Wire Drawing & Rod Processing worked example

Breakage Loss at 68% target break-free rate: a worked example

Here is what the math looks like when conditions slip. We hold every other input steady and drop target break-free rate to 68%, then walk the calculation through step by step. Breakage Loss expresses how often wire snaps during drawing as a percentage of the lengths or coils you ran, and then measures that against the break-free target you hold the line to.

The inputs for this scenario

  • Wire breaks in the run: 8 units (held at the documented default)
  • Total lengths (or coils) drawn: 250 units (held at the documented default)
  • Target break-free rate: 68 % (the input this scenario stresses; the baseline uses 95)

Working through the calculation

  • The calculation starts from the formula this tool documents: Breakage Loss rate = affected amount รท total amount.
  • Rate works out to 3.2 % at these inputs, and this is the headline figure for the scenario.
  • Gap to target works out to 64.8 points at these inputs.
  • Affected count works out to 8 count at these inputs.
  • Total count works out to 250 count at these inputs.

How this compares with the baseline

  • Against the tool's baseline example, where target break-free rate sits at 95% and the headline result is 3.2 %, this scenario lands almost exactly on the baseline at 3.2 %.
  • The practical read: the gap between this scenario and the baseline is entirely attributable to target break-free rate, so recovering it is worth quantifying in dollars before considering equipment or staffing changes. A raw break rate ignores the cause and severity of each break; two shifts with the same rate can differ hugely if one break scrapped a full coil and another dropped a short end.

Results at a glance

  • Rate: 3.2 % (headline result)
  • Gap to target: 64.8 points
  • Affected count: 8 count
  • Total count: 250 count

Run it with your numbers

  • To rerun this with your own numbers, open the live Breakage Loss calculator, set target break-free rate to your actual value, and adjust the remaining inputs to match your operation.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.