Waste and ROI calculator
Disclosures
What the calculator counts, what it leaves out, and where its typical numbers come from. The calculator shows the result; this page shows how it gets there.
An estimate, not a quote
The calculator gives an estimate from the numbers you enter. It is not an offer, a quote or a promise of results. Your price is set by the scope of your shop once we have walked your floor, and what your shop recovers depends on how it runs.
The calculator shows no customer results. When we have results a shop has agreed to share, we will say so and name the shop.
How waste is counted
- Every waste figure is counted per shop employee, so it grows or shrinks with your shop. Machines are the one exception: a machine waits whatever the headcount, so it is counted per machine.
- Every box starts empty. The typical numbers below show as hints and fill in only when you ask for them. Any number you type replaces them.
- The share of each waste ARCIFAB takes back is set by ARCIFAB from what shops recover once the work runs on their own system. We confirm it on your floor in the first 30 days.
- A shop on paper and spreadsheets has no way of knowing what its waste costs, so the paper figures are the whole waste.
Where the typical numbers come from
Every question is worded in the trades you pick. A shop with more than one trade gives each trade its own crew, and each trade’s waste and price run on that crew. Each question asks what a fab manager knows: counts and shop totals for a week, or minutes a day for each fitter and welder. Where it asks for a count or a shop total, the typical figure is sized to your headcount. Weeks are counted at 50 a year and 40 hours each. Each card shows what it adds to your yearly total, so the cards and the year agree. To keep the estimate conservative, every yearly figure counts a quarter of your weeks added up: no floor runs its worst week every week of the year. The cards show your week in full. Larger shops spread the load, so past your first 25 employees, each block of 25 counts 20% less than the one before: in the typical counts and shop totals, and in the minutes off the tools. Numbers you type are counted as you give them.
| Card | Typical number | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Labor cost, fully loaded | $110 an hour | ARCIFAB’s figure for a fully loaded shop hour: wages, benefits, payroll taxes, and the shop’s overhead, equipment and supervision behind every hour on the floor. Wages and benefits alone run about $51 an hour (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, construction industry, December 2025: $35.47 in wages and $15.45 in benefits). Source |
| Chasing information | 20 minutes per employee a day | ARCIFAB’s estimate, set low because many shops have dedicated pickers. Across construction, FMI found team members spend about 5.5 hours a week looking for project data and information (Construction Disconnected, 2018), so a shop without pickers may run well above it. |
| Hunting material | 20 minutes per employee a day | ARCIFAB’s estimate for time spent locating stock, fittings and drops that are on no list, set low because many shops have dedicated pickers. Counted apart from chasing drawings and status. No published benchmark exists. |
| Superseded revs | 1 spool a week for every 5 shop employees, 5 hours each, $150 of pipe and fittings scrapped each | ARCIFAB’s figure, held on the low side; the research below points higher. Construction Industry Institute: direct rework averages about 5% of construction cost. FMI (2018): about 3.9 hours a week go to mistakes and rework, and about half of rework comes from poor information and miscommunication. Source |
| Drops and remnants scrapped | $1,500 of pipe and fittings a week for every shop employee (about $75,000 a year), 5% scrapped | US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors (NAICS 238220): receipts, employees and the share spent on materials. Published scrap ranges for metal fabrication run about 2% to 5%, and steel drop runs 3% to 12% by shape. |
| Field fit-up issues | 1 field issue a week for every 10 shop employees, 10 field hours each | ARCIFAB’s figure, held on the low side; the research below points to about three times that. FMI, 2024 Labor Productivity Study: about 16% of craft hours are spent in prefabrication, so each shop employee feeds about five in the field. Construction Industry Institute: field rework runs over 3% of field hours. About half of rework comes from poor information (FMI, 2018). Source |
| Printed spool sheets and travelers | $36 a week for every shop employee (about $1,800 a year) | $150 a month per person, the top of what office supplies run (OfficeStoreApp industry benchmark, 2026; published ranges run about $25 to $95 a person a month, falling as a company grows), with travelers, drawings and cut sheets printed for every job. |
| Re-spooling drawings | 2 people, 5 hours a week each | ARCIFAB’s estimate, counted per person who does it rather than per employee: re-spooling sits with a few detailers or office staff whatever the headcount, at your labor rate. No published benchmark exists. |
| Turnover packages | 1 office hour a week for every shop employee in pipe, process and skids; half an hour for plumbing and structural steel; a quarter hour for duct and electrical | ARCIFAB’s estimate, by trade: weld logs, heat numbers, NDE and hydro packs follow every spool in pipe, process and skid work, while duct and electrical turn over mostly submittals and closeout. No published benchmark exists. |
| Machines idle on a cut list | 4 hours per machine a week, at about $150 a waiting hour with its operator | ARCIFAB's estimate. Counted per machine, since a machine waits whatever the headcount. The calculator does not ask for your machine hour: few shops know it, and finding the real figure is one of the first things ARCIFAB measures on your floor. |
| Output lost, by trade | Pipe 80 diameter inches a day per welder, 100 on a good day; plumbing 40 joints a day, 50 on a good day; sheet metal 40 pounds an hour, 50 on a good day; electrical 85% of labor units hit, 100% on a good day; structural steel 4 tons a week per fitter-welder, 5 on a good day | ARCIFAB’s estimate, asked in each trade’s own measure. The gap between a normal day and a good one is counted for that trade’s crew, after the minutes off the tools already given, so nothing counts twice. |
| Weld repairs after NDE (pipe) | 1 repair a week for every 10 on the pipe crew, 4 hours each, $150 to re-shoot | ARCIFAB’s estimate. Shop weld repair rates commonly run 1 to 2% of welds. |
| Leaks at test (plumbing) | 1 leak a week for every 15 on the plumbing crew, 3 hours each | ARCIFAB’s estimate. No published benchmark exists. |
| Fittings laid out by hand (sheet metal) | 2 fittings a week for every sheet metal worker, 30 minutes each | ARCIFAB’s estimate. No published benchmark exists. |
| Kits short at the job (electrical) | 1 kit a week for every 10 on the electrical crew, 3 field hours each | ARCIFAB’s estimate. No published benchmark exists. |
| Weld repairs after inspection (structural steel) | 1 repair a week for every 15 on the structural crew, 3 hours each, $100 to re-test | ARCIFAB’s estimate: welds rejected by QC or the special inspector, air-arced out, re-welded and re-tested, with UT on CJP welds. No published benchmark exists. |
How the three ways are compared
- Renting, an in-house IT team and owning go after the same waste, from the same start. What differs is how much each takes back, who is on it and what it costs.
