Foundry & Forging worked example

Core Making Capacity at 62% core machine availability: a worked example

Here is what the math looks like when conditions slip. We hold every other input steady and drop core machine availability to 62%, then walk the calculation through step by step. Estimate good coremaking capacity for sand cores, shell cores, cold-box cores, or core assemblies.

The inputs for this scenario

  • Cores per machine cycle: 4 cores / cycle (held at the documented default)
  • Available coremaking cycles: 420 cycles (held at the documented default)
  • Core machine availability: 62 % (the input this scenario stresses; the baseline uses 86)
  • Accepted core yield: 95 % (held at the documented default)

Working through the calculation

  • The calculation starts from the formula this tool documents: Gross core making capacity = cores per machine cycle × available coremaking cycles.
  • Good core making capacity works out to 990 units at these inputs, and this is the headline figure for the scenario.
  • Gross core making capacity works out to 1,680 units at these inputs.
  • Core Making Capacity downtime loss works out to 638 units at these inputs.
  • Core Making Capacity reject or rework loss works out to 52.08 units at these inputs.

How this compares with the baseline

  • Against the tool's baseline example, where core machine availability sits at 86% and the headline result is 1,373 units, this scenario comes in 27.91% below the baseline at 990 units.
  • The practical read: the gap between this scenario and the baseline is entirely attributable to core machine availability, so recovering it is worth quantifying in dollars before considering equipment or staffing changes. It assumes the cycle count and cores-per-cycle are steady; if you run a mix of single-core and multi-core tooling on the same machine, run the calculation per tool set rather than blended.

Results at a glance

  • Good core making capacity: 990 units (headline result)
  • Gross core making capacity: 1,680 units
  • Core Making Capacity downtime loss: 638 units
  • Core Making Capacity reject or rework loss: 52.08 units

Run it with your numbers

  • To rerun this with your own numbers, open the live Core Making Capacity calculator, set core machine availability to your actual value, and adjust the remaining inputs to match your operation.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.