Reasons To Choose Refurbished Industrial Equipment Over New

matt8848
Dec 19, 2025
4 min read

Every facility manager knows the pressure of balancing a tight budget against the demand for higher throughput. You are constantly asked to do more with less, optimize production lines, and keep downtime to an absolute minimum. When a critical piece of machinery goes down or a new line needs to be commissioned, your first instinct might be to call the OEM for a brand-new unit. While shiny new hardware has its appeal, it is rarely the most strategic move for your bottom line or your production schedule.

Refurbished industrial equipment offers a compelling alternative that many in the manufacturing sector overlook. We aren’t talking about dusty, broken-down gear from a scrapyard. Professional refurbishment involves stripping a machine down, replacing worn components, updating controls, and testing it to meet—or exceed—original factory specifications. This approach allows you to acquire premium assets like robotic arms, conveyors, palletizers, and CNC machines without the premium price tag. By rethinking your procurement strategy, you position your facility for greater flexibility and financial health.

Let’s dig into six reasons to choose refurbished industrial equipment over new machinery.

1. Immediate Availability vs. Supply Chain Bottlenecks

Global supply chains are unpredictable beasts. Ordering a custom automated solution or a new robotic cell from a major manufacturer usually involves a waiting game that can last months. You might find yourself quoted a lead time of 20, 30, or even 50 weeks for specific components. Production targets simply won’t wait that long.

Conversely, refurbished equipment is generally sitting on a warehouse floor right now, ready for inspection, customization, and shipping. This availability advantage elevates your ability to react to market changes. If you land a sudden large contract, you need capacity immediately. Waiting half a year for a machine means losing that contract to a competitor who can spin up faster. Choosing refurbished gear grants you the agility to say yes to new business, meet unexpected surges in demand, replace broken assets quickly, and maintain continuous operations.

2. Substantial Reduction in Capital Expenditure

Budget allocation is a zero-sum game. Every dollar you overspend on a single asset is a dollar you cannot invest elsewhere in your facility. New industrial machinery commands a massive premium, partly due to R&D recovery costs passed on by the OEM. Refurbished equipment, however, typically costs between 40% and 60% less than its new counterpart. This price difference is capital you can redirect toward other critical areas.

Think about what that extra cash could do for your operation. You could invest in better end-of-arm tooling, upgraded safety guarding, advanced HMI software, or specialized staff training. Stretching your CAPEX budget allows you to build a more complete, robust system rather than blowing the entire pot on the base unit. Furthermore, a lower initial purchase price improves your ROI metrics almost immediately.

3. Avoiding the “Bathtub Curve” of Early Failure

Reliability engineers frequently discuss the “bathtub curve” regarding equipment failure rates. New equipment suffers from high “infant mortality” rates—failures that happen right out of the box due to manufacturing defects, loose connections, or software bugs. Once a machine survives this initial period, it enters a long phase of stable, reliable operation before eventually wearing out.

Refurbished equipment has already survived the infant mortality phase. It is a known quantity. The previous owners worked out the kinks, and the refurbishment process replaced the wear parts. Consequently, you get a machine that sits squarely in the stable phase of its lifecycle. You avoid the headaches of debugging a "generation one" product or dealing with warranty claims in the first month of production. You are buying a workhorse that has proven it can handle the job.

4. Seamless Integration With Legacy Infrastructure

Most manufacturing plants are a patchwork of technologies from different decades. Your floor might run on older PLCs or specific communication protocols that modern, cutting-edge machines no longer support natively. For instance, integrating a brand-new robot with an Ethernet-based controller into a Profibus-based line is a nightmare. It requires expensive gateways, complex programming, and potential downtime to get everything talking.

Refurbished equipment is easier to match to the technological generation of your existing infrastructure. You can find a robot or conveyor system that speaks the same language as your current setup. This compatibility simplifies installation, reduces the need for complex translation hardware, minimizes programming hours, and lowers the risk of communication errors.

5. Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility

By choosing refurbished, you actively prevent heavy machinery from ending up in a landfill. You reduce the carbon footprint associated with building a new machine from scratch. This decision supports your company’s applicable environmental goals. Additionally, you can market your production process as being more sustainable, potentially attracting eco-conscious clients, partners, investors, and employees. It is a tangible way to demonstrate commitment to the planet without sacrificing operational efficiency.

6. Ease of Maintenance and Spare Parts Availability

Newer is not always better when it comes to maintenance. Cutting-edge machines often use proprietary, specialized components that are expensive and hard to source. Conversely, older, popular models have a massive ecosystem of spare parts available from third-party vendors, surplus houses, and eBay.

Furthermore, your maintenance technicians are likely already familiar with these older platforms. You do not need to send your maintenance team to expensive training seminars to learn a new proprietary system. They already know how to swap the servo motor on that FANUC R-2000iB because they have done it a dozen times. This familiarity creates a more self-sufficient maintenance culture. Troubleshooting happens faster, parts are sourced locally or from existing stock, repairs are completed internally, and downtime is kept to an absolute minimum.

Smart Automation for the Modern Factory

By now, the reasons to choose refurbished industrial equipment over new should be clear. By opting for refurbished assets, you gain speed, flexibility, and reliability while freeing up capital to invest in the things that truly differentiate your business. It is a strategy that prioritizes function and ROI over flashiness. Refurbished won’t always be the answer, but it’s an advantageous alternative for many circumstances.

At Jaeckels Industrial, we specialize in making this strategy a reality for businesses across America. We handle the entire lifecycle of automated systems, from the initial design process to final installation. Whether you need a simple conveyor setup or a complex system featuring our high-quality refurbished palletizing robots, we are ready to integrate technology you might have thought was out of reach.