How to help customers justify machinery modernization expenditures

Making manufacturing equipment is a momentous undertaking. It requires research, design, building, testing and deployment. Oh, yes, and sales. Without a buyer, machinery is just another engineering marvel. And someone has to pay for those materials.

Factories and plants need to justify capital expenditure (CapEx) requests, whether it’s populating the floor of a greenfield facility or modernizing a brownfield site.

The business case for modernization

To secure buy-in for new machinery, the conversation must shift from the cost of upgrade to the cost of inaction. Deferring improvements creates technical debt, which can lead to catastrophic failures, similar to Southwest Airlines' 2022 debacle. For a plant manager, the argument is that sticking with legacy systems is not a safe savings strategy; it is an active risk regarding cybersecurity, obsolescence and supportability. Instead of reacting to broken equipment, propose a proactive roadmap where modernization is treated as a continuous program, not a one-off project, ensuring the facility stays ahead of costly downtime.

Modernized equipment is the primary answer to manufacturing stagnation and workforce shortages. With productivity leveling off and skilled labor becoming harder to find, upgrading machinery allows the plant to transition from simple rules-based automation to observation-based autonomy, which this article from Automation Fair, hosted by Rockwell Automation, defines as moving from legacy thinking to leadership thinking.

This shrinks the decision-making loop—observe, orient, decide, act (OODA)—allowing systems to self-optimize. Furthermore, modernized systems attract newer talent who expect current tools, while simultaneously simplifying operations for existing staff through better interfaces and vendor-agnostic connectivity that integrates disparate plant technologies.

Read the full article on how to justify modernization expenditures.