Let’s cut to the chase. The bigger OEMs want you to upgrade your equipment.
They even price the yearly contracts in a way that makes it an accounting nightmare to justify not purchasing new ones! Either you pay for a contract that is 1/4 the price of a new system, or you bite the bullet and make a huge capital purchase.
How do you make these difficult decisions?
If you ask the OEM’s, they will say it’s impossible to support the older equipment. What they won’t say is the older equipment was made more robust and lasted too long. Have you ever heard the phrase “planned obsolescence?”
Here are a few tips to help decide whether to keep that old system or to upgrade.
You’d rather keep the old equipment:
1. Look at the service history and reliability of the system – If it has been a workhorse with little to no issues, it’s an easier decision to stick with the older system.
2. Parts availability – Have parts been easy or difficult to come by?
3. Alternative parts providers – Can you source reliable parts from RESTEK, Sciencix, or others?
4. Are there alternative service providers willing to assist with the aging instrumentation?
You’re looking forward to the upgrade:
1. Always negotiate pricing and multi-year contracts – upfront savings on contracts are easy to justify and may allow for locking in future pricing!
2. Try to get an onsite demonstration of the equipment AND software. Ask for one of your samples to be run!
3. Don’t rule out refurbished equipment – OEMs want you to trust them and their refurbished equipment proves it.
4. Ask if demo units are available. You can usually get some deep discounting on these systems.
5. Don’t buy all the bells and whistles – many times the system is sold as a package that includes many ancillary technologies that will eventually fail, leaving you to get it repaired or leaving it as a daily reminder on the benchtop.
A favorite part of my job is brainstorming pros and cons of any decision.
Schedule a call and it would be my pleasure to chat!