The fall tradeshow season is just a few months away. That often means looking at some available technologies that can help you grow your business. For commercial glass fabricators, this includes new equipment with the potential to impact your plant operations.

Investing in high-tech machinery is not a minor consideration. Making such an investment should come with a clear vision for what it can do for your operations. In my experience with commercial glass professionals throughout the world, these are some questions that may help you clarify that vision:

Do I Want to Increase Volume?

High-speed, automated fabrication lines originally promised significant production increases, and they are still one of the most important potential benefits today.

Investing in automation for this reason will likely depend on market conditions, your business strategy and other factors. The industry has been softer this year, but you may still be able to capitalize on a growth opportunity. Looking to scale your business? Serve a more diverse set of customers? Automated equipment can help meet those goals—and many others as well.

Do I Want to Increase Quality Consistency?

Commercial glass fabricators stake their reputation on quality. A good reputation depends on consistent expectations from unit to unit, regardless of production volume.

Automated equipment can also help by eliminating touchpoints throughout the glass fabrication process. Whether it’s spacer application or some other point of production for a completed insulating glass unit, a properly calibrated and well-maintained machine can reduce human error and variability across your entire production run. Unevenly applied sealants, incomplete corner closure and other common manual errors can be removed, helping you achieve more reliable quality consistency.

Do I Want to Enhance Product Performance?

Automated equipment has the potential to enable you to take advantage of other components and technology that can enhance the performance of your products. For example, high-speed lines are uniquely compatible with warm-edge spacers, an optimal alternative to thermally conductive metallic systems standard in commercial applications. Warm-edge products can effectively improve the thermal performance of commercial glass in even the most demanding architectural applications and have demonstrated long-term, proven performance worldwide.

Do I Need to Compensate for Labor Challenges?

Anyone reading this knows the labor troubles faced in commercial glass manufacturing. This is another reason why many businesses have turned to automated solutions—a high-speed production line can do the work of numerous technicians with just one or two operating machines.

All of that is well-established knowledge. I believe it is important to consider how automation can augment the workforce and empower workers to perform their jobs more effectively. We will see this play out further as artificial intelligence (AI) software continues to make inroads on manufacturing floors because automation, AI or other technological developments have never been solutions in and of themselves. They require people to implement and deploy them in ways that make the most sense for your business.

Ultimately, any investment in new manufacturing technology should be accompanied by a thorough evaluation of what you need and expect to get out of it. There is no time like the present to consider the impacts such an investment can have on your business.

Joe Erb is Quanex’s solutions sales manager.