On the first Monday of January, our quality manager appeared in my office doorway and set a spreadsheet on my desk. “We need a FARO laser tracker,” she said. “And we need it before February 5.”
I’m the office administrator for a contract manufacturer that does precision assembly work for aerospace and medical clients. In practical terms, that means I manage a purchasing budget of roughly $400,000 a year and deal with about 25 vendors. I report to operations when things go smoothly and to finance when they don’t. This story involves both.
The background: we had just signed a contract to inspect and certify aluminum frames about four meters long. Our stationary CMM is a fine machine for smaller parts, but nobody was moving a part that large onto its granite table. We needed a portable FARO laser tracker—meaning a measurement system that could go to the part on the shop floor and still hold the tolerance the customer required.
The catch was the audit. The customer’s quality team was scheduled to visit on February 5, and if our inspection process was not set up and verifiable by then, the contract was gone.
A Used FARO Laser Tracker at 23 Percent Off
I sent requests for quotation to FARO directly and to two used-equipment dealers. FARO’s quote was what I expected: full price, standard lead time, no drama. The first dealer to respond was in Texas. They had a used FARO laser tracker, 23 percent below list price, available immediately. The salesperson said it had been “calibrated in October” and was ready to ship.
The spreadsheet loved that quote. Twenty-three percent off a capital purchase is real money, and the tracker was the same model our metrology manager had specified. The delivery time worked too. My gut, however, was not on board (note to self: when data and instinct disagree, find out what instinct is trying to say before signing anything).
I called the dealer and asked a simple question: did the calibration certificate come from an ISO/IEC 17025 accredited lab, and was the calibration traceable to NIST? There was a pause on the other end of the line—only four or five seconds, but long enough to tell me the answer was probably no. “I need to check with our technician,” the salesman said.
I told him I would wait. And while I waited, I thought about the fluorescence microscope.
The Fluorescence Microscope That Taught Me About Discounts
In 2024, our bio lab asked for a fluorescence microscope. The authorized distributor’s quote was high, so I shopped around and found a dealer offering the same model for 30 percent less. The microscope arrived quickly and worked wonderfully for two weeks.
Then a software update failed, and the microscope refused to run. The manufacturer’s support line asked who we bought it from. When I gave the dealer’s name, the tone changed. They told us to contact the dealer for service. The dealer, it turned out, had no service technician on staff. We eventually paid an independent specialist $1,800 to sort it out, and we lost about sixteen working days in the bio lab.
To be fair, the dealer wasn’t trying to defraud us. But we were not an authorized customer, the paperwork was incomplete, and nobody was obligated to help us quickly. That is the real definition of a discount: it only exists if you never need support. Total cost of ownership (i.e., the cost of buying, installing, supporting, and verifying a piece of equipment) is rarely what you pay at the invoice stage.
The Official FARO Route
I emailed FARO with the audit date and a brief description of the application. A sales engineer replied the next business morning. She said they could deliver on January 27 and have a technician on-site for training if we signed by January 15. The shipment would include a current factory calibration certificate, and the system’s serial number would be registered for service support from day one.
That answer was not the cheapest one on my desk. It was, however, the most certain—and the deadline was fixed.
Finance asked why we were paying list price for a FARO laser tracker when the used option was still available. I explained it this way: if we missed February 5, the cost would not be a percentage of the equipment price. It would be the entire contract. The difference between the two quotes was, in that context, a fee for certainty.
I signed.
The Small Purchases That Reinforced the Lesson
While the FARO order was in process, the lab sent over smaller requests. One was a new pipette stand. I bought what looked like a decent budget model from a supplier we don’t usually use. It arrived quickly, but it wobbled every time someone set a pipette down. We replaced it before anyone dropped a $600 pipette. Small thing, same principle.
The same week, one of the bench technicians asked me how to calibrate Extech pH meter after the manual disappeared from the lab bench. I walked them through a standard two-point calibration with fresh buffer solution. For a handheld pH meter, that’s a simple five-minute job. A FARO laser tracker is not that kind of tool. Its calibration has to be performed by trained technicians and documented in a way that will hold up under scrutiny.
While waiting, I also ordered a spare set of reflective targets. The FARO store on their website made that part almost too easy: the part numbers were clear, the stock status was visible, and the package arrived in two days.
January 27 and Everything After
The FARO laser tracker arrived on the date FARO promised, in a flight case so solid it looked like it could survive being thrown from the delivery truck (possibly it could; we didn’t test that). The calibration certificate was in the case, with a serial number that matched the system.
The FARO technician showed up on the 28th, set up the system, and spent a day and a half training our metrology team. By February 3, they had verified the FARO laser tracker on a calibrated reference length and written the procedure the auditor would review.
On February 5, the customer’s auditor examined the calibration documentation and watched the metrology manager measure one of the large frames. The results were clean. The contract stayed with us.
There is something satisfying about watching an audit go smoothly. The best part, though, was seeing our quality manager finally take a breath when the auditor signed off.
A Few Rules I Now Buy By
A few things I’ll carry into the next capital purchase:
- Ask for calibration and service documentation before you ask for the best price. If the seller cannot explain who verified the system and how, the discount is not yet real.
- When a deadline is fixed, buy the delivery plan you can rely on. Paying more for certainty is cheaper than explaining to your customer why you missed their audit.
- Support is part of the product. It matters for a fluorescence microscope and a pipette stand; it matters a lot more for a FARO laser tracker.
Would the used FARO laser tracker have worked out? Perhaps. But “perhaps” is not a procurement strategy. In my experience, paying for certainty is rarely a waste of money.
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