Is Leasing an Option for Automating Your Distribution Center?
Written By: Ken Tinnell
Thursday, March 1st, 2012
Recently, I had a discussion with a friend who works with one of our integration partners, and during our discussion we came up on the topic of leasing as an option for capital equipment. For anyone who doesn’t know, capital equipment is typically a larger, higher priced item with a lifespan of more than one year. It is an asset and an investment for the company purchasing, or in this case, leasing it.
After doing a little research, I found out that leasing capital equipment is actually a very common practice for all sorts of companies, large and small. This makes sense because there are many benefits to doing so…
With the pace of business continually accelerating, it is nice to see the selection of new engineering design tools rising to the occasion. Although there is no substitute for sound engineering fundamentals, these tools can help engage an engineer’s creativity by speeding up the iterative design process.
There are three key elements that differentiate a systems integrator from an original equipment manufacturer: product life cycle, successful integration of products, and choice of system products. Taking a look at these can help you make an educated decision when researching both options.
I often joke with my wife about what it would look like if I took my two passions in life–designing and building warehouse automation systems and cooking–and combined them into one enterprise, an automation café. All the food would be delivered automatically, and the wait staff would be in the form of some fun type of 
Imagine a warehouse in which rows of full pallets could be stacked up to 165 feet in the air, one on top of another, on top of another. Then, with the ease and grace of a high quality machine, one of those pallets–weighing as much as 6,600 lbs–is gently lifted from its storage space and quickly brought to a worker at ground level.
