SHOULD I BUY A WATER ACTIVITY INSTRUMENT OR USE AN EXTERNAL CONTRACT LABORATORY?
This practical decision calculator helps you estimate whether investing in an in-house water activity instrument is financially worthwhile compared with routine testing at an external contract laboratory.
By entering a few key assumptions, such as instrument price, expected sample volume, external laboratory cost per sample, internal working time, and annual service costs, you can quickly calculate the expected break-even point, payback time, and total savings.
Note: Beyond cost savings, an in-house water activity instrument can support faster release decisions, shorter feedback loops in production, better process control, easier trend monitoring, and less dependency on external laboratory turnaround times.
Payback time i
Discounted saving over useful life i
Annual saving i
Supporting indicators
External contract lab cost/year i
In-house cost/year i
Break-even samples/month i
Nominal saving i
Decision table by sample volume
| Samples/month | External contract lab cost/year | In-house cost/year | Saving/year | Decision |
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