What does this manual process cost?
A ten-minute task looks small. Repeated forty times a week, every week, it isn't. Enter how often it happens and how long it takes, and see what the work nobody accounts for costs per year. You can also call it a simulator: the numbers change as you move the sliders.
Across the whole company.
Salary plus employer costs.
Tasks with clear rules: 70% to 90%.
Indicative estimate: real values depend on your process and your data.
How it is calculated
Hours per year = runs per week × 52 weeks × minutes ÷ 60 × people × (1 + rework percentage).
Cost per year = hours per year × cost of each hour. The full-time equivalent uses 1,760 working hours per year (40 hours × 44 weeks).
Possible savings = yearly cost × the share that could be automated. To see whether it pays off, take these numbers to the automation ROI calculator.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
Why is rework part of the calculation?
Because every error means repeating the task, or part of it. In a manual process an error rate of 3% to 10% is common, and it is usually left out when estimating the time spent.
How do I know how many minutes a run takes?
Time five or six real runs and use the average, including opening systems, looking for information and checking. Estimates from memory tend to fall short of reality.
Which processes usually have the most hidden cost?
Copying data between systems, answering repeated requests, preparing reports and checking documents. They happen often, are spread across several people and rarely have an owner.
Is this a calculator or a simulator?
Here they are the same thing: change the values and see the result instantly, with nothing to install and no details to leave. If you were looking for an process cost simulator, this is it.
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