Something Special

"When you talk about specialization, you talk about risk," observes Little. "When you build something for the first time, you don't know if it's going to work. Lots of engineering and travel back and forth to the customer site is necessary."

It's also very expensive.

The extensive engineering time needed to manage these unique performance risks is the necessary evil that pushes specialty costs skyward. "These costs typically cannot be amortized in future machines, and have to be covered within the project," explains PCMC Marketing Strategist Tom Jacques.