will test your product before the design is finalized — pre-sale application testing and FAT answer different questions and you want both.
Availability is not only mean time between failures. If a machine runs beautifully but takes forty minutes to change over and another forty to clean, those hours come out of production just as surely as a fault does. Ask for changeover time per format, whether it is tool-less, and how long the documented sanitation procedure takes. On wet lines, cleanability is an uptime specification.
Get concrete. Who answers the phone, and are they employed by the company that built the machine or by a third party? Can they connect remotely and see the machine? Which spare parts are stocked, and where? How are service technicians dispatched, and from how far? Can your own maintenance team be trained to handle the common faults?
Also ask who wrote the controls software. If the machine builder programmed the controls, vision and HMI themselves, diagnosing a fault does not require coordinating between companies. JLS programs its controls, vision and HMI in-house in York, Pennsylvania on commercially available B&R hardware, and support runs through an in-house team backed by the engineers who built the system. Whatever a vendor's answer is, get it explicitly — it determines how a bad night actually goes.
Packaging equipment outlives its purchase decision. Ask how long parts are supported, whether the platform is standardized or a one-off, and whether the controls hardware is commercially available or proprietary. A machine built on components you can source is a machine you can keep running.
ROI and uptime are the same conversation. A payback calculation built on a peak rate the machine will not sustain is not a payback calculation; it is a forecast that fails quietly over the following two years. When you hold every vendor to the same sustained rate, the same scope inclusions and the same labor model, the field usually narrows on its own.
Hold their assumptions to a common standard. Make every vendor state the labor model behind their payback, what their installed cost includes, which SKUs are tooled, the sustained rate they will commit to on your product, how that rate gets verified at factory acceptance testing, and what their support and spare parts response actually looks like.
JLS commonly sees projects evaluated in the 24 to 36 month range, but the result depends on your investment, labor model, operating schedule and how much upstream capacity the automation unlocks. Run the calculation with your own numbers rather than accepting a vendor's headline figure.
Peak rate is achieved under ideal conditions with perfect product presentation. Sustained rate is what the system holds across a shift with real product variability and changeovers. Compare vendors on sustained rate, and have it verified at factory acceptance testing.
If the machine builder programmed the controls, vision and HMI themselves, fault diagnosis and changes do not require coordinating between separate companies. Ask each vendor who wrote the software and who you reach for support.
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JLS Automation designs, builds, programs and supports hygienic robotic food handling and packaging systems in York, Pennsylvania. Explore robotic case packing, primary product handling, or service and support.