What should the machine list actually contain?
Every production asset that supports the CIM’s capacity claim, and every spare the seller might later call “plus equipment.” Controls matter as much as frames — Fanuc, Siemens, Heidenhain on mills; resonator hours on lasers; barrel and screw on molders. Serials let a buyer run a lien search. Hours and crash logs belong beside the row, or in the maintenance file.
Leased machines, titled trucks, and landlord-owned cranes get their own column. They do not belong in the seller’s OLV stack. SBA 7(a) still caps at $5 million (Source: SBA). Collateral that is not the borrower’s is how credits stall.
Census CBP 2023: 284,452 manufacturing establishments, 68.4% under 20 employees (Source: Census). Small shops often have a list in someone’s head. Write it down before the teaser. Buyers who arrive from buy a manufacturing business will rebuild it anyway.
This site will not publish asking prices for a named 2014 VF-4SS without a sourced auction or dealer comp. CNC useful life is practice notes, not a price book.
How do buyers read a list by process family?
CNC: control generation, 4/5-axis, probing, pallet, spindle hours. Fab: tonnage, bed, fiber versus CO2, turret tooling. Plastics: tonnage, robots, scientific-molding cells. Electronics: placement speed, SPI/AOI, package generation — lines obsolete faster than mills. Stamping: foundations and pits. CMM and inspection gear need calibration certificates.
M&E appraisals attach a standard: FMV in continued use, OLV, or FLV. The list is evidence. The appraisal is the number. Equipment age and capex is how the list chips cash inside a going-concern cell.
| Category | What moves the read | Diligence attach |
|---|---|---|
| CNC mills / lathes / 5-axis | Control, axes, probing, pallet | Hours, crashes, programs |
| EDM | Hours, filtration, brand | Power-supply condition |
| Brakes / lasers / turrets | Tonnage, bed, resonator, software | Fiber vs CO2 |
| Stamping presses | Tonnage, bed, feed, rebuild | Foundations / pits |
| Injection molders | Tonnage, robot, barrel/screw | Tooling ownership |
| SMT / electronics | Speed, SPI/AOI, packages | Obsolescence clock |
| CMM / inspection | Calibration, software seats | Quality-system evidence |
How does utilization belong next to the list?
Fed G.17 manufacturing utilization was 76.0% in July 2026 (Source: Fed G.17). A shop that claims 95% on one-shift overtime is telling you the second-shift path is people, not iron. Deloitte / Manufacturing Institute: as many as 3.8 million workers needed 2024–2033, 1.9 million potentially unfilled (Source: Deloitte / MI). BLS May 2025 machinist median $58,750 (Source: BLS) is the labor half of a cell that looks busy on paper.
Quoted lead times that assume hero overtime should be footnoted on the list. Spare cells should be marked spare. In-capacity cells should match the CIM’s shippable hours. Mismatch is a diligence finding, not a rounding error.
What sellers should fix before the teaser
Write the list. Clear dead liens. Decide which crates are growth capex versus décor. Pull rebuild invoices. Separate customer-owned tooling. If OLV might beat earnings — common on Main Street files where BizBuySell’s 2.75x SDE median (2021–2025; Source: Iconic recap) meets a decent cell list — commission the appraisal before the CIM. Sellers continue at sell my manufacturing business.
Do not hide the 1987 press. Insurance schedules will find it. Do not call leased iron “owned.” UCC searches will find it.
What buyers should extract in week one
A serial-level export, a lien search, a walk that matches the export, and a note on what is spare. Sub-sectors tells you which process questions to ask. The valuation pillar tells you which earnings cell you are still in. Iron does not move a commodity printer into the medical column.
Jason Taken will use the list in a broker opinion. He will not write OLV. Educational information only. Not an appraisal and not a dealer quote. No value is guaranteed.
How sellers should stage the list before the first teaser
Export the insurance schedule. Walk the floor with a phone and photograph every serial plate. Reconcile the three. Mark anything that is leased, titled, customer-owned, or sitting in a crate. Mark anything that is not in the quoted capacity. That afternoon of work prevents a month of arguments.
If a press is in the corner under a tarp, it is still on the insurance schedule. Put it on the list as spare or as scrap. Buyers who find it later will assume you hid it. If a robot is in a crate, put the PO and the install date in the packet. Automation will ask whether it has ever run.
