Tell us your sector and how you work. We will ask the right questions in the right language, calculate your hidden waste cost, and tell you exactly where to start fixing it.
Always free — no login, no credit card, no jargon
Step 1 of 3 — Your sector
Pick the one that best describes your business. This shapes the questions, benchmarks, and recommendations throughout the tool.
Step 2 of 3 — How you produce
Pick the option that best describes how your operation runs. This changes which waste types we focus on.
Your operation
About your business
Annual turnover
£
Number of employees
people
Average hourly labour cost (inc. NI & pension)
£
/ hr
Materials as % of revenue
% of revenue
Machine running cost
£
/ hr
Estimated annual waste cost
£0
per year
Per month
£0
△
Enter your numbers on the left and your waste cost will appear here in real time.
What this means
Where the cost is coming from
Your top priorities — where to start
Based on your specific numbers and sector
Want to know how to recover this?
The full Mandate OpEx toolkit gives you a step-by-step action plan for each waste driver, with industry benchmarks and tools built for your sector. Join the waitlist — first 200 get 3 months free.
Every figure is converted to an annual pound cost using your revenue, headcount, hourly rate, material cost percentage, and machine rate. Defects and scrap include both the labour and the material in every rejected part. Rework includes labour to fix plus additional material consumed. Downtime calculates idle labour, ongoing machine running cost, and lost production capacity. Changeovers include idle labour and machine time. Waiting and unnecessary tasks use your total workforce cost. Excess inventory applies a 25% annual holding cost — the industry benchmark covering storage, insurance, obsolescence risk, and capital tied up. These are conservative estimates. Most businesses who complete a detailed audit find the true figure is 30 to 50% higher.