Learn How Manufacturers Can Find New Revenue Sources With Pay-Per-Use Equipment

If your company manufactures machinery, parts, and other B2B products, you’re probably looking for ways to diversify your revenue stream and increase your value proposition. Pay-per-use and equipment-as-a-service (EaaS) solutions offer a new and compelling way for industrial manufacturers to accomplish these goals.

Keep reading to learn more about the ways intelligent factory solutions can improve both your company’s and your customers’ profitability.

It’s Time to Think Beyond Traditional Sales Contracts

Historically, when a factory or company bought a piece of equipment, they simply paid the price and received the machinery. The customer then became responsible for the machine’s maintenance and upkeep.

Today, factories are looking for creative ways to reduce costs and increase uptime. For these forward-thinking manufacturers, equipment as a service (EaaS) and smart factory solutions serve as attractive options.

With these options, your customers will forgo buying machinery and tools outright and instead enter into rental or lease agreements that include maintenance services. The customer typically will pay a fee each time they use the machine. This type of model is already common in the industries that make office machines, medical equipment, and aeronautics machines and tools.

Predictive Maintenance Is Essential to Modern Pay-Per-Use Models

Most pay-per-use models rely on predictive maintenance for their success. In the past, equipment manufacturers often struggled to control maintenance costs, and customers became dissatisfied due to inefficiency and excessive downtime.

Even the most skilled technician can’t identify or anticipate every breakdown before it happens. But unscheduled repairs almost always result in downtime, delayed orders, and waste. So, in our increasingly competitive manufacturing environment, it’s vital for companies to identify ways they can improve and streamline their maintenance systems. According to a recent joint report by VansonBourne and the GE-owned company ServiceMax, unplanned downtime cost the average company $2 million over the past three years, and 72% of surveyed organizations said reducing downtime is a high priority.

Fortunately, advances in industrial IoT (IIoT) can help you identify a machine’s needs, predict failures, and schedule maintenance to stop those failures before they happen. Preventive maintenance solutions combine sensors, wireless antennae and receivers, and cloud-based software systems that track a machine’s performance and function. These advanced systems can monitor temperature, vibration, lubrication, noise levels, and other metrics in real time. When there’s an issue, key stakeholders receive a notification and can respond quickly.

How Can Predictive Maintenance and Other Smart Factory Solutions Create New Revenue Streams?

For equipment manufacturers, predictive maintenance and smart factory solutions offer additional benefits. When you incorporate these technologies into your products, you introduce additional value and new aftermarket revenue streams.

When you offer your customers solutions for EaaS, smart factory, and predictive maintenance, they enter into new service contracts that can enable:

Per-use cost models that ensure ongoing income and reduce the customer’s up-front investment
Automated subscription and billing services that streamline your collection and renewal processes
Financing options that broaden your market and make your machinery affordable to new populations
Ongoing relationships that foster brand loyalty

When combined, these offerings increase your profitability as well as your customers’ satisfaction and loyalty.

Stratus Innovations Group: Building Innovative Smart Factory Solutions for Manufacturers

Stratus Innovations Group has helped many industrial machinery manufacturers build and implement smart factory systems. If you’re ready to broaden your market share and revenue streams with pay-per-use machinery, we’d love to educate you about EaaS and predictive maintenance solutions. To contact us, complete our convenient online contact form or call us at 844-561-6721.

References

VansonBourne and ServiceMax. (2017). After the fall: The costs, causes, & consequences of unplanned downtime. Retrieved from https://lp.servicemax.com/rs/020-PCR-876/images/After%20The%20Fall%20whitepaper%20-%20updated%20global%20numbers%20FINAL%20refresh.pdf

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged equipment as a service, predictive maintenance, revenue streams, smart factory, Stratus Innovations Group