Here's my deal......I want to open a new company and/or division of an existing one in the DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) area. I cant go into specifics in a public forum. I have the money and/or I can get it and I have 45 years of experience and a CPA (that happens to love me) to run the company finances plus I have met a ton of good knowledgeable people in my field that I can trust to get this going even if I start real small. What I don't have is business savvy and I do not know where to start however I want to start now. If you are interested in expanding your venture/personally owned business or if you want to join with me in creating a new one please respond privately to me. I can be reached here through LinkedIn or through my personal email address of [email protected] Hey, don't knock it, frogs need love too!!! :-D
I recommend to start with a good and complete business plan. No shortcuts, specially when researching the competition. There are lots of cal shops in DFW and you'll have to differentiate to survive. Find a niche industry that is not being served well and build your brand.
in my opinion. you have to do some sort of onsite service to be able to compete. trying to set up a normal cal lab and trying to compete with other well established cal labs will be both difficult and expensive. Onsite services is what customers really want and it saves you the cost of having to pay for a lease or buying a building. If you already have a truck and trailer you are well on your way.
then trying to get in the door of a business to service them will be a challenge. I would not invest anything until i at least have at least enough customers to cover your running cost. What i mean is you need to probably get a feel if you can even get a customer first. Poke around and see what you can get and talk with them about your business idea.
hopefully there are many customers around that do not need accredited services. i would avoid that expense if you can. accreditation is a money sink.
it really depends on what you are targeting to service. PD, Electrical, RF and so on. I would also avoid RF as that is not easy to do correctly onsite and is the most expensive investment not to mention the price you charge for time those cals take is very poor. PD is cheap but so are the cal's. Electrical is in the middle but it would be worth while to be able to automate these cals. More automation tools like met/cal the better. Hopefully you have that skill set to make that cheaper.
you will also want to build a quality manual. hopefully you can do this on your own as paying for that can be expensive. You could model it just like the NIST handbook and that should be good enough.
well this could easily go on for 15+ pages. back when i got my MBA i wrote a paper on starting my own calibration business.
Before you put your own money into this it is advisable that you find someone you trust with 10 or 20 years of experience as a professional Metrology technician/supervisor in both a Military and civilian environment to use as a consultant.
What you need in the way of facilities, equipment, quality standards and personnel will depend on exactly what you are attempting to accomplish. This will determine the expense of establishing your lab.
Getting the business is an entirely different matter.
Some great thoughts already. So I may cover some of the same territory. I am military trained with about 37 years experience. I have thought a number of times over the years about starting my own lab, and some of th e concerns expressed in thoughts above (which I don't disagree with) have convinced me that I don't really want to deal with that headache.
ON-SITES: An industry trend report came out a couple of years ago that said essentially that on-site calibrations are a growing sector in coming years. Definitely, doing on-site calibrations is an important component.
ISO17025: Regardless of what anyone thinks of it, ISO17025 accreditation is pretty much a must. Many customers will only do business with ISO17025 accredited labs.
DIVERSITY OF DISCIPLINES: You will need the right diversity of metrology disciplines, which leads to the next thought...
MARKET STUDY: You need to spend some time looking at your market. Calibration, for most disciplines, is a local market (unless you start a mobile van business - I believe there is a franchise company out there helping people start mobile cal vans). Some specialty items are ship out type calibrations (if you have some niche discipline where there are few labs in the country, and most people have to send them out, there can be opportunities there).
BUSINESS PLAN: Once you figure out what disciplines have good market potential in the market you are considering, you'll need to develop a detailed list of everything needed, cost, and calculate ROI. This includes setting up proper environmental controls for a lab area (maybe two labs: Electronic, and Physical/Dimensional).
DEALING WITH THE LOW END LABS: This is a tough one, and a challenge to all quality conscious labs. There are some labs out there that charge ridiculously low for their "calibrations" (which in some cases are not proper calibration - just lick em stick em places). It is difficult communicating to customers constructively that some of those places that charge so little are not actually calibrating. But that's a topic for another day.
