Everyone loves the sound of a better bottom line, but how do you cut costs without sacrificing quality? Cut too many corners and products malfunction, creating a ripple effect of expensive repairs and damage control down the line.
Fortunately, there are ways to save costs in panel building without gambling on the cheapest sticker price.
Take a look at the three top factors in the panel building process that inflate the cost. Most of the dollar signs crop up in development, construction, or expertise.
Accelerate the Planning Phase
The early phases of a panel building project often wallow in prototypes, cycling slowly through development from initial proposal to customer feedback, back to design, around and around until something works. While often dismissed as the cost of doing business, there are ways to expedite the process to reduce an expensive development cycle:
- Look for a panel shop with fast quoting capabilities
- Prioritize responsive customer support to resolve questions and revisions quickly
- Consider building your designs from pre-engineered templates
Streamline Construction
Professionals do not rush through a panel building project with sloppy workmanship or by skipping testing, but they do have a system that moves the process along at a snappy pace. Panel shops with more staff and more resources will simply be able to handle project volume more efficiently while being able to afford close attention to individual panels. Look for these qualities in your panel supplier:
- Suppliers with strong buying power can keep common materials in stock and buy in higher volumes, resulting in a lower cost to you
- Panel shops with in-house testing and quality control won’t waste time coordinating projects with a test site
- Ideally, look for a single source supplier – with construction, testing, and purchasing all handled under one roof, you save on transportation costs and time
Choose High Quality Panel Builders
Expediting project development and streamlining construction neatly trims the fat from your bottom line, but there are some areas that should not be cheapened. Choosing a panel building company that fabricates for the absolute bottom dollar may seem like a shortcut to savings, but panels that fail because of cheap materials or inexperienced builders will backfire with increased maintenance and repair costs. To ensure a high quality product, look for a panel building team that has:
- Years of experience – both senior and entry level builders will know the best practices and the newest techniques or methods
- An Electrical Engineering team and engineering services that understands the science behind a panel as well as the wires
- A fabrication shop that can handle any volume of orders
- A strict documentation process to expedite maintenance and upgrades in the future
- Quality Control standards that ensure your panels are perfect the first time around
Turn Advice into Action
Vetting a supplier with these qualities may take some time investment, but finding the right panel shop makes all the difference in a project's success. PanelShop.com offers free custom quotes within 48 hours, and has the capacity as a single source supplier to handle any size project from the simplest operator station to the biggest and most complex jobs. Contact us for a quote and our knowledgable support staff will be happy to answer any questions you may have, or learn more about PanelShop.com.
