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QUALITY ESCAPE EXPOSURE
How many suspect parts have already shipped,
and what does it cost to catch them where they now sit?
Estimate how many suspect pieces are sitting in WIP, in finished goods, on a truck and inside your customer's plant, then price what each of those stages costs to contain. Built for the hour when the defect is confirmed, the suspect window is still a range, and someone has to decide where the firewall goes.
WHERE THE SUSPECT
PRODUCT ACTUALLY IS.
The defaults below are a worked example, not your plant. Change every one of them. The page recalculates as you type — there is nothing to submit and nothing behind an email form.
This calculator needs JavaScript. If you are seeing this line, the arithmetic has not run. Do not read that as a clear result. Call PLI on 216.440.6060 and we will size the exposure with you.
This tool never says a stage is clear. It reports a floor — at least this many pieces are downstream. A zero in any row means the model could not place product there with the numbers you entered, not that the stage has been cleared, swept or released.
This is an estimate for planning, not a substitute for traceability records. Lot travellers, label scans, ASNs, shipper records and your customer's receiving data are the only evidence of where specific parts actually are.
This page is not a release or disposition authority. Nothing here authorises shipping, un-holding, downgrading or closing a containment. Those decisions belong to your quality system and your customer.
PLI sells the work this page recommends. Read the output knowing that, and read what we get out of it — including a worked example where the honest answer is to keep the job in-house.
HOW THIS IS
CALCULATED.
Six steps, in plain language. The numbers on screen are itemised line by line so a supplier quality engineer can check the arithmetic rather than trust it.
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1. The window converts to production days first
production days = calendar days × (production days per week ÷ 7)This is the step that most spreadsheets get wrong. A 21-calendar-day window on a five-day plant is 15 production days, not 21. Multiplying a per-production-day build rate by calendar days overstates the lot by roughly 40 per cent, which is enough to send a crew to the wrong site.
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2. Suspect produced, and expected defectives
S = build rate × production days in window · D = S × pS is the whole suspect population — everything built inside the window, good and bad. D is the share of it expected to be non-conforming. You contain S, because you cannot tell them apart without sorting; you argue about D with your customer.
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3. The pipeline is filled FIFO, outward from the newest piece
WIP → finished goods → transit → customer stock → past the recovery pointThe newest suspect piece is still on your floor. The oldest has already been consumed. So the model starts with a remainder of S, fills your WIP up to its capacity, subtracts, fills finished goods, subtracts, and keeps marching outward. Each stage holds
min(remaining, that stage's capacity). -
4. Capacities, and the two different day-types
WIP = WIP days × build rate · FG = FG days × build ratetransit = transit calendar days × build ratecustomer = customer days of stock × customer consumption rateDays on hand are production days of coverage, so they convert at your build rate. Transit is entered in calendar days and is deliberately costed at a full day's build for each of them — a conservative reading that puts more product on the road rather than less. Customer stock is the one capacity that does not use your build rate: their shelf empties at their burn rate.
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5. Two scenarios, always presented as a band
LOW = last-known-good window · HIGH = worst-plausible windowA suspect window is a range until traceability closes it, so the tool computes both ends and reports both. The low figure is your floor, not your answer. Firewall placement is decided on the high scenario, because planning a containment on the optimistic end of a range is how product escapes.
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6. Cost, and the recommended firewall
cost at a stage = pieces at that stage × cost to catch per piece thereA firewall placed at a stage screens everything from your floor out to and including that stage, so its cost is cumulative. The recommendation is the earliest — and therefore cheapest — position whose cumulative coverage reaches 90 per cent of the worst-plausible suspect population. If no sortable position reaches 90 per cent, the tool says so instead of picking a winner.
WHAT THIS TOOL IS,
AND WHAT IT IS NOT.
A Suspect Lot Quantity Estimator
It sizes the lot from a build rate and a window, then splits it across the pipeline so you can brief a room in five minutes instead of an afternoon.
A Containment Location Cost Comparison
Four firewall positions, priced side by side, so the cheap-but-late option and the expensive-but-complete option are on the same table.
A Starting Point For A Customer Notification
The quantity band and the downstream floor are the two numbers a customer asks for first. Give them the band, and say it is an estimate.
Not A Traceability System
It knows nothing about your lot numbers, your labels or your ASNs. It models flow. Records beat models every time, and where they disagree, the records win.
Not A Release Authority
No output here clears a stage, releases stock or closes a containment. If a page ever appears to say a lot is safe to ship, stop reading and check the records.
