You are the engineering manager for an industrial automation business modernizing a 15-year-old installed base of process control systems at customer sites. The company has identified a recurring need for an edge connectivity and protocol-conversion component that would sit between legacy PLCs, drives, and DCS assets and the new digital layer built around ABB Ability, with an expected demand of 1,200 units over three years across modernization projects. You can either buy a third-party industrial gateway for about $4,800 per unit plus $600 annual support, with a 4-month integration path and limited customization, or build an in-house module that would require about $2.4M in development, 12 months to first release, and $900 per unit in manufacturing cost but could be optimized for ABB control environments and sold as part of future lifecycle upgrades. Customers in brownfield projects are highly sensitive to downtime, and each month of delay is estimated to put $350,000 of services and software pull-through revenue at risk.
How would you decide whether to buy or build this component, and what would you recommend? Explain the strategic, financial, and execution trade-offs that drive your answer.