Machinery Sales: Upgrade Your Equipment & Sell Your Old Machinery to Us

Heavy equipment and machinery sales is big business in the U.S. manufacturing economy, with exports of capital equipment exceeding $140B in 2018. Driving this sector is the constant need to improve and expand production capacity. Whether to address normal wear and tear or to take advantage of technological improvements, equipment upgrades are the best method to avoid loss of productivity and maximize profitability. This can be accomplished on an as-needed basis a unit at a time, or on a larger scale via a modernization strategy. We’ll explore both of these strategies more in-depth in this article, and discuss how The Equipment Hub can be the perfect partner for upgrading your used equipment and providing your organization with an avenue to sell that machinery to offset your costs.

Upgrading Equipment Through Machinery Sales

Once you’ve determined that a machinery upgrade is required, it’s important to move forward with the replacement in a very deliberate manner. The upgrade process should start with constant attention to your manufacturing processes and ensure that you’re proactive about improving your operation rather than responding to equipment failure. You should also consider the capacity for changing your team can manage and space out upgrades between maintenance cycles on the equipment you’re retaining. Let’s explore several factors that will influence your need to sell your used machinery and make an upgrade.

Increase Efficiency & Capacity to Keep Pace with Demand Through Machinery Sales

If you’re reading this, you’re no stranger to one of the most common struggles in manufacturing: maximizing output with as little waste or reduced production capacity as possible. This can be exceptionally challenging when you have an unforeseen spike in demand or material shortages. As technologies evolve and improve, newer models of your current equipment will hit the market that will allow you to increase output and improve materials usages so that over time, the upgrade pays for itself in increased output and reduced overhead costs such as material costs and utility costs.

Upgrades are Key to Avoiding Disastrous Downtime

Every piece of machinery and equipment comes built to certain specifications, which include the anticipated lifespan of the unit. Whether this is measured in projected units of output, hours of continuous usage, or some other finite measure, the takeaway is that your equipment, while rugged and built to withstand the abuse of the manufacturing floor, isn’t designed to last forever. Maintaining records on your machinery and equipment that include service history, repair history, and productivity levels will help in the long run to determine a proactive plan for upgrading the equipment at a time that allows you to maximize your ROI on the machine, as well as maximize its resale value to potential buyers. Planning around the lifecycle of the machinery means that you’ll be selling used but viable machinery rather than losing money in having to scrap the machine at a minimal profit on top of incurring the costs of emergency equipment replacement and downtime when production halts waiting for the replacement unit.

Beyond Upgrades, Into the Arena of Modernization

While the concept of upgrading a piece of equipment implies exactly that, a one-for-one exchange designed to address a single unit, there are several circumstances that require you to look at your entire production line and develop a process-focused plan for modernization. Let’s explore two examples where a targeted large-scale investment over time might be a better approach than piecemeal upgrades in the short-term.

New Products, New Production Methods, New Requirements

As competition increases across industries and segments of the economy, companies are diversifying product offerings and services in order to capture larger shares of consumers’ budgets. For a manufacturing operation to pull this off, this will take more than the replacement of several individual machines and putting them up for sale. Adding production capacity and changing out or adding entire production lines will require massive upgrades and a shift in the entire production process, and this will take time and resources. Selling the used machinery will provide a solid financial foundation for this long-term process.

Automating and Future Proofing

Chances are if your facility’s production lines and machinery aren’t already fully automated, this is something you’ll need to consider in the near future, and that’s where the modernization process comes into play. Modernization means that you’ll be upgrading equipment not to address current challenges or issues, but rather to mitigate and reduce future productivity and efficiency concerns while maximizing your current production output with new equipment. This tactic of future-proofing via automation requires embracing rapid digital transformation tactics, which 72% of manufacturing companies are actively seeking to accomplish. These efforts come in the form of roughly $907B being invested in improving factory connectivity and machinery intelligence.

Get Your Money’s Worth with Professional Appraisals

Once you’ve outlined your upgrade strategy, and determined what equipment is being offloaded and what equipment needs to be purchased, it’s time to bring in the professionals to determine what the equipment you’re selling off is worth, so that you can determine how much you can reinvest into new equipment. The Equipment Hub’s team of professional acquisition agents can work with your organization to determine the value and how best to offload your machinery.

Machinery Sales, Services, and More – All in One Place

Here at The Equipment Hub, we don’t expect you to figure all of this out on your own – while you might run a business, you’re not necessarily an expert on the market fluctuations in used machinery sales. Once our acquisitions team has assisted you with the necessary appraisals, our platform can be a resource for both off-loading your used machinery through one of three avenues: outright purchasing your equipment, hosting an auction or liquidation sale for your organization, and consignment/brokering services. Our online portal also provides ways to discover new and used alternatives in order to upgrade your current capabilities. Don’t get left behind by your competitors, find out why we’re America’s premier machine tool dealer and get in contact with us today.