Not A Quote
The cost lines are placeholders until PLI has scoped the job. Actual rates depend on part, inspection method, shift pattern, site and duration.
Who made this, and what PLI gets out of it. Phillips Light Industrial sells the work this page recommends — inspection, containment, sorting and rework crews, at your plant, at a third-party warehouse or inside your customer. That is a conflict of interest, and you should read every number here with it in mind.
What we did about it. The model has no PLI-shaped thumb on it. All four cost-to-catch lines are yours to overwrite with your own or a competitor's quoted rates. The firewall is chosen purely on the earliest position that reaches 90 per cent coverage of the worst-plausible population, and the arithmetic neither knows nor cares who runs the sort. A tool that always pointed at the most expensive stage would be worth nothing to you and would cost us the next call.
This tool will regularly tell you not to call us. A short suspect window on a plant with deep WIP puts the whole population on your own floor, where your own badged people are cheaper and faster than any crew we can mobilise. That is a real answer, not a failure of the calculator.
Worked example — the answer where PLI loses the job
Put these figures into the calculator above and it recommends your own floor, not a PLI crew.
- Build ratefive-day plant, pieces per production day900 pc
- Suspect windowlast-known-good 1 day ago, worst-plausible 2 days ago1 – 2 calendar days
- Production days in the window2 × (5 ÷ 7)1.43 d
- Suspect produced (S)900 × 0.71 and 900 × 1.43643 – 1,286 pc
- Your WIP capacity2 days on hand × 9001,800 pc
- Held in your WIPmin(1,286, 1,800)643 – 1,286 pc
- Modelled past your docknothing the model can place downstream0 pc
- Recommended firewall — your WIP onlyat $0.55 / pc, your own dock rate$354 – $707
On those numbers the whole suspect population is still standing on your floor, and the containment is two of your own people for a shift. There is no PLI job in that answer, and the page says so rather than nudging you outward to a stage we would be paid to stand in. A zero downstream is still not a clearance — it is the model failing to place product, not your records proving there is none.
AND WHEN THE NUMBER
IS BIGGER THAN YOU HOPED.
A calculator tells you the size of the problem. Getting a certified crew standing in the right building is the part that stops the bleeding, and it is what PLI has done since 1995.
QUESTIONS THIS TOOL
GETS ASKED.
How many suspect parts have already shipped?
Multiply your build rate by the production days inside the suspect window, then subtract what your own WIP and finished goods can still be holding. Whatever is left has already left your dock. The calculator does that for a low and a high scenario and shows both, because a suspect window is a range until traceability records close it.
Where should the containment firewall go?
At the cheapest stage that still contains the bulk. Sorting at your own dock is the cheapest place to catch a piece and the least effective once most of the lot has shipped; a customer plant sort costs several times more per piece but reaches product your dock no longer touches. The comparison table prices all four positions, so the trade-off is on the table rather than in someone's head.
Does this replace traceability records?
No. This is a planning estimate built from rates and days on hand. Lot travellers, label scans, ASNs and your customer's receiving records are the only evidence of where specific parts actually are. Use this to size the response and brief the room, then confirm against the records and correct the numbers.
Can the calculator tell me a stage is clear?
No, and it never will. It reports a floor: at least this many pieces are downstream. A zero in any stage means the model could not place product there with the numbers entered, not that the stage has been cleared. Nothing on this page is a release or disposition authority.
Why a range instead of a single suspect datetime?
Because a single suspect datetime is almost always wrong at the moment you need it. The worst-plausible start is the oldest point the defect could have begun; the last-known-good is the most recent point you can evidence as good. The truth sits between them, so both ends are computed and reported as a band.
Does PLI profit from what this recommends?
Yes, and you should read the page knowing it. PLI sells inspection, containment, sorting and rework, which is exactly the work a firewall is. So the cost lines are all editable — put your own or a competitor's quoted rate in them — and the firewall is picked purely on the earliest position that reaches 90 per cent coverage, not on what would be most profitable to run. The tool regularly recommends your own floor and no PLI crew at all; there is a worked example of exactly that case on this page.
Can PLI run the firewall this points at?
Yes — at your plant, at your supplier, at a third-party warehouse, at your customer's plant, or at a PLI facility. That includes third-party certified containment and controlled shipping support. See containment and sorting, or call 216.440.6060.
TELL PLI WHAT
YOU ARE FACING.
Send us the numbers this page gave you and we will scope the firewall properly — crew size, site, shift pattern, reporting and a real cost per piece.
sales@phillipslightindustrial.com
More background: what controlled shipping actually means