Production Yield & Waste Tracker Spreadsheet
This spreadsheet splits production waste into the five places it happens and prices each one by how far through the process the material was when it went.
One yield percentage is four different problems and one fact of life, added together and then averaged. Half of what you lose was never going to be saved and the other half was, and a single number cannot tell you which half you are looking at.
What is in it
- Runs — 400 rows, six numbers a run, five of them losses.
- By Loss Type — each of your five named losses, in material and in money.
- By Machine — where the avoidable half is actually sitting.
- By Product — and by how long the run was.
- Overview — the whole year on one screen.
- Start Here and Setup: three numbers, plus the five places you lose material, named by you.
Who it is for
Anything where material goes in and product comes out — print, bakery, textiles, injection moulding, fabrication, joinery, food, cosmetics, packaging, laser cutting. You do not have to measure in sheets: put the cost of one kilo, metre, litre, blank, board foot or dose into Setup and every figure works the same way. Cutting, moulding, baking, coating, assembly, filling and curing all lose material in a handful of named places, and those places are yours to name.
The worked example
The worked year has 380 runs, 2,851,100 sheets in and 2,519,241 good out — a yield of 88.4% against the 93.0% expected. The 331,859 sheets lost cost $163,372, and 150,080 of them, worth $79,117, could have been saved.
The split is what changes the conversation. Off-cut by design is 54.8% of everything lost — $84,255 — and not one sheet of it was ever going to be a product, while failed inspection is only 6.6% of the sheets but 9.5% of the money, because a sheet lost at final inspection costs $0.710 against $0.434 at set-up. Between the machines, if the worst matched the best there would be 23,609 more good sheets a year.
How it works
Compatible with Microsoft Excel 2016 or newer on Windows or Mac, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ons, no account to create, nothing to install.
The download has two workbooks: one with the example above already filled in, so you can see what every column expects, and the same file completely blank for your own figures. A plain-English guide comes as a PDF. Order on WhatsApp — $9
Orders are taken on WhatsApp: message me and I’ll send the payment details, then the files as soon as the payment is confirmed.
A look inside the file
Questions people actually ask
How do I work out what my production waste actually costs?
You tell the file how far through the process the material was when it was lost, and it prices each loss at the value the material had reached by that point instead of at raw material cost. In the worked year 331,859 sheets were lost out of 2,851,100 — 88.4% yield against a 93.0% target — costing $163,372, and the dearest place to lose a sheet was $0.710 against $0.434 at the cheapest. That is why failed inspection is 6.6% of the sheets but 9.5% of the money: everybody attacks the biggest pile of sheets, and it is almost never the biggest pile of money.
Is this only for print, and what if we do not measure in sheets?
No — it works for anything where material goes in and product comes out: bakery, textiles, injection moulding, fabrication, joinery, food, cosmetics, packaging, laser cutting. Measure in whatever you buy — kilos, metres, litres, blanks, board feet, doses — put the cost of one in Setup and every figure works the same way. The five places you lose material are yours to name: two numbers and one word per place is the whole model.
We do not split our waste up — where do I get that data?
Almost nobody splits it, and that is exactly why the answer is a surprise: split it for one month into five buckets, because the operators already know which is which. You will get the stage percentages wrong at first and it still works, since even a rough split moves the ranking — a reject at the end is always dearer than one at the start. The Runs tab takes 400 rows of six numbers a run, five of them losses.
Does it work in Google Sheets or do I need Excel?
Both — it is built as .xlsx for Excel 2016 or newer on Windows or Mac, and it loads into Google Sheets through File then Import then Upload. LibreOffice opens it too. No macros, no add-ons, no account to create, nothing to install and no subscription: you download the file and it is yours.
Will it reduce my waste?
No — it will tell you which half of it is worth arguing about, where that half is sitting and what each kind actually costs. In the worked year 150,080 of the lost sheets were savable, worth $79,117 or 48.4% of the money lost, while off-cut by design was 54.8% of everything lost and was never going to be a product. It is not a works order, MRP or scheduling system, not a stock or purchasing package and not a quality management tool, and it is connected to nothing — no syncing, no logins, and I never ask for access to your production system.
Need it built around your business?
This file assumes one material going into a run and good units coming out, lost in five places you name yourself. If yours works differently — a process that consumes three or four materials at once and each has its own price, rework that goes back through the line instead of being scrapped, or by-product you can sell rather than skip — I can build the same stage-weighted costing around your process.
All other templates are listed on the Excel & Google Sheets Templates page.