Free tool for plant owners
What does an hour of downtime cost your plant?
When the ERP server or the network goes down, the line stops, people stand around, and the work still has to ship. Put your own numbers in and see what an hour, a typical outage and a year of outages really cost.
The calculator follows how our founder, Chad Lowe, looks at downtime on the plant floor. He spent 33 years in manufacturing, 15 of them with Tier 2 and Tier 3 automotive suppliers and 15 in steel processing.
Work out your number
Nothing you type is sent anywhere. The math runs in your browser and nothing is saved. Leave a box empty if it does not apply; empty boxes count as zero.
Downtime cost estimate · prepared
Your estimate
- Cost per hour
- Cost per outage
- Cost per year
Enter your numbers and your estimate appears here.
| Cost | Per outage | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Lost gross margin | — | — |
| Idle labor | — | — |
| Catch-up overtime | — | — |
| Scrap and rework | — | — |
| Customer penalties | — | — |
| Total | — | — |
| Customer revenue at risk (estimate) | — | — |
| Total including revenue at risk | — | — |
Your own numbers, worked out in your browser. An estimate, not a quote or a guarantee.
Readiness Assessment · (800) 619‑5494 · cyopsit.com
Want to bring that number down?
Or call (800) 619‑5494 and talk it through with Chad.
How the number is worked out
- Cost per hour = (revenue per production hour × gross margin %) + (employees who can't work × loaded hourly labor cost). If you enter the gross margin lost per hour directly, that figure replaces revenue × margin.
- Cost per outage = cost per hour × length of the outage in hours + (overtime hours to catch up × overtime rate × people on overtime) + scrap and rework + customer penalties and chargebacks.
- Cost per year = cost per outage × outages per year.
- Customer revenue at risk (optional) = yearly revenue from the customers who would feel the outage × the chance they cut or move business afterwards. It is shown separately, per outage and per year, because it is a judgement rather than a cost you pay on the day.
An estimate from your own numbers, not a quote or a guarantee. It leaves out the cost of the IT recovery itself, and orders you might lose are only counted if you fill in the optional customer-trust section.
Questions
- Is anything I type sent to CYOPS IT?
- No. The calculation runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere or saved, and it is gone when you close the page.
- Why does it use gross margin instead of revenue?
- Some lost revenue comes back when you catch up, and you do not buy the material for parts you never made. Gross margin is closer to what an outage really takes out of the business, so the estimate stays honest.
- What is a loaded hourly labor cost?
- Hourly pay plus what each hour costs you on top: payroll taxes, benefits and insurance. If you do not have the figure, your accountant or payroll provider can give it to you.
- What does the estimate leave out?
- The cost of the IT recovery itself, orders a customer moves to another supplier, and the management time spent on the phone. Treat the result as a floor, not a ceiling.
Want to bring that number down?
The Readiness Assessment shows what is most likely to stop your plant, from the server in the back room to backups nobody has tested, with a fixed quote to fix each item, valid for 30 days.