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Production costs

Machine hour cost, selling price, product mix at the bottleneck, break-even, operator hourly cost, overhead allocation, make or buy and service hourly rate; shortcuts to depreciation, machine scheduling, the cost of machined, molded, sewn and precast parts, recipe costing, cutting plans, material yield, cost of poor quality, downtime cost and freight.

Machine hour rate

Calculate a machine hour rate with depreciation, interest on capital, energy, maintenance, floor space, insurance, overhead and operator, and the cost per good part from cycle time and OEE.

Fixed, variable, per part

Markup pricing New

Build the selling price of a manufactured product from direct cost, fixed expenses, taxes, commission, freight, bad debt and margin, with markup divisor and multiplier, minimum price, maximum discount and a comparison with the market price.

Markup, minimum price, discount

Product mix New

Enter products with price, variable cost and demand, and the time each takes on up to 3 resources, to get the most profitable production mix, the bottleneck resource, the value of 1 more hour at each resource and a comparison with the current mix.

Optimal mix, bottleneck, shadow price

Break-even and product mix

Compute the break-even point of a product mix, contribution margin and profit, and find the most profitable mix when a bottleneck machine limits output.

CM, optimal mix, bottleneck

Operator labor cost New

Work out the fully loaded cost of a production operator: wage, overtime, night shift differential, employer FICA, unemployment and workers’ comp, retirement match and benefits, with cost per paid hour, per productive hour and a day vs. night shift comparison.

Burden, shifts, per hour

Overhead allocation New

Enter cost centers with their allocation bases (machine hours, labor hours, units, floor area) and products with volume, direct cost and price to get each center’s rate, absorption cost, contribution margin, idle capacity cost and a warning for products that look unprofitable but should not be dropped.

Absorption vs. variable, idle cost

Make or buy

Compare making in-house with buying from a supplier on incremental cost, see the volume above which making pays and the NPV, IRR and payback of the investment.

Incremental cost, break-even, NPV

Service labor rate New

Work out what to charge per hour for field service, repair, calibration, machining or installation work: loaded technician cost, tools, vehicle, overhead, billable utilization, sales tax, selling expenses and margin, with a mileage rate, minimum call-out and a sample quote.

Hourly, mileage, quote

Also useful

Machine depreciation New

Work out machine depreciation by straight-line, sum-of-the-years’ digits, declining balance or units of production, compare it with MACRS tax depreciation and get the year-by-year schedule, book value and depreciation cost per machine hour.

Book, MACRS, per hour

Machine scheduling New

Assign jobs to several identical or different machines (speed, availability, allowed machines, family setups) or schedule a job shop with a different routing per job. Compare dispatch rules, see the Gantt chart by machine, each machine’s load and idle time, job waits, and print the dispatch list for each machine.

Parallel, job shop, Gantt

Machined part cost

Build the quote for a machined part: blank weight from shape and material, chip credit, operation list with cycle time, hour rate and setup spread over the batch, tooling, outside services, scrap, overhead and margin worked out on price.

stock, hours, setup, price

Molding cycle and part cost

Estimate cooling time from wall thickness and diffusivity, total cycle, good parts per hour and part cost with resin, press hour rate, scrap, regrind and mold amortization; compare the most economical cavity count for the annual volume.

Cooling, cycle, cost

Recipe cost card

Build a recipe card by pasting ingredients with as-purchased amount, yield factor and pack price; work out yield from the cooking factor, cost per portion and per pound, the menu price with divisor and multiplier markup and the food cost percentage, and print a production sheet without costs.

Yield, portion cost, price

Precast concrete cost

Work out concrete cost per cubic yard from the mix and prices, the volume of typical pieces (pipe, panel, curb, pole), reinforcement, form cost spread over reuses, release agent, curing and labor; see cost and price per piece, per cubic yard and per ton, and form output.

mix, piece, $/yd³

Garment cost per piece

Add fabric, trims, sewing minutes at the cost per minute (or contractor price), cutting, finishing, packaging, losses and overhead to get garment cost, selling price from margin on sales, markup and a cost Pareto.

Cost per minute, markup

Sheet cut list optimizer New

Pick the sheet material (wood, steel, aluminum, glass, plastic) and size, paste the part list (name, length, width, quantity and, optionally, material) and get the number of sheets, a cutting layout for each sheet, yield, offcuts worth keeping, cost and, for wood, edge banding length. Enter the sheets and offcuts you have in stock to use them first, or tick the sizes available, each with its price, and get the cheapest sheet (or mix of sheets) suggested.

Plywood, MDF, steel: sheets and offcuts

Material yield and losses

Enter raw material used, good output and weighed losses (scrap, trimmings, ends, samples) to get yield, unaccounted loss, material cost per good pound, a Pareto of losses by weight and money, scrap revenue and the annual saving at the yield target.

Balance, losses, scrap

Cost of poor quality

Add up scrap, rework, re-inspection, returns, warranty and penalties with the prevention, appraisal and failure model, see cost of poor quality as a share of revenue and the payback of poka-yoke or vision.

Prevention, appraisal, failures, poka-yoke

Downtime cost

Calculate the true cost of an unplanned downtime hour: lost margin, overtime, idle labor, energy, restart, scrap and penalties, and the payback of a preventive and predictive maintenance program.

Lost margin, restart, penalties, predictive

Trucking cost per mile

Build up your truck’s cost: fixed (depreciation, capital, driver, insurance, registration, tracking, overhead) and per-mile variable costs (diesel, DEF, tires with retreads, repairs, washing, tolls). Get cost per mile, per trip, per ton and per ton-mile, the freight rate with margin built in, the comparison with a carrier and the break-even in miles per month.

Cost per mile, trip and rate