Should I Place a Top-Up Raw-Material Order Midway Through Production or Purchase the Complete Requirement Plus Buffer Before Starting?

The order and both purchase plans

The title gives no figures, so here is a labelled worked order. A corporate client wants 2,000 candles of 200 g at 8% on the total-weight basis (16 g of oil and 184 g of Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464), 1,000 in Woody Oud and 1,000 in Citrus Lemon, in your own proven