Copying a complete production line: machines, conveyors, dust collection and the building around it

November 2, 2026  ·  Indumor

Production line: a sequence of machines joined by whatever moves the material between them. The second part is what almost nobody draws, and it is what takes longest when a line gets copied.

A running line is made of two halves. The machines, which have a make, a model and a catalog, and which are generally bought new or used, the same as the originals. And everything in between, which was born to fit that building and that material and has no catalog. When copying, the first half gets ordered; the second half gets surveyed and fabricated in a shop like Indumor. That is the list below.

• Conveyors and elevators, with their structures, walkways and transfer points.
• Hoppers, chutes and intermediate silos, with the angle and the outlet that the material and the next machine demand.
• Dust collection, hoods, ducts, separator, filter and fan, sized as one system for the whole line.
• Structures and access, operating platforms, stairs, equipment supports, bases and frames.
• Panels and cable trays, the main switchboard and the air and water distribution.
• The building, with the bay width, clear height, doors and floor that this particular line needs.

The assembly order gets copied too. First the dimensioned layout, with the position of every machine and every transfer. Then the utilities, because the transformer and the compressor take longer to arrive than anyone expects. With that settled, the items on the list get fabricated while the building goes up, erected section by section, and commissioned machine by machine before they are chained together. The last section starts when the first one has already produced. Never the other way round.

One piece of advice to take from this guide: before asking for a price on the line, survey it with the checklist in cloning a factory, and go through conveyor structures with whoever is building the belts. The money is rarely lost on the machines. It goes missing in what was never drawn between them.

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