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SCANNING EQUIPMENT - Should you Rent or Buy?

Submitted by Miquela Campos-Trone on Tue, 2009-07-14 08:57

For years, surveyor industry publications have speculated that scanning equipment would change the landscape of your business - but the reality is the few projects you get do not justify the investment. Yet the latest technology helps you best serve your customers and stay competitive. And, survey companies that offer a diversified set of services will be the first to bene

Let’s face it, scanning is a technology that is here to stay. The problem is the investment that a company has to make to offer scanning services versus the amount of work they can expect to secure the first year. I have interviewed several companies that made the initial investment only to find that the scanning hardware has become “shelfware”. So the question is when do I invest in a scanner?

In order to offer scanning services you need a scanner, trained field operator and a trained software technician. The investment on the scanner alone could be anywhere from $75K up to $150K and you still don’t have anyone that knows how to use it or process the data. Are you going to make this investment because you have one scan opportunity? How many opportunities would you need in a year to justify the investment? Two? Four? Eight? When does it make sense?

Still hesitant to jump into scanning? $4.5 Billion was made available to convert Federal building into high-performance green buildings, 750 million was made available to renovate and construct Federal buildings and courthouses, $300 million was made available to renovate and construct land ports of entry. Read more about the GSA project here: http://www.gsa.gov/graphics/admin/GSA_ARRA_ProgramLevel_FederalBuildingsFund_v.2.pdf

If renting makes sense give us a call. We can arrange for you to have access to the scanner and provide field expertise that will work side by side with your personell untill you have the skill set to operate the scanner and process the data into a useful deliverable format without assistance. When your workflow justifies the purchase of equipment we can help you with that as well.