Downtime Cost Calculator
See what unplanned breakdowns really cost your plant, in rupees.
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How to calculate the cost of downtime
The real cost of an hour of downtime is more than the lost output. This calculator adds four parts:
Cost per downtime hour = lost contribution per hour + (idle people × labour cost per hour)
Monthly downtime cost = downtime hours × cost per hour + emergency repairs + recovery overtime
Contribution, not revenue, is the right measure of lost output: it's what you actually lose when production stops (sales price minus variable costs). If the line has spare capacity and you can recover the output later, use overtime cost instead.
Worked example
A mid-size plant loses 20 hours a month to breakdowns. Each hour costs ₹50,000 in lost contribution and leaves 12 people idle at ₹250 an hour, so an hour of downtime costs ₹53,000. Emergency repairs add ₹1,50,000 a month and recovery overtime ₹60,000.
| Item | Per month |
|---|---|
| Lost production (20 h × ₹50,000) | ₹10,00,000 |
| Idle labour (20 h × 12 × ₹250) | ₹60,000 |
| Emergency repairs | ₹1,50,000 |
| Recovery overtime | ₹60,000 |
| Total | ₹12,70,000 |
That is ₹1,52,40,000 a year. A 20% reduction in downtime is worth ₹30,48,000 a year.
Hidden costs this calculator leaves out
Missed delivery penalties, lost customers, scrap after a restart, safety incidents and stress on the team are real but hard to price. Treat the result as a floor, not a ceiling.
Where downtime comes from
Most unplanned downtime traces back to a small number of assets and failure modes: worn bearings, seals and belts, missed PMs, and slow repairs while people wait for parts or information. Recording every stop with its cause is the first step to fixing it. PlantOps360 does this with breakdown work orders raised by QR scan, failure codes, and MTTR and failure-trend dashboards.