???
Amazing O. post.
1.
It will be vastly easier and cheaper and better to buy the equipment in the usa, and ship it, than buy it over there.
2.
Moving to Puerto Rico .. and You don´t seem too cognizant of challenges of operating in latin cultures of limited means/skills/infrastructure ??
There are endless challenges You will face, and many are huge, and totally non-existent in the usa or northern europe.
Suggest You re-calibrate, or hire someone to help who has done that, multiple times, and-or speaks spanish and lives in a spanish/latin country while doing manufacturing, importing, exporting, sourcing, mro.
P.R. or many other temperate countries or asian have lots to recommend them.
EASE of getting to manufacture stuff is not one.
Cheap is not one - to start up.
For someone new to this, in any commercially reasonable quantity, like a small jobshop of 1-2-3 people.
Plan on buying everything-usa, shipping, then add 10k, then add 10% to previous total.
Then add 20k to set-up costs, bare-shop only.
Then add 3-6 months in time, plus 20k, bare-shop only.
If You have endless time, and grit, and fluent spanish, and local contacts/relations free, then you can trade off most of the extra costs for (a lot) more time and lots of frustration.
Typical problems;
- logistics,
- Cannot buy/get inserts/tools/liquids like cutting fluids/lubricants/parts washer stuff/abrasives/tumbling media,anodising, sandblasting/coating/etc.,
- Cannot buy stuff off chinese sellers/amazon/ebay, easy and cheap.
- cannot rent forklifts, transport, major-part rigging, easily or cheaply,
- cannot get quotes, service, or delivery in timely manner and not at reasonable cost, for anything,
- vast nr. of issues will be eye-wateringly expensive.
E.
1.
Getting a good electrical service for a shop, 3 manual machines => 10 kW, + shop + future == 20 kW power, +/-, may cost 30.000 - 50.000$ in permits/stuff, and 3-6 months in time.
Plus the parts, plus the work.
Often, only after the 3-6 months are up and you paid 30k++ for the electrical company/feeds etc.
2.
Getting permits/licenses to do work may cost 1-5-10-20k, over time, even though it is mayhaps legally not necessary.
It is common for a new shop for expats to be held to ransom, via various mechanisms.
3.
You may be audited upto 3 times in one month for workers, taxes, insurance, irs, health and safety.
This is common in many latin countries.
It is also common that no-one else in the area is audited for same - and (real) the goal is for You to hire a "recommended" paperwork-factory to sort-out the issues.
This is often a good and bad idea.
If You hire their "experts", audits often disappear, but You may not have your paperwork anymore, and the costs may escalate, with You not having docs or standing, anymore.
4.
Water, waste, raw material, are all likely to be challenging.
How many suppliers for say steel are available in Your area ?
What are the logistics ?
Payment terms ?
Operating in such an environment can still be very rewarding - and it can even be easy, sometimes.
But that requires a *total willingness* to pay significant %% extras for lots of things, like multiple suppliers for logistics, material, paperwork, materials handling, finishing, shipping etc.
What You are unlikely to succeed at, is having us-style logistics, costs, ancillaries, and operational efficiencies in %/$/unit made, while running your own shop.
That has == 0.001% probability.
BUT having said all above, it is not very expensive to run loss-making logistics at local costs, aka Very Cheap, where everyone-needed likes You, and gets some profit from your operations (often tiny in $ terms, like 20-50-100-200$ / month per provider).
My post is re:commercial shops, that need 30-60k$/month in work to pay a few, 2-3, workers salaries, ancillaries, overhead etc.
A single-person shop of no real initial output, can start very small at low costs, esp. if the products are small of no real logistics/finishing/legal issues.
I did not mean to be negative- at all.
Rather, I tried to point out realities, of a commercial-financial nature, that You will encounter, probability 99.99%+
