Cutting machines — laser, plasma, presses — need periodic maintenance to hold their precision and reliability. When that spending is treated as an occasional surprise rather than a planned fixed cost, its irregularity makes it hard to predict the real effect on your hourly cost.
Planned versus reactive maintenance
Planned maintenance, carried out at regular intervals whether or not anything has visibly failed, costs less over time than reactive maintenance, which steps in only after an unexpected breakdown — usually at the worst possible moment, with a job already under way.
Putting it into annual overheads
Estimating an annual maintenance cost for each main machine, even roughly, and putting it among the overheads that feed into your hourly cost, makes this line predictable rather than a surprise that eats margin in whichever months it happens to fall.
The link with reliable delivery
A poorly maintained machine does not only cost more in repairs: it also causes unplanned stoppages that feed through into the delivery dates promised to customers. The cost of maintenance should therefore be judged not only as direct spending but as part of the firm's overall reliability in the market.