Free tool
What is downtime costing you?
Put a real figure on unplanned stops — lost contribution, idle labour and the cost of catching up — then see what pulling it back is worth over a year.
Nothing you type is sent anywhere — every figure is worked out in your browser.
How the cost is worked out
Downtime costs you in three separate places, and most factories only ever count the first one. This adds all three.
Lost contribution is the output you did not make. It uses contribution per unit, not
selling price, because the material you did not consume is not a loss.
hours × units per hour × contribution
Idle labour is the people who were paid to stand next to a stopped machine.
hours × operators × loaded hourly cost
Recovery is what you spend catching up — overtime, a weekend shift, a pallet on a next-day courier. It is entered as a rate per lost hour because that is how it tends to scale in practice.
Two deliberate omissions. There is no allowance for fixed overhead absorbed over fewer units, because that shuffles cost between jobs rather than leaving the business. And there is nothing for the customer you lose after the third late delivery, which is usually the largest number on this page and the one nobody can put a figure on.
The annual figure assumes the week you described is typical. If you are costing a bad month, say so when you take it to the board.
Where to go next
Most factories can quote their downtime hours and not their downtime cost. These close that gap.
Capability
Real-time production tracking
Know a job has stopped while there is still a shift left to recover it, rather than at the morning meeting.
Capability
Production control software
One view of what is running, what is waiting and what has stalled across the floor.
Case study
CPL hit 99.9% on-time delivery
Five disconnected systems replaced with one, 75% less admin and a 12% lift in production efficiency.
Stop finding out about downtime the next morning
Book a 30 minute call and we will show you where your stops are actually coming from, using your own production data.


