I Was Wrong About Faro Laser Trackers: Efficiency Changes the TCO Equation

You're Probably Underestimating What Faro's Efficiency Is Worth — I Know I Did

Procurement manager at a 240-person aerospace parts supplier. I've managed our metrology equipment budget ($180,000+ cumulatively) for 6 years, negotiated with over a dozen vendors, and documented every single order in our cost tracking system.

If you'd asked me in 2022 about Faro laser trackers, I'd have said "too expensive." I'd have pointed at our spreadsheet showing a competitor's system at 30% less upfront and called it a day. I would have been wrong.

The vendor failure in March 2023 changed how I think about portable CMM arms and their total cost of ownership. One critical deadline missed — a $12,000 redo on a turbine blade inspection — and suddenly the efficiency gains from a Faro system didn't seem like a luxury. They seemed like the only rational way to budget.

Let me walk you through the data from our last 3 fiscal years. It's not what I expected, and it might change how you evaluate your next metrology investment.

The Efficiency Trap: Why You Can't Just Compare Price Tags

In Q2 2024, when we finally switched to a Faro Vantage laser tracker, I ran a full TCO comparison against our previous setup (a stationary CMM and a cheaper portable arm from another vendor). The numbers surprised me.

Argument 1: Setup Time Is a Direct Cost, Not an Inconvenience

Our old portable arm required 45 minutes of setup per use — warming up, calibrating, aligning with the part coordinate system. The Faro? About 12 minutes.

Over 150 inspection sessions per year, that's 82.5 hours of technician time saved. At our blended labor rate of $85/hour (including burden), that's $7,012 annually in recovered capacity. That's not a soft saving — we tracked it. Our technicians logged more billable inspections and fewer "setup" hours after the switch.

If I remember correctly, the cheaper competitor quoted us $42,000 vs. the Faro at $58,000. But I hadn't factored in that setup time. The $16,000 price difference evaporated in about 2.3 years of that labor savings alone. (That's assuming no other efficiency gains—which, spoiler, there were plenty.)

Argument 2: Precision Reduces Redo Costs (and Redo Costs Hurt)

The 'cheap' option resulted in a $1,200 redo when quality failed on a critical measurement in early 2023. That was the trigger event. The part was a complex aerospace bracket, and the cheaper arm's accuracy drifted over a long inspection sequence. We didn't catch it until final QA.

Since switching to the Faro laser tracker, our redo rate on complex parts dropped from about 4% to under 0.5%. For a department that processes $400,000 in inspected parts annually, that's a saving of roughly $14,000 per year in scrapped material and rework labor.

Accuracy isn't just a spec sheet number. It's a budget line item.

Argument 3: The 'Free' Support Wasn't Free

That 'free support' offer from the competitor actually cost us $450 more in hidden fees when we needed on-site calibration. The Faro package included two years of priority support and calibration — and when our main unit needed a firmware update (circa late 2024), it was handled in 48 hours with no additional charge.

Put another way: the cheaper option's lower upfront price was built on assumptions that didn't hold in real production. Their support team was responsive, but every call was a separate invoice. Same with software updates. Same with training for new technicians.

The Faro quote, while initially higher, had fewer asterisks. I should have known better after 6 years of tracking invoices.

The Counterargument I Almost Fell For — And Why It's Mostly Wrong

I can already hear the pushback: "But our shop is different. We only do simple parts. We don't need that level of precision or speed."

Fair point — at least, that's been my experience with smaller shops that do mostly standard geometries. If you're inspecting flat panels or simple shafts, the cheaper arm might work fine (though I should note we tried that and still had calibration drift issues).

But here's the thing: even for "simple" parts, the setup time savings still apply. And the Faro's advantage isn't just raw precision — it's the integrated workflow. The software auto-generates reports. The tracking system reduces operator error. The portability means you can bring it to the part instead of the part to the CMM.

I want to say our average inspection cycle time dropped by 60%, but don't quote me on that exact number — I'd need to pull the raw data to confirm. What I can say is that we consistently hit faster turnarounds without sacrificing quality.

That said, there's one scenario where I'd still recommend a budget option: if you need a dedicated tool for one specific, simple measurement and your volume is under 10 inspections per month. In that case, the TCO advantage of the Faro takes too long to materialize, especially if you factor in the equipment depreciation.

But as a general-purpose metrology solution? The Faro, at its higher upfront cost, was the cheaper choice over 3 years. By my spreadsheet, the total savings (labor + redo + avoided support fees) came to about $25,000 over 2.5 years — a 44% return on the price premium.

If you ask me, that's not a cost. That's an investment that pays for itself.

One Thing I'd Do Differently (and What It Means for You)

In hindsight, I should have run the TCO calculator before the 2023 incident. I had the data — historical setup times, rework rates, support invoices — but I was fixated on the upfront price. That's a common trap, and I fell for it.

Now, our procurement policy requires a minimum of 3 vendor quotes, but we also require a 3-year TCO projection that factors in:

• Estimated annual usage hours (setup + active inspection)
• Labor recovery rates
• Historical redo/scrap rates by part complexity
• Support contract terms (what's included vs. separate billing)

I built that calculator after getting burned on hidden fees twice in 2022. It's not fancy — just a Google Sheet with conditional formatting — but it's saved us an estimated $8,400 annually by catching where the "cheaper" options actually cost more.

My Bottom Line (and Why I'm Sticking with It)

Faro's laser trackers and portable CMM arms are expensive. They are also, in most production environments, cheaper than the alternatives when you account for total cost of ownership. The efficiency gains aren't just about speed — they're about reducing variability, cutting redo costs, and freeing up technician time for higher-value work.

Look, I'm not saying they're right for everyone. If your metrology needs are minimal and you never run complex inspections, you might get by with a budget option. But if you're running 50+ inspections per month on parts with tight tolerances, do the TCO math. You might find what I found: the expensive option was actually the cheaper one all along.

I learned that lesson the hard way — through a $12,000 redo, a near-miss on a customer deadline, and six years of spreadsheets that eventually told an uncomfortable truth. Efficiency isn't a nice-to-have. It's a line item that either saves or costs you money every single month.