Why is cost per part the headline rather than the shift total?

Because the shift total does not move when production does. Run half the parts through the same station with the same crew and the shift total is nearly unchanged while the cost of curing each part almost doubles. Cost per part is also the only figure that can be compared between lines, between technologies, or against a quotation.

Is energy really that small a share?

On most UV lines, yes. Typically under a fifth of the cost of curing, and on these defaults 17%. That is worth knowing before spending engineering effort on it. It also does not make energy projects worthless: they often carry lamp savings, heat-load savings and throughput gains with them, and those show up in other rows here and on other pages.

How do I get lamp wear per part?

From the lamp replacement page: it gives cost per operating hour, including the downtime a swap costs, and dividing by parts per hour gives the per-part figure. Estimating it directly usually understates it, because lamp price is visible and swap downtime is not.

What should go into labour and overhead?

Only what the cure station genuinely carries. If one operator tends four stations, a quarter belongs here. Overhead should follow whatever allocation basis your costing already uses rather than being invented for this page. The aim is a figure consistent with the rest of your cost model, not a more sophisticated one.

Does this include the coating itself?

No, and on most jobs the coating costs more than everything on this page combined. This is the cost of CURING, which is the part a UV process choice actually controls. Add material separately when building a full per-part cost, and keep the two apart when comparing cure technologies.

What is missing that could change the answer?

Scrap and rework, most of all. A station with marginal cure can be cheap to run and expensive to own, because every undercured part carries the full cost of this page and delivers nothing. That belongs on the rework page, and a cure cost quoted without it is a cost of running rather than a cost of producing.

UV Curing calculator

UV Coating Cure Cost Calculator: Cost per Part and Its Mix

Bring the three costs of running a UV cure station together and see what they actually consist of. Enter the parts cured in the shift, the lamp wear attributable to each, the shift's electricity, and the labour and overhead carried by the station. The calculator returns cost per part first, then the shift total, the share taken by labour and overhead, the energy cost per part, and the lamp wear per shift. The mix is the useful output: a single shift total cannot show that one of these three is usually several times the others.

What this calculator does

Combine lamp wear, energy, labour and overhead into a cure cost per part, and show which of the three the cost actually consists of.
Use it for putting a defensible cure cost into a quotation, deciding whether energy, lamps or labour is worth attacking, sizing the real benefit of a UV LED retrofit against total cure cost, showing what low utilisation costs on a station with fixed staffing, comparing two cure stations on a common per-part basis.
Combine lamp wear, energy, labour and overhead into a cure cost per part, and show which of the three the cost actually consists of.

Formula used

Lamp wear per shift = parts per shift × lamp wear per part
Total cure cost per shift = lamp wear + energy + labour and overhead
Cure cost per part = total cure cost per shift ÷ parts per shift
Labour and overhead share (%) = labour and overhead ÷ total × 100
Energy cost per part = energy cost per shift ÷ parts per shift

Inputs explained

Parts cured per shift: Good parts out of the cure station in the shift. Counting parts later scrapped moves cost onto the rework page, where it is counted again.
Lamp wear cost per part: Lamp consumption attributable to one part. Derive it from the lamp replacement page's cost per operating hour divided by parts per hour, rather than estimating it.
Energy cost per shift: Electricity for the cure station over the shift, from the mercury or LED energy page.
Labour + overhead per shift: Crew time attributable to the cure station plus its allocated overhead. Usually the largest of the three, and usually the least examined.

How to use the result

Best suited to putting a defensible cure cost into a quotation, deciding whether energy, lamps or labour is worth attacking, sizing the real benefit of a UV LED retrofit against total cure cost, showing what low utilisation costs on a station with fixed staffing, comparing two cure stations on a common per-part basis.
Excludes the coating material itself, which on most jobs exceeds everything on this page. Excludes scrap and rework, which belong on the rework page and can dominate when cure is marginal. Treats lamp wear as linear per part. It is really per operating hour, so idle running loads it onto whichever parts happen to be produced. Assumes energy and labour do not vary with volume, which is right within a shift and wrong across a year. Says nothing about whether the parts cured correctly: an undercured part is a full cost with no value.

Common questions

Why is cost per part the headline rather than the shift total? Because the shift total does not move when production does. Run half the parts through the same station with the same crew and the shift total is nearly unchanged while the cost of curing each part almost doubles. Cost per part is also the only figure that can be compared between lines, between technologies, or against a quotation.
Is energy really that small a share? On most UV lines, yes. Typically under a fifth of the cost of curing, and on these defaults 17%. That is worth knowing before spending engineering effort on it. It also does not make energy projects worthless: they often carry lamp savings, heat-load savings and throughput gains with them, and those show up in other rows here and on other pages.
How do I get lamp wear per part? From the lamp replacement page: it gives cost per operating hour, including the downtime a swap costs, and dividing by parts per hour gives the per-part figure. Estimating it directly usually understates it, because lamp price is visible and swap downtime is not.
What should go into labour and overhead? Only what the cure station genuinely carries. If one operator tends four stations, a quarter belongs here. Overhead should follow whatever allocation basis your costing already uses rather than being invented for this page. The aim is a figure consistent with the rest of your cost model, not a more sophisticated one.
Does this include the coating itself? No, and on most jobs the coating costs more than everything on this page combined. This is the cost of CURING, which is the part a UV process choice actually controls. Add material separately when building a full per-part cost, and keep the two apart when comparing cure technologies.

Last reviewed 2026-08-25.