Send the list to the M&E appraiser if the floor might win. Do not wait for a buyer to demand OLV in exclusivity. Main Street CNC files hit that test often. The valuation pillar will still pick the earnings cell. The list decides whether that cell is even the conversation.
How buyers should walk the floor against the list
Do not tour first. Read the list, the lien search, and the capacity claim. Then walk. Match serials. Ask why a cell is warm if it is marked spare. Ask why a cell is cold if it is in the CIM’s shippable hours. Ask where the programs live. Ask who can crash the 5-axis and who has.
Take notes on foundations, pits, and power drops. Those are real-estate and environmental cousins. They still change whether a press is movable iron or a building feature. How real estate affects value is the dirt page. This page is the serial page.
If the seller will not provide serials, that is the finding. A brochure PDF of hero machines is not a list. Walk away from the brochure or stay until the serials appear.
What “owned versus leased” does to both stacks
Owned iron can sit in OLV and in lender collateral, subject to liens. Leased iron can sit in the going-concern story if the lease assigns, and it can sit in a residual buyout the buyer must fund. Landlord-owned cranes usually assign with the lease or not at all. Customer-owned tooling is not yours to sell. Mixing those four into one “equipment value” is how CIMs lie.
SBA 7(a) still caps at $5 million. A residual buyout that appears in week seven is how DSCR dies. Put the leases in the first data-room folder, not in a side email.
Buyers continue at buy a manufacturing business. The CNC useful life page is the machining cousin. Maintenance records should travel with the list, not after it.
How to reconcile insurance, the floor, and the CIM in one afternoon
Print the insurance schedule. Walk with a phone. Photograph every plate. Build a three-column sheet: on insurance, on floor, in CIM capacity. The holes are the deal. A press under a tarp that is on insurance and not in the CIM is a spare or a scrap decision. A robot in the CIM that is not on the floor is a crate or a lie. A warm cell that is not in capacity is unreported overtime.
Send the reconciled list to counsel for leases and to the appraiser if the floor might win. Do not wait for exclusivity. Small CNC and fab files hit the asset-floor test often enough that waiting is how you lose a month.
Buyers should refuse to tour until the sheet exists. Tours without serials are marketing. Marketing is fine after the sheet. It is expensive before the sheet because every pretty photo becomes an argument.
Owned, leased, landlord-owned, and customer-owned must not share a single equipment-value blob. Residual buyouts appear in week seven if you let them. Put the leases in folder one. SBA 7(a) still caps at 5 million. A late residual is how DSCR dies on a file that otherwise fit.
A three-column reconciliation buyers should demand before they walk
On insurance. On floor. In CIM capacity. Photograph plates. The holes are the deal. Tarp press on insurance but not in the CIM is spare or scrap. Robot in the CIM but not on the floor is crate or lie. Warm cell not in capacity is unreported overtime. Refuse the tour until the sheet exists. Tours without serials are marketing.
Owned, leased, landlord-owned, and customer-owned must not share one blob. Residual buyouts appear late if leases sit in a side email. Put leases in folder one. Send the reconciled list to the appraiser if the floor might win. Small CNC and fab files hit that test often. Waiting until exclusivity is how you lose a month and a price.
A closer read on three columns
On insurance, on floor, in CIM capacity. Photograph plates. The holes are the deal. Refuse the tour until the sheet exists. Owned, leased, landlord-owned, and customer-owned must not share one blob. Residual buyouts appear in week seven if leases sit in a side email. Put leases in folder one. Send the reconciled list to the appraiser if the floor might win. Small CNC and fab files hit that test often. A press under a tarp is still on the insurance schedule. Put it on the list as spare or scrap. A robot in a crate needs a PO and an install date. Buyers who find hidden iron later assume you hid it. That assumption is a chip.
What a tarp and a crate do to trust before anyone walks
A press under a tarp is still on the insurance schedule if it is still owned. Put it on the list as spare or scrap before a buyer finds it and assumes you hid iron. A robot in a crate needs a purchase order and an install date. Residual lease buyouts that sit in a side email appear in week seven as cash chips. Folder one should already have the leases. Refuse the tour until the three-column sheet exists: on insurance, on floor, in CIM capacity.