Tuesday, June 18, 2019

How Pilot Plants Save Money

By Susan Hayes


Many individuals and small businesses have struggled to move their ideas from singular creation to mass production. The time, financial investment, and energy are often overwhelming. Building pilot plants can relive all of these problems. Being smaller, they take less money to build and reduced time from start to finish. There are many benefits in using this option when you want to go from small-scale to large-scale production.

Moving from creating one at a time to many is a huge step for some. The ability to take an item that needs a lot of testing or a product that needs to be made faster and on a larger scale is not an easy task. As the inventor or discoverer, finding that middle ground is harder than it seems. Having a smaller facility that has what you need to do things are a larger scale than before helps move things forward quickly.

Testing the product part needs to be done. When it takes a significant amount of time to create one at a time, the testing will be slowed and interrupted. Having the ability to create many and test them all at the same time can move things forward quickly. There is a point that you need to know that the product works under various conditions. Testing one scenario at a time would take too long.

Production systems need to be perfected before going full-scale. Having a pilot phase allows you to create a system that will eventually grow to a larger facility. To jump to the larger production line immediately is not only expensive but prone to very expensive mistakes. Re-tooling a large production system is often as expensive as starting over. Having a smaller version allows you to test the system for efficiency and mistakes before they become too costly.

Costs are reduced by creating a smaller plant. A lot of investment is required for full-size factories. The land, buildings, time, employees, and equipment cost can be enough to cause companies, investors, and banks from taking the risk. With a middle ground, the cost is greatly reduced and the investment is able to be turned around quickly to get the product to market faster. Once this happens, as the company and sales grow, the facilities can too.

Modular plants have more flexibility. If you need to have the plant but there are no adequate buildings, think modular. They can also be located pretty much anywhere you want. If your facility needs to be near a natural resource that is remote, this type of setup will work well. It can be built on site and moved later if there is a need. Permanent facilities are great for those that don't need the convenience of a movable or remote station.

Smaller systems take less time to build. Usually, when a small business wants to ramp up production, they spend a lot of money getting the new lines setup. If the new facility takes a long time to get ready, the money continually flows out instead of in. Saving time by getting the system's set up quickly allows the business to start making money much faster. This then allows the products to get to market faster.

Providing a middle ground for small companies to grow is essential to move forward. The smaller plants provide the advantages of a large production facility without all the costs associated with it. Time is saved and things can get moving much faster.




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