When designing production facilities, extensive decisions are made regarding the amount and timing of future payments, in addition to solving technical challenges. Particularly for production facilities, it is crucial that capital is invested in a technical solution that promises an optimal return. This is evaluated, among other things, through investment calculations. In addition to presenting the methods of investment calculation, the author Helmut Hahn has primarily addressed two questions. First, he explores the impact on investment calculations when increasing the degree of automation, which also raises complexity and expenses for a facility while reducing labor input. Secondly, the author discusses to what extent criteria from investment calculations can be derived to determine under which circumstances simpler, lower-cost specialized machines are rated more favorably compared to highly flexible, capital-intensive multipurpose machines. This allows for a quantitative assessment of how certain technical solutions will be reflected in the investment calculations.