Avantages
Other engineering industries and large multinationals buy and run hi tech machines... We build them. We're not restricted with one machine or type at a time. One project makes eye devices, the next makes stents for a different company. Variation is fantastic. Working for multinationals, you're given a machine to maintain and modify, the scope for input is limited whereas here, we are involved from the concept to deliver phases with huge exposure to different technologies.
Inconvénients
To make projects more cost effective, the R&D is done while developing the concepts for a proposed machine instead of having some resources offline to build a knowledge bank up front and can be pressured to expedite results and finalize a design. The companies motto is the customer is always right but in order to make project delivery dates, we need to lock down scope early. Pressure to work with the customer leads to scope creep and takes pressure to deliver updates.