Ask a factory owner their selling rate and the answer comes instantly. Ask their true cost to make the same tonne — landed material, power, labour, rejections, the lot — and there’s usually a pause. That pause is expensive.
Why the number is so slippery
Cost per tonne isn’t one number; it’s a dozen, scattered across people and registers. Material went in at one rate last week and another today. Power and consumables aren’t pinned to the batch. Rejections and rework are remembered, not recorded. By the time accounts ‘closes the month’, the truth is a blur — and weeks old.
What changes when you can see it live
- You quote with confidence, because you know your floor.
- You spot the grade or shift that’s quietly losing money.
- You stop discounting blind and start protecting margin where it matters.
How to get there
You don’t need more reports. You need one connected flow where the job, the material it consumes, and the money behind it move together — so cost and margin show themselves, batch by batch, without anyone adding it up by hand.
This is the kind of thing we fix. If your business is running blind somewhere, bring us your hardest problem — a working session, not a sales pitch.