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How to use Costdown

Costdown is where you record a cost-reduction improvement as numbers, then compare it against other factories in the same country. The first two sections walk you through doing exactly that, start to finish. The rest explain things you cannot work out by looking at the screen — read them when you need them, not before you start. Each input field also has its own explanation in place: see The ? beside each field.

If your browser has an AI extension (Gemini, Claude, Copilot...), turn it on and ask it directly about the screen you have open — this page is broken into clear sections and every input field has its own explanation built in, so an AI reads through all of it faster than you can search section by section, and answers based on what you're actually doing. See install and usage guide.

Where to start

It depends on what you came here to do. Three ways in, in no particular order:

You want toGo toWhat you need first
Work out what an improvement would save, without publishing anythingIntelligence → CalculatorNothing. It works without an account and stores nothing.
Record an improvement you already made, so others can see and compare itWorkspace → WriteYour cost figures before and after, and how you measured both.
See what others in your industry have doneDiscover → ProjectsNothing.

The Calculator and the Write page share the same formulas, so a figure you try out in the Calculator comes out the same when you turn it into a proposal.

Writing a proposal, start to finish

This follows the actual order of the fields on the Write page. Before you open it, five things are worth having in hand — you can write without any of them, but the proposal then sits at a low trust level:

  • The cost BEFORE and the cost AFTER, broken down by category — not a single total.
  • How you measured those two figures: hand counts, shift logs, production reports, invoices.
  • Monthly volume, working days, shifts per day, hours per shift — the system needs them to bring costs down to a single part.
  • The money already invested, if any. If none, tick "This proposal needs no investment".
  • Machine names, material codes, specific models — the more specific, the more a reader can match it against their own shop floor.
StepWhat you doWhat you have afterwards
1Go to Workspace → Write. Type the title and pick the Industry.The two required fields are done. Picking the industry is what makes the fields below suggest the right machines and materials.
2Pick the Process, the main KPI type and the difficulty.These three decide which comparison group your proposal lands in. Leave them blank and it still saves, but it stays out of the ranking.
3Write the detailed content, then the three description fields: the problem, the mechanism, the short summary.This is what a reader reads first. The short summary is what appears in listings, so write it as an answer, not as a headline.
4Move to the cost table. For each category involved, click "+ Add row" and fill the Before and After columns.The panel on the right shows the total and the savings percentage immediately, updating as you type — there is no Calculate button to press.
5Fill in the conditions of application and the risks.These two separate a usable proposal from a boast. A reader needs to know where your improvement does NOT apply.
6Fill in how the result was verified and the measurement method.This is the field that decides the trust level. Be specific: what was measured, with what, against what, who signed it off.
7Choose hard cash or cost avoidance. If unsure, leave it blank.The reader learns whether your figure reaches the invoice or not.
8Enter the investment and the implementation time, or tick the no-investment box.The system works out the months to payback — you do not have to.
9Press Save.The proposal appears under My proposals. From then on, every change to a savings figure is recorded: old value, new value, when.

About the Before and After columns: Before is the current state, After is once the improvement is in place. If a category is untouched by the improvement, leave BOTH columns blank — do not copy the Before figure into After to fill the gap, because that states a category the improvement has nothing to do with.

The panel titled "What the system reads from your figures" sits in the right-hand column and runs while you type, not after you save. It points out things that are hard to notice yourself: a row contributing almost nothing, a category wildly out of line with the rest, a place where you filled one side and left the other blank. Reading it while typing is worth far more than reading it after forty rows are already in.

If you are not ready to publish anything, use Intelligence → Calculator: same formulas, no account needed, nothing stored. Try figures there first and move to Write later if you want.

The ten cost categories

Costs are split into ten categories. You do not have to fill in all ten — only the ones your improvement actually touches.

CategoryFill it in when
LaborSomeone spends time on the product: running a machine, assembling, inspecting, setting up.
MachineA machine runs: depreciation, power, maintenance, machine time occupied.
MaterialMaterial that goes into the product.
ScrapMaterial or product thrown away.
ConsumablesTooling, drills, grinding wheels, cutting fluid — things that wear out and get replaced.
OutsourcingA step done by an outside supplier.
ReworkBad parts repaired to pass, rather than scrapped.
PackagingBoxes, trays, film, dunnage.
LogisticsFreight tied to this product.
Factory overheadThe share accounting has already allocated to the product. Added per month, not multiplied by volume.

Blank does not mean zero

This is the easiest thing to get wrong, and getting it wrong produces a wrong cost figure that looks exactly like a right one.

A blank field means you have NOT STATED it, not that you are asserting the category is zero. The system distinguishes the two states and displays them differently. If you genuinely mean "this costs nothing", type 0 — that is an assertion, and it is not the same as leaving the field empty.

The reason: a proposal with half its categories blank still produces a very attractive savings figure. If blank counted as zero, nobody could tell "this improvement really saves a lot" apart from "the author has only filled in half of it".

Hard cash or cost avoidance

These two kinds of saving look identical on paper but behave differently in the accounts, so every proposal should say which one it is.

