Why AMC matters after you buy
Spares, response SLA and what to put in writing.
The purchase price of a packing machine is the smaller half of its total cost of ownership. Seal jaws, forming collars, load cells, and pneumatic components wear on a schedule set by runtime hours and product chemistry (oily namkeen wears differently than dry spice powder), and an Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) is how you turn unpredictable breakdowns into a budgeted line item.
Before signing an AMC, get the response SLA in writing: how many hours to a phone/WhatsApp response, how many hours or days to an on-site visit for your city, and whether spares are billed separately or included. "Best effort" support with no numbers attached is not an SLA — it is a marketing phrase.
Ask for the spare parts list with expected replacement intervals (in running hours, not calendar months, since a two-shift factory wears parts faster than a one-shift factory) and confirm lead time for the parts most likely to fail on your specific product — sealing elements for oily products, augers for abrasive powders, load cells for high-cycle weighers.
Put drawings, PLC/HMI passwords, and pneumatic diagrams into your possession at handover, in writing, regardless of whether you sign an AMC. A supplier who withholds these to force future service calls is a red flag worth negotiating around before final payment, not after.