Cost per bent part calculator
Most shops quote bending from a number somebody guessed years ago. This builds it from the parts that
Machine cost per hour is straight-line depreciation over your entered life and utilisation — it excludes interest, tax, floor space and consumables. Scrap is applied to both material and the labour and machine time the scrapped parts consumed. Use it to compare options and batch sizes, not as a quotation. The ROI calculator uses this per-part figure to work out payback.
What this usually reveals
Setup dominates short runs. On a batch of ten, twenty-five minutes of setup spread over ten parts is two and a half minutes of setup per part — more than the bending takes. That is why the same part costs three times more per piece in a batch of ten than in a batch of two hundred, and why hydraulic tool clamping and stored programs pay for themselves in high-mix shops long before any automation does.
Cycle time is mostly handling. The ram stroke is seconds. Loading, positioning against the gauge, turning the part and putting it down is the rest. Automation and better gauging attack the handling, not the bend — which is why a robot bending cell is not simply a faster press brake.
Scrap is understated everywhere. Setup scrap is real and it lands hardest on short batches: two proving parts out of ten is twenty percent. Angle measurement and a stored first-part correction are the cheapest scrap reduction available, because they remove the proving parts.
Using it to make a decision
Run your three highest-volume part families through it. If setup is the dominant line, spend money on tool clamping, offline programming and a better control. If cycle is dominant, look at gauging axes and handling. If material is dominant, the machine is not your problem — your nesting and blanking are.
Then run the same numbers against the quoted price from your job shop. If you are close, the capability and lead-time argument decides it; if you are far apart, the numbers do. Seewhat press brakes cost andworked part examples.
Send us the part and this cost breakdown
If your per-part cost is dominated by setup, a different machine or clamping system is the answer. If it is dominated by cycle time, automation is. We will tell you which one your numbers point to.