A Company Wants 1,000 × 200 g Candles Delivered in 21 Days but I Normally Make Only 100 a Week — How Do I Calculate Whether I Can Realistically Accept the Order?

The four numbers, worked

The commonest mistake is dividing the quantity by the calendar: 1,000 ÷ 21 = 47.6 a day. The real figure is higher, because many of those days cannot be pouring days. Every allowance below is a labelled worked example; replace it with yours.

Why a three-day tail? The day-17 pour needs time to set before it is lidded, boxed and moved. The 25 CSI oil pages that state a cure give 48–72 hours for soy before burn testing (Lavender's states none in the text we captured), so the plan uses 72 hours: a planning judgement, not a rule. Cure continues after dispatch (the ship-straight-after-production post); if the client asks you to shorten it, read the shortening-cure post first.

The materials are plain arithmetic. Load is a percentage of total candle weight: 200 g at 8% is 16 g of oil and 184 g of wax, so 1,000 candles are 200 kg of mix, 16 kg of oil and 184 kg of wax, before extras, buffer and heel.

Capacity: find the bottleneck before you promise

A rate is only real if every station can hold it. Time each station with a stopwatch over 20 candles. The figures below are a worked example, not CSI data or an industry norm; the method is what matters. The full station model is the maximum-capacity post.

Read it from the bottom. 81 a day is 485.25 minutes of hands-on work, 1.19 people-shifts. One person doing everything caps at about 66 a day (408 minutes, less 60 fixed, ÷ 5.25); two reach about 144. No station is overloaded for a dedicated person: the binding constraint is one person's total minutes, and labelling and packing is the biggest block, so hand that to a helper first.

Do not leave packing to the end: 1,000 candles at 2.5 minutes is 41.7 hours, and three tail days with two people hold only 40.8 person-hours. Pack each day's candles once their 72 hours are up (from day 6), which also keeps racks to about 324 positions instead of 1,050.

The melter maths, and what the page claims

The WAX MELTER FOR CANDLE MAKING page says it can "melt 9.5 liters of candle wax and create 80 candles at a time" and "can melt 10 kg of soy wax in approximately 30 minutes at 100°C". Do the arithmetic yourself: 10 kg of finished mix fills 50 candles at 200 g before losses. "80 candles" from 10 kg means about 125 g each, and 9.5 litres is not 10 kg. The order needs 212.1 kg of mix: 22 melts, about 1.6 a production day, so on a 120-minute cycle one unit runs at about half capacity. One reviewer reports 10 kg melting "in mere 20-30 minutes"; time your own full cycle, including fragrance, stirring, pouring out and refilling.

Without a melter, the melt usually is the bottleneck: kilograms per batch ÷ 0.2 × batches a day must reach 81. CSI's Mini Electric Wax/Soap Melter (1 litre) (₹2,360.00) holds roughly four 200 g candles a batch (rule of thumb: about 0.86–0.9 g of wax per ml), a sampling tool rather than a production unit. Cycle-by-cycle output of one 10 kg melter is the one-melter post.

The bulk purchase sheet, rounded to real CSI packs

The sheet assumes your proven formula is Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464, Lavender at 8% and an Eco C2 wick in your own 200 g jar; if yours differs, swap products and prices. Planned extras and the loss buffer are separate lines, pieces carry their own breakage buffer, and the 1% heel allowance is wax left in the melter and pitchers, which never reaches a candle, so it does not double-count rejects.

₹223.18 per saleable candle is CSI materials only, buffers included; it excludes your jar, labour, freight, GST and marketing. Wax and oil are 84.3% of that spend: ₹99.45 and ₹88.76 a candle. Whether your quoted price covers your true cost, including test candles and failed batches, is the true manufacturing cost post; the losses that only show up at scale are the hidden-losses-at-scale post.

Three pack decisions that change the total

Wax: buy to the kilo. CSI 464 is ₹507.40 a kilo in 1 kg, 5 kg and 10 kg bags alike, so 19 × 10 kg + 5 kg + 1 kg = 196 kg (₹99,450.40) covers 195.13 kg; twenty 10 kg bags would be ₹1,01,480.00. Natural Soy Pearl Wax, the only CSI wax sold in 50 kg, would cost ₹83,286.00 for 196 kg, ₹16,164.40 less, but it is a different wax: unless it is already your proven formula, that saving buys a reformulation you have no time to test.

Oil: check per gram. On Lavender the 1 kg is ₹5.22 a gram against ₹5.24 for 500 g, so 17 × 1 kg is ₹323.00 cheaper than 34 × 500 g (₹89,080.00). On some other CSI oils the 1 kg costs the same as, or more than, two 500 g bottles. CSI lists no oil pack above 1 kg; ask on WhatsApp whether one lot covers 17 kg, and if two lots arrive, compare them before mixing (see Lot continuity, below).

Wicks, boxes, stickers: flat per piece, so buy the smallest covering combination. 1,080 C2 cost ₹10,195.20 against ₹10,384.00 for 1,100; the box is ₹22.42 in 50s or 100s. Three 1-inch sticker rolls (₹1,239.00) keep one size; a 1,000 plus a 500 roll (₹1,112.00) is cheaper but mixes sizes. The box page says "Size: 11 x 11 x 8 cm" without saying inside or outside, so check it against your jar and lid first.

The general method, including how big each buffer should be, is the purchase-sheet post.

Accept, accept with conditions, or renegotiate

Run it in this order; each step can end it.

The split: one person pours 858 in 13 production days, about 813 saleable after rejects and extras, so "about 800 by day 21" is safe to promise. Corporate gifts often go out by office or department anyway. Ask.

What protects the order: tests, lots, advance

Conditions only protect you if they are real. Five things protect a 1,000-candle order, and none fits into the last day.

The proven formula. This jar, wick and oil at this load, burned to the end in still air, with melt pool, flame, soot and final-third jar heat acceptable. A new jar, oil, wick or dye is a new candle. What you never skip is the never-skip post; capacity without test time is the no-time-to-test post.

Burn checks during production. The 6 burn-check candles are not development: pull them from melts on different days and burn each once its 72 hours are up. A change in flame or pool against the approved candle shows a drifting lot or process while you can still act. Keep the 4 retains, labelled with melt and lot, until well after delivery.

Lot continuity. CSI does not promise that one lot covers 196 kg of wax or 17 kg of oil. If a second lot arrives, compare it with the first before it goes in the melter: cold sniff, colour in wax, a short burn (the same-name reformulation post).

Written approvals. Sample, scent, fill, label and safety text, box and delivery split, approved in writing before tranche 1; a later change means a new date and, for client-specific materials, a change fee (judgement, not legal advice).

An advance that at least covers what you buy for this order and could not easily reuse, ideally a large share of the ₹2,23,182.60. A client who will not pay one is telling you something.

What to buy for this order, and what to skip

Six items, chosen on page statements, price and stock on 7 October 2026. CSI publishes no burn or throw data, so nothing here is ranked on performance. Each card says when not to buy.

Skip for this order: the 20 kgs melter (capacity this order does not need), Natural Soy Pearl unless it is already your wax, any oil you have not burn-tested in this jar, and the 1 kg of a new oil "just in case". Argued against our own interest: do not buy the 196 kg, the 17 kg or the 1,080 wicks until the client has approved the sample in writing and paid the advance. If the order falls through on day 1, you want to be holding a quote, not a pallet.

Map of this cluster: 6301–6320

This hub owns the four-number feasibility test and the verdict for 1,000 in 21 days. Each other post owns one part of "can I actually accept this order?".

Frequently asked questions