This work is about the question of Make or Buy in a company's development and production department. This issue is becoming increasingly important with the increasing speed of technical development.

We examined this topic in the automation and drives section for Kardex, which develops controls for its own products. Our aim was to investigate current possibilities and to make a recommendation for a future procedure.

The Make or Buy analysis is an instrument which serves as a base for a strategic decision. This work concerns a long term decision or a future, strategic adjustment of the enterprise.

Today many decisions are required at short notice. The costs are always at the centre of attention. In this work we have also pointed out various important decision making criteria which are often neglected. For example loss of internal know how may occur following a Buy decision or price transparency may be missing after a Make decision.

In order to develop our recommendation we first made an analysis of the current situation, regarding the company, its products and historical background. In a further phase variants for a future generation of controls were examined and the appropriate controls suppliers on the market were compared. Finally a recommendation was written and some suggestions were made for a future procedure.