At DEVELOP LLC, we know that building an In-House Automation Team is about more than experience. One person cannot do it alone. You would be surprised but we have been hired for multiple projects in the wake of a misfired attempt at establishing one-person in-house automation. If you are considering starting your own in-house automation arm instead of hiring a vertically integrated automation integration team, you should know the risks you are taking first.
One Person Cannot Do It Alone
The worst disasters in in-house automation occur when a single engineer is hired to support every role. This happens more than you think. A company hesitates on price, considers that they may only want one machine, and decides they can just hire one person to create a custom automated machine. It sounds like saving money. Here are the top seven money hemorrhaging dangers of one man in house automation departments:
Extended Development
The ideal automated machine needs engineering, programming, testing, assembly, sourcing of parts, revisions, and budgeting.
- One person cannot write code while screwing T-slot frames together.
- One person cannot design a 3D model of the machine while calculating the return-on-investment figures of multiple projects.
- One person cannot shop for alternative parts while testing an automated module.
- The ideal machine design and build needs concurrent stages in a Gantt format.
- One person has no choice but to take one step after another.
- If a custom machine takes months or years to integrate with a vertically integrated team, how many years does it take to finish with one person? And will the equipment become obsolete before it is done?
Fault and Error Risks
There is a reason you have meetings.
- Putting different perspectives in the same room prevents tunnel vision, mitigates dangers, and supports innovation.
- With a vertically integrated single source team, the perspectives of the software engineer, mechanical engineer, designer, electrical engineer, and project lead provide comprehensive collaboration on risk mitigation.
- A single person has one perspective, one set of hands, and one way of fixing the problem.
- You lose all the time you thought you would save by having a unilateral decision-making apparatus with a single setback.
- A collaborative automation team not only mobilizes when an issue is detected, they mitigate the chances of errors in the late stage of development.
Employment Risk
When you hire a single source vertically integrated team for your project, each stage of the development comes with assigned points of contact and backup informed contacts that preserve institutional memory.
- These remain the same through the entire project for seamless communication and continuum of care.
- If you are relying on one person to manage your entire department, retirement, workman’s comp, holidays, quitting, sick days, and any other event out of your control shut down your entire automation department.
- If your single in-house engineer no longer works for your company, you are left with partially finished projects. A new engineer must decode partially finished software logic, ambiguous 3D CAD designs, and partially constructed frames before they can even start picking up where the last engineer left off.
- Many of these types of situations end with permanently shelved projects.
Market Stagnation
Your ideal project targets your 80/20, your products that benefit your business for the most growth potential, the most room for escalated revenue when your machine provides increased speed, quality, and consistency.
- A single source, vertically integrated team has the engineering apparatus to complete these projects in a timely manner.
- ROI can take months or years to achieve, so exploiting the elevated production capacity the second your machine completes integration is key to moving past recouping capital expenditure.
- We have seen single person departments working on the same machine for ten years.
- In that amount of time a product can lose initiative, the demand you failed to stoke becomes stagnant, and another product line might become the better choice for automation at year ten.
Scope Bloat
A single source vertically integrated automation integrator has the cross-team discipline to keep projects in scope, on target, and within the means of the budget.
- They have the authority to know the difference between a necessary change and something out of scope.
- In house single person automation engineers have a history of adding scope bloat, accommodating late changes, and adding functions that would better be served in a separate project.
- In house teams are too close to the need/problem.
- They don’t have a signed Scope of Work to guide the engineer on what is and is not in scope.
- The addition of an additional stock keeping unit, tighter singulation, and additional machine orientations has a logarithmic increase on time, cost, and scope, not an additive one.
Expertise Gap
Even an engineer capable of software engineering, electrical engineering, hardware, machine design, and product development top to bottom has focuses, has weaker subjects, and has engineering preferences.
- A single source vertically integrated team ensures that every role in your machine integration benefits from targeted expertise and maximum enthusiasm.
- There is bound to be good enough in your machine integration when there should be best when a one-person in-house team is trying to juggle every functional proficiency.
Scaling Limit
A single source vertically integrated machine integration team knows how to complete your project with plans to scale, automate secondary processing, and graduate to larger machine and robotic integrations.
- With a single person in house automator, even if they sidestep all the other pitfalls and complete a working machine, can they make a larger, more comprehensive machine?
- If there were any hiccups in the single person machine build, won’t a larger machine exacerbate them?
- A team can mobilize more team members, utilize more capital, and direct their efforts. More capital will not give one person an extra set of hands.
Building an In House Team Has its Own Dangers
If we have convinced you why you need a full team, know that there are significant challenges with trying to build an in-house team from the ground up.
Budget- You are talking about a team of at least five to build one machine. Double that if you want to maintain institutional memory. You must maintain salaries and benefits for the entire team. You still must budget for parts and labor.
Logistics- Founding an in-house automation team is like founding a second company inside of your company. You dedicate resources to this second company that will not be going towards sales, production, and management of your customers. Most companies that have their own in-house automation team are of a sustained corporate size that requires constant automation projects. You must decide whether it is worth it to direct significant resources away from your primary sales to a permanent internal company that does not directly generate revenue.
Professional Delivery, Experienced Team
At DEVELOP LLC our experienced team of manufacturing experts, automation engineers, and project managers integrate custom automated machines with a single source guarantee. Our vertically integrated staff cross collaborate on projects for quality, swift ROI, and technology that supports your growth long term. Tell us more about your project, schedule a virtual meeting, or call (262)-622-6104 to learn more about how our team can find your manufacturing solutions.
About the Authors:
Matt Moseman leads as President of DEVELOP, with a strong foundation from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, where he earned both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in New Product Management. Moseman’s career highlights include his pivotal role in founding NodeUDesign, innovating in automation hardware, and driving DEVELOP LLC to the forefront of industrial robotics with a focus on enhancing productivity and efficiency.
Sean McKittrick, as Project Program Coordinator at DEVELOP LLC, brings a multifaceted background from Knox College. McKittrick’s first year at DEVELOP LLC has been marked by significant team growth and zero turnover, showcasing his ability to build a collaborative and effective work environment. His experience spans quality management in healthcare software to managing production for a million pounds of material monthly, highlighting his diverse expertise in project coordination and manufacturing excellence.