Just a few thoughts.
This is a topic I'm most interested in because I have often thought the same thing about starting a cal company. The difference is that there is only one or two companies in the area that service the major cities around here. I know because I've looked often and worked for the major one. The problem I face is having the initial capital to get it going. I am working on a business degree in entrepreneurship but I want to do more. I had thought of doing some sort of calibration consultation service but realized that would not make anything. I'd like to see how this goes as far as a discussion in case I strike it rich with my retirement lottery fund :-D
With the caviat that to effectively start a one person start up lab, you must be a well rounded, seasoned metrology professional. Preferrably have a variety of calibration experiences, and expert skills in whatever disiplines you intend to make a part of the start up lab. This would include uncertainty calculations, quality systems, etc.
Do some market research for your area. What kinds of industries are there, and what would their calibration needs be? Tough questions, but if you're considering starting a lab, I think, pretty critical.
Using that market information, find a good starting point. You wouldn't be able to be full service at first. but if you could set up something to start with (DMM's, calipers, oscilloscopes, etc.), then offer on-site calibrations at a competitive price with good quality...
You would need to get an ISO17025 Accreditation - really before start up. You'll also need a database and some minimal computer infrastructure (do backups, etc.). If I had the desire to start up a lab, I believe I would know all of the little details, as I've run a number of labs for many years. That is one of the tough challenges - knowing how to resolve the tremendous number of details.
A lot of the details can be scalable. That is, for example, if you're good at programming, setting up an MS Access database (for example), or buying a single user license for one of the calibration focused databases.
Finding the right standards used on ebay, Dovebid, or other used websites can be a big saver.
Just a few rambling thoughts.
I posted this in Feb 2015 and it looks like the company is still in business. Probably the best 'turn key' calibration operation that I have seen advertised. I would recommend that you consider them among your options and I agree with the recommendations about ensuring that you know what the market can bear in your local area.
"A friend of mine at Workplace Training, Paul Hanssen told me about a company that may provide a business francise solution that many of you are looking for.
The company is called Z-Cal:
http://z-calfranchise.com/#section_aboutus
Here are some exerpts from their web site:
Z-CAL is a veteran-friendly, mobile and customizable calibration franchise opportunity. Available in almost every state, this innovative calibration franchise provides franchisees with the opportunity to offer same-day service to many possible industries including manufacturing, pharmaceutical and defense. Most importantly, Z-CAL is the first franchise of its kind in the nation.
What makes Z-CAL unique and quite possibly one of the best new franchises is the mobile office. Pictured on the right, the Z-CAL van is a fully-equipped, temperature controlled and rent-free office. This mobile office prepares franchisees for any calibration need that a customer may have. The availability of on-site services place Z-CAL ahead of the industry's curve.
Lastly, the military is one of the largest calibration and inspection trainers. With thousands of qualified veterans in need of employment, Z-CAL can be the next step toward securing financial independence. To help veterans, Z-CAL is offering to waive the franchise fee for the first five most qualified veterans. In order to qualify, a veteran must have a minimum of five years of military calibration experience as well as five years at a commercial laboratory. Thereafter, we offer a 10 percent discount to all veterans. We want passionate, hard-working go-getters on our team."
The metrology industry fails all of the five entrance to market tests for new startups. In other words unless you are entering the market with some new or unique offering the chances of successfully entering the market are very poor. If you combine that with the fact that Metrology will be entering a shrinking cycle (especially third party) over the next 10 to 15 years mostly due to OEM proprietary software and hardware limiting third party providers ability to fully service newer TME.
If I were committed to starting up a calibration company, I would enter in a market that has little competition where I can develop into an industry expert. There are several areas that currently offer this opportunity such as noncontact inspection or high velocity gas flow. Of course each of these markets have a substantial entrance cost and a rather large learning curve if you haven't already been exposed to them. Hence why not a lot of people are in those markets, although noncontact inspection services are starting to take off.
Just my two cents.