Our Company, Your Cost / by Mitch DeHaan

Your company is unique, and so is your space. Specialty material handling projects call for specialty solutions. However, we understand that the cost of special material handling projects influences the project’s return on investment (ROI).

At Tuff Automation we orchestrate and structure our company to provide unique material handling solutions in the most cost effective way possible. This allows us to pass that savings on to our customers! Here are three ways we do so:

Quality Material

When designing, quoting, or building an automated system, we do so while using premium material and parts. From roller bearings, to steel gauge, we strive to use dependable long-lasting components to ensure the quality our customers are expecting.

By providing high quality material and parts, Tuff Automation has built relationships with many well-respected brands in the industry. This allows us to obtain the parts needed for custom material handling systems at a low cost.

In doing so, we provide equipment that includes longer warranties and a spare parts inventory that help companies save money in the years to come. Not only are companies saving money on repairs or replacing equipment, but also from decreasing the likelihood of downtime in their high-volume production facilities.

In-house Run-offs

One of the primary responsibilities we take pride in when providing an automated system, is minimizing production downtime. It’s commonly understood that changing or adding to a system will create a pause in production. At Tuff, we do everything we can to minimize that time so our customers can get running as soon as possible.

One of the ways we do that is by doing an in-house run-off on every system, robot, or piece of equipment that is built. This not only allows us to work out any “bugs” in the controls software, but also gives our customers the opportunity to provide any additional input before installation takes place.

These run-offs cut down on production downtime considerably and help eliminate any “hiccups” in the installation progress.

It’s All Here

A general way we are able to cut cost on our projects is by cutting downtime spent on each project. We are able to do this a couple of ways:

  1. All departments that are required to provide custom automated systems is all under one roof. Tuff takes care of everything from the initial design to the mechanical, electrical, and controls installation. This allows our projects to transition from phase to phase seamlessly, enabling us to complete projects significantly quicker in comparison to working with outside vendors, partners, or contractors.

  2. Since Tuff can provide every aspect of a project, we have structured our design and installation team to consist of the same individuals. This means that the men and women who build the system are also the individuals installing the system on site. Just like the in-house run-offs, this improves the process of producing automated systems, which saves our customers time and money. Plus, this ensures that we have experienced experts providing hands-on completion to our customer’s projects.

All in all, we do whatever we can to provide custom automated solutions to our customers at the lowest cost possible. Needless to say, we make sure we have our ducks in a row and our process running as seamlessly as possible, so we can help our customers accomplish the same.