“Nobody here can tell me what a product really cost to make last month.”

Your ERP costs products at a standard set last January, and nobody can break the cost of goods figure open. The plant says it hit standard. Finance says cost of goods is up. Both can be true at once, and nobody can show where the difference is.

What usually goes wrong

The standard was set from last month's actuals, so a bad month quietly becomes the new benchmark
Fixed factory costs are spread over whatever happened to be made, so a slow month makes every product look dearer
The recipe is flattened to one level, so a finished product never shows the energy or labour spent on the stages below it
Batches that are partly reworked, or that make more than one product at once, are costed by rules of thumb nobody has written down
Cost-centre costs are spread onto products, but nobody has checked that every euro actually reached one
Nobody can say which plant makes a product most cheaply, or what a new product will cost before it is made

It suits companies that make what they sell, in their own plants or through contract manufacturers. It handles recipes of any depth, semi-finished stages, rework, co-products and by-products, and stock moved between plants.

How the software answers it

Check the data before costing it. Every record must point to a known product and plant, the month's data must be complete, and stock must add up from opening to closing and agree with your ERP. A month that fails these checks is held back with the reasons listed. If someone decides to go ahead anyway, that decision is kept with its reason.
Cost every product on actuals. The actual cost of every product at every plant each month, from what was really bought, used and made. Each cost stays split into its parts, from materials and packaging to labour, energy, maintenance, depreciation and overhead, all the way up the recipe.
Make sure every euro lands. Labour, energy, maintenance, depreciation and overhead go from each cost centre onto the products that used them. A check after each month shows that every euro reached a product, and the cost of idle capacity is shown on its own line.
Explain the movement. A cost-of-goods bridge between any two points, month on month, year on year, or budget or standard to actual, through volume, mix, input prices, usage and factory cost. From there, a drill through one product's recipe to the input and plant where the change started.

Costing methods differ from one company to the next, and we build to yours: at what point production is valued, how the cost of unused capacity is treated, how co-products share a batch's cost, and which keys spread overhead. The software follows the method your controllers already use.

What we build for it

Examples from software we have already built:

Actual cost per product, plant and month, by cost component, through every level of the recipe
Every unit cost broken into simple lines, quantity times rate, that export to Excel with working formulas
The same product compared across every plant that makes it, with the cheapest marked and each gap explained
Standard costs built from the bottom up, and the variances against them: purchase price, usage and yield, labour and energy, and idle capacity
Factory measures by plant, line and product: output, line hours, and the kilos, crew and energy cost for each line hour
Your manufacturing footprint as a model: move a line, close or open a site, or change where each product is made, and see every scenario priced with its one-off costs and payback, or let the software find the lowest-cost network
New products costed before they exist: build the recipe from priced ingredients and packaging, choose a plant and line, and compare the unit cost with the products it would sit beside

More product cost screens

Screens

Portfolio unit cost screen, on illustrative data — “What does each part of the portfolio cost to make, and which cost component is carrying it?” Illustrative data.

Costed recipe screen, on illustrative data — “Where in the recipe does the cost sit, and which level would a change actually move?” Illustrative data.

Cost-of-goods bridge screen, on illustrative data — “Cost of goods sold moved: how much was volume, how much was mix, how much was purchase prices, and how much was running the factories?” Illustrative data.

single-product cost bridge screen, on illustrative data — “This product costs more than it did — how much of that was labour, energy and overhead?” Illustrative data.

Where factory costs landed screen, on illustrative data — “Did every euro the cost centres spent reach a product, or are we paying for idle capacity?” Illustrative data.

Line utilisation screen, on illustrative data — “How much of the available line time did we use, and how productively?” Illustrative data.

Where to start

It starts with a paid pilot, usually one plant or one product family costed on your own data, then a build at a fixed fee and an annual subscription.

Prices How an engagement runs

Write to us

Tell us your business need and the software you have in mind — we want to hear it.

Or email support@orkestar.eu