What a buyer looks at when they inspect your machine

We have walked a lot of plant floors. This is what we are doing while we are there, written plainly, because a seller who knows what a buyer looks at can prepare for it in an afternoon and be paid for the difference.

Before we arrive

We have already read the list. We know what the machine is, roughly what it is worth to the buyers we know, and what it will cost to get out if the building cooperates. We arrive with 3 questions we could not answer from the document: does it run, is it complete, and how does it leave the building.

The nameplate first

Always. It tells us the maker, the model with its suffix, the serial and usually the year, and it settles disagreements that a spreadsheet cannot. On older equipment the nameplate is the only reliable record of the build, and a missing one takes real value off the machine because the next owner cannot order a part against it.

Whether it is under power

If the machine can be run, we want to see it run, with product if that is possible and without if it is not. We watch it start, we listen to it under load, and we watch the operator’s face while it works. A machine that runs in front of us is priced as a running machine. A machine that cannot be demonstrated is priced with the risk that it does not.

This is the single largest swing available to a seller, and it costs nothing but the decision to leave the cables connected.

Completeness

We count the tooling. Dies, change parts, formats, rolls, screens, fixtures, and the second set of anything. We look for the control cabinet’s contents, the drives, the manuals, the wiring diagrams and whether anybody has the program backup and the license key. A complete machine is a machine. A machine missing its tooling is a machine plus a problem, and we have to price the problem.

Signs of how it was treated

Guards present or removed. Grease where grease should be. Wear on the working surfaces. Repairs done properly or done in a hurry. A patch of fresh paint in one area, which usually means something under it. Whether the maintenance records exist at all, and whether they were written by somebody who cared.

None of this is about age. Well-kept older iron beats a neglected newer machine, and both of us know it within about 5 minutes.

The controls, separately from the mechanics

Mechanics can be rebuilt. Obsolete electronics with no support and no spares are a different question, because the cost of a retrofit can exceed what the machine is worth. We look at the drives, the PLC generation, the operator interface and the safety system, and we ask whether a plant would accept it today.

How it gets out

We measure doors and aisles, look for the route, and ask how it came in. We look at floor loading, headroom, sprinkler heads and anything overhead on the path. We look at the yard: crane standing, ground bearing, and room for a lowboy trailer. Removal cost comes off the top of what we can pay, so this part of the walk is not incidental, it is the price.

What makes us walk away

A machine built around one product for one plant with no second-hand market. A frame that has been damaged and straightened. Missing controls on a machine whose controls are no longer made. Water damage inside cabinets. And, more often than any of those, a seller who will not say what is wrong with it. Every machine has something. The ones that are hidden are found later, and by then the deal has to be reopened, which nobody enjoys.

What makes us raise our number

Complete tooling, in labeled crates, next to the machine. A machine we can watch run. Manuals, drawings and program backups in a box. Clean drained fluids. A nameplate we can read. An honest list with the faults written down. Ground floor access and a door that opens. A seller who knows their dates and will hold to them.

That list is not a wish. It is a description of a machine that is easy to resell, and easy to resell is the whole of what a buyer is paying for.

If you want that walk done on your floor before you commit to anything, ask. We will tell you what it involves and what, if anything, it costs, before anybody travels.