  • Hard cash: after the improvement, the amount actually paid each month goes down compared with what is being paid today. You pay 50 million for electricity, replace the motor, and it becomes 42 million — next month's bill is 8 million lower.
  • Cost avoidance: the amount paid does not go down; it simply fails to rise the way it would have. The supplier announces an increase from 50 to 55 million, you renegotiate and change material to hold it at 50 million — the bill is still 50 million, and accounting sees nothing go down.

If you are not sure, leave it blank. Blank means "not stated"; guessing means stating something false, and a reader who knows the trade will notice.

The four trust levels

Every proposal carries a trust level. The system RECALCULATES it from the evidence actually present — it is not a label you pick, and writing at greater length does not raise it.

LevelWhat it means
UnverifiedThe figure was calculated by the author, with no measurement evidence.
Self-evidencedThe figures are complete and the author has stated how they were measured.
Counterpart verifiedA factory applied it and agreed the real figure jointly.
Platform verifiedAn independent third party checked it and concluded it holds.

The "How it was verified" field is the most important one when writing a proposal. Something vague like "we observed a clear reduction" leaves the proposal at the lowest level and out of the ranking, no matter how good the numbers are. Something specific — what was measured, with what, against what, who signed it off — raises the level.

The number of posts never counts towards ranking, not even as a tiebreaker. Posting more does not place you higher.

Comparing against other factories

Ranking and comparison happen WITHIN A SINGLE COUNTRY only. An improvement saving 20% in Vietnam and one saving 20% in Germany cannot be compared directly: labour, power and material prices are too far apart.

For that reason comparisons are measured in percentages and in months to payback, never in absolute money. The exchange rate is taken for real at the moment of saving and then frozen, so an old proposal does not change meaning when rates move.

Grouping with colleagues

Colleagues from the same company are grouped by a random join code, not by naming the employer. You create a code, hand it to a colleague, and whoever enters it joins the same group — which lets you share internal material codes and pool figures without saying where you work.

The code is shown ONCE at creation and is never stored in readable form. If you lose it, nobody can retrieve it, administrators included — create a new one and revoke the old.

When someone applies your improvement

A proposal can go on to become a project with two sides: the one who offered the improvement and the one who applied it. The side that applied it submits the real figures afterwards, and the other reviews and confirms them. Only when both agree is the result recorded as verified.

That is the thing a spreadsheet cannot give you: a number that someone else, at another factory, has put their name to as well.

The ? beside each field

Almost every input field has a ? beside it. It opens that field's own explanation, and each one answers four questions: what it is, when to fill it in and when not to, an example with real numbers, and what other situations the field covers beyond its own name.

The fourth is the one worth reading. A field name is the shortest name, not the fullest one — seeing "Weight (kg)" and assuming it is only for metal means skipping the whole material category when you work in plastics, textiles or wood.

Where a field has a formula, the explanation gives the formula and its source.

Why not just use Excel

That is a fair question, because Excel is faster to type into, freer in layout, and works offline. Costdown does not try to win on any of those three.

There are five things a spreadsheet cannot do, and they are the entire reason Costdown exists:

  • Share one library of materials, machines and processes — instead of everyone typing their own spelling of the same thing and then being unable to add the numbers up.
  • See figures from other factories in the same industry and the same country.
  • Let a counterpart who actually applied your improvement confirm the real number themselves.
  • Keep an edit history that cannot be deleted: change a savings figure and the system records the old value, the new value, which account changed it, and when.
  • One single formula for everyone — no two spreadsheets producing two answers and an argument about which one is right.

If the work in front of you needs none of those five, Excel really is faster, and we would rather say so plainly.

When something does not match

If anything in the product behaves differently from what this page describes, that is our mistake and not yours — please tell us through the Contact. Messages are stored and given a case number immediately, so your request does not disappear.

Guides by industry

Written for one industry at a time instead of in general: how to break down the cost, where it usually goes wrong, and where the numbers already exist in your workshop.

For every industry

CNC machining & precision engineering

Sheet metal: laser cutting & forming

Garment manufacturing

Injection molding & rubber

Furniture manufacturing

Printing & paper packaging

Food & beverage processing

Electronics assembly

Machinery & industrial equipment

Welding & steel fabrication

Residential & civil construction

Civil engineering & infrastructure

Commercial & industrial construction

Architecture & planning

Freight transportation

Maritime transportation

Rail transportation

Ground passenger transportation

Shipbuilding

Railroad equipment manufacturing

Other transportation equipment manufacturing

Mining

Oil & gas extraction

Oil & gas

Utilities (power/water)

Farming (crop)

Ranching (livestock)

Fisheries

Forestry logging

Wood product manufacturing

Paper manufacturing

Maintenance & repair

Warehousing & storage

Real estate management

Semiconductor: assembly & test

Wine & spirits

Leather goods & footwear

Chemical manufacturing

Building materials

Automotive components

Aerospace components

Medical devices

Sporting goods

Tobacco products

Renewable energy equipment

Industries without a discrete product

How to use Costdown | costdown.org