- If you already rent or run your own system, each way is credited only with what it adds to what you have.
- Start dates show in words and are never counted in the money.
- Renting starts at a typical first year for a shop your size, lower than owning at the start and including a one-time fee for training and implementation, then renews every year with an obligatory price increase, added seats prorated, as rented construction software is commonly contracted. Rented fab systems rarely run more than one of mechanical, electrical and structural steel, so a shop not yet renting is counted as renting one system for each of the three it picks, each with its own seats, setup fee and training. If you rent today and type what you pay, your own figure is used. While a rented system is set up, your floor changes how it delivers to fit software that is hard coded: training, double entry and paper beside the screen. For a shop not yet renting, the calculator counts 1 hour a week per shop employee at your labor rate for the first 9 months, with nothing recovered. ARCIFAB walks your floor and learns how you deliver, and is working at day 90. In the first year, while your floor learns the system, what ARCIFAB takes back is counted at half. Until each way is live, your waste keeps running and is counted on its line: 3 months for ARCIFAB, 9 months for a rental, 24 months for an in-house team. Whether you rent today or are weighing it, the waste eliminated and the return shown for renting are less than what ARCIFAB takes back, year by year and over the term. Its seats climb with every renewal. If what you pay a seat is well under what a full fab system costs, your current software likely sits close to paper and spreadsheets: at that rate it rarely captures the data a shop needs to take waste back. No system’s price is shown and no maker is named.
- An in-house IT team is live on your floor at month 24 and recovers nothing before then: two years of personnel with no production. It is two developers, plus one IT staff member for every 35 people in your shop (at least one), with benefits, payroll taxes and recruiting.
- A shop with its own in-house system is assumed to run it as it should. The calculator claims nothing over it and shows where ARCIFAB can help instead.
- ARCIFAB is priced by scope, never per license or seat. Each trade is made on its own crew, and each trade past the first costs less than the one before; each machine you have or plan to add is added scope. Every deal covers 24 months of development and hosting, billed at signing. After that, a yearly rate for maintenance and development that changes only with data capacity.
Software, waste and where you land
- Owning, not renting. A system you own usually costs more than renting at the start and earns it back in the lost time and material it recovers. It stays with your shop; how you book and depreciate it is between you and your accountant. ARCIFAB’s price is never lowered to fit a comparison, and no price or price difference is shown: your proposal comes from a walk of your floor.
- Waste eliminated is counted on its own, for each way, from the same start, and shown in round numbers. For a shop that already rents, only the waste its current software could be missing is counted.
- Ahead, counting the waste is the year from which the software difference and the extra waste eliminated, together, come out in your favor, looked for over ten years. The value is in the waste, so a shop is ahead while the software still costs more.
- Back for every $1 is what owning brings back over the term (the lost time and material recovered, plus any subscription or payroll you retire), divided by what ARCIFAB costs. $1.80 means every dollar put in comes back with 80 cents more.
- Every week you wait is the waste ARCIFAB would take back, per employee, for each week it is not on your floor.
- Term is 3 to 7 years. The calculator opens on the first year you are ahead, counting the waste; pick any other. The shop floor range is your slowest and busiest months: a rental is counted for the busiest, since it bills every seat all year, used or not; ARCIFAB is sized to your slow months, or to your shop employees when the floor swings more than normal, with no license for every seat in your busiest months.
Financing
A shop pays in full at signing, half at signing and half on delivery, or through financing. Invoices are due net 14 days, and development starts once the first payment or the financing is in place.
Financing is offered by Complete Capital Services, not by ARCIFAB, and is subject to credit approval. Rates, terms, down payments and the first payment date, no payments until 2027 under the current offer, are set by Complete Capital Services.