1
\$\begingroup\$

Trying to clarify the problem.

Imagine a factory that produce soccer balls; if you produce 1 ball, it will take a certain amount of game cycles. For sake of simplicity, let's say it could take between 5 and 15 cycles (depending from various conditions, like number of workers, quality of workers and so on). Once you make a certain amount of soccer balls, the process is considered done.

Now, I want to display a value in percentage for costs, and a value of defective balls made. with "cost", I am trying to display how much did I spent (materials, workers wage and so on), at the moment. The number in currency is self esplicative, but I believe a percentage value could help to know if you are using too many workers, or burning too many resources, resulting in a waste of money.

To calculate the percentage of defective is relatively simple, since every X amount of time, when I refresh, I can check the balls produced against the defective ones, and the result should be

Total produced * 100 / defective = percentage of defective.

But for the costs, things are different; so I was planning to use the number of cycles to calculate percentage for costs:

cycles * 100 / current costs = percentage of costs

Would this be considered correct? Since the number of cycles for a whole batch of balls may vary slightly, this may represent that when there are less cycles, it means that you spent less money, henche the percentage will be smaller.

Improve this question
\$\endgroup\$
2
  • \$\begingroup\$ If the number of cycles required changes during the production (you add or remove a worker), and the particular batch has a high ratio of defective unit, you'll have a hard time coming up with a meaningful value for your second formula as the numbers will always be switching and you don't know your final cost objective. \$\endgroup\$
    – Vaillancourt ♦
    Jun 1 '16 at 10:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ I see; so even if I know the min and max of the cycles (can't have less than 1 worker, can't have more than 10), the result would not be a good indicator of how the resources are allocated. I am struggling to get some meaningful data, so the player can make a choice for a change, before finishing a batch. \$\endgroup\$
    – rataplan
    Jun 2 '16 at 3:14
1
\$\begingroup\$

The cost and time for creating the defective products needs to be added to the cost and time of sellable products.

When x% of your products are defective, the cost and time of the sellable ones is multiplied by 100 / (100 - x). Example: 75% of your products are defective, so you need to pay for the production of four products (100 / 25) for each one you can sell. It also will take four times as long to produce n non-defective products.

Improve this answer
\$\endgroup\$
1
  • \$\begingroup\$ That is in fact add to the total. I did separate the economic cost at the moment there is a sale (in your example, 75% failure rate means that the 25% left should have a price that cover the loss of the 75%, at least to get even); with the cost while the batch is in preparation. You won't know that you have 75% of defectives, because you have crappy workers, until you get to the end, while I am trying to give a feedback, so you see a high rate of defectives and can make at glance, the decision to abort the batch to minimize the loss, or add more skilled workers. \$\endgroup\$
    – rataplan
    Jun 2 '16 at 3:17

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.