The larger the piece of equipment, the more volume it can handle. The trade-off here is that larger equipment also uses more energy, which means higher operating expenses. That’s fine if you’re using that capacity to generate revenue, but one of the biggest traps smaller operations fall into is buying too much capacity or not enough capacity.

Let’s use an ice machine as an example. A large air cooled ice machine with a 1,000 pound ice bin will use a significant amount of energy every day, translating into hundreds of dollars of electricity and water expenses every month. That’s perfectly fine if you’re coming close to emptying that bin every day to keep your bar stocked and your kitchen well supplied with ice. But if you’re barely putting a dent in the supply available in the bin, even during your busiest periods, then you’ve got a two-fold problem: first, you’re paying to make ice you don’t use, and second, you’re adding labor costs to your budget because now you’ve got to clean all that unused ice out of the bin regularly to prevent the buildup of bacteria and other pathogens.

On the other hand, if your ice machine is too small, you risk shortening its lifespan because the unit never gets a break as it tries to keep pace with demand, not to mention the inconvenience to your staff and your customers that comes with an ice shortage.

In general, you want to size new equipment capacity based upon your best estimate of growth over the course of the unit’s life. A good ice machine should last about 10 years. Hopefully in 10 years your business has expanded and needs more ice. That means you need to buy more ice capacity initially to accommodate future growth.

Of course, that means more energy expenses at first as you ramp up to full capacity, but down the road, one ice machine is more efficient than two.

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