Panel yield: the number that moves the most money in the least time
Panel cost does not track part area — it tracks how many sheets you open. How to measure real yield from records you already have, and why the theoretical figure from the optimizer is the wrong one to cost with.
Panel cost is usually the largest line on a furniture costing, and it has a property that surprises people: **it does not scale with the area of your parts. It scales with how many sheets you open.**
A part that is slightly too big to fit two-up on a sheet costs the same as a part twice its size. That is why a millimeter of design change can be worth more than a month of shop floor improvement — and why this is the first number to measure.
Measure real yield, not the optimizer's
Sheets issued to the job, divided by finished products made from them. Both numbers are already in your records — one on the stores issue, one on the production count.
Do not cost with the optimizer's theoretical yield. It does not know about the sheet with a damaged corner, the parts recut after a machining error, the offcut that was technically usable and got thrown out anyway, or the trim taken off a bowed board. Those are real sheets and they were paid for.
What the offcut is worth
Usually zero, and zero is a legitimate answer you should enter rather than leave blank. Some shops sell offcuts or burn them for heat — if so, use the price actually received.
The double subtraction warning applies here as it does in every trade with a byproduct: charge sheets consumed, then credit whatever the offcut earns. Charging only part area **and** crediting offcut value subtracts the same waste twice.
Where yield actually improves
- Cut several models on one sheet instead of one job per sheet. Almost always the largest single gain, and it costs nothing but scheduling.
- Adjust part dimensions where the design allows. A shelf a few millimeters narrower may drop a whole sheet from every batch — this is the change with the highest ratio of money to effort in the entire trade.
- Manage offcuts deliberately: label, store and let the cut plan use them. Offcuts thrown away were bought at full sheet price.
- Match sheet size to product size when ordering. Some products fit a different standard size far better, and nobody checks because the shop has always bought one size.
The catch
Better yield saves money only if it reduces sheets actually purchased. If your shop has panel stock it cannot use for anything else, improving yield on one job may only move inventory around for a while.
That is the same test the bottleneck guide applies to every improvement. Panel yield usually passes it — sheets are bought continuously — but it is worth confirming rather than assuming.
Related guides
- Furniture manufacturing cost: three materials, three different units
Costing a cabinet or a chair across all ten categories. The catch is that panels, edging and hardware are each bought in a different unit, and mixing them up quietly breaks the material line.
- Freight for bulky goods: the truck fills before it loads up
Furniture freight is sold by volume, not weight, which changes what a cost reduction is worth. How to cost it per product, and why flat packing is a costing decision before it is a design one.
- Six fields almost nobody fills in, and which way each one bends the cost
Material yield, personal and machine allowances, energy, units per pack and fixed cost per lot: six inputs that are usually left empty, and why five of the six make the cost look cheaper than it is.