Municipal Waste Sorting Equipment worked example

Baler Capacity at 61% baler availability: a worked example

Here is what the math looks like when conditions slip. We hold every other input steady and drop baler availability to 61%, then walk the calculation through step by step. Estimate the on-spec bales per shift a horizontal or two-ram baler will produce after availability and density acceptance are factored in.

The inputs for this scenario

  • Bales completed per baler cycle: 1 bales / cycle (held at the documented default)
  • Available baler cycles per shift: 120 cycles (held at the documented default)
  • Baler availability: 61 % (the input this scenario stresses; the baseline uses 85)
  • On-spec bale density and weight rate: 95 % (held at the documented default)

Working through the calculation

  • The calculation starts from the formula this tool documents: Gross baler output = bales per cycle x available baler cycles per shift.
  • On-spec bales per shift works out to 69.54 bales / shift at these inputs, and this is the headline figure for the scenario.
  • Gross bales per shift works out to 120 bales / shift at these inputs.
  • Availability loss works out to 46.8 bales / shift at these inputs.
  • Off-spec bale loss works out to 3.66 bales / shift at these inputs.

How this compares with the baseline

  • Against the tool's baseline example, where baler availability sits at 85% and the headline result is 96.9 bales / shift, this scenario comes in 28.24% below the baseline at 69.54 bales / shift.
  • The practical read: the gap between this scenario and the baseline is entirely attributable to baler availability, so recovering it is worth quantifying in dollars before considering equipment or staffing changes. It treats each cycle as producing the same number of bales; mixed commodities with very different bale times will not be captured by a single average cycle figure.

Results at a glance

  • On-spec bales per shift: 69.54 bales / shift (headline result)
  • Gross bales per shift: 120 bales / shift
  • Availability loss: 46.8 bales / shift
  • Off-spec bale loss: 3.66 bales / shift

Run it with your numbers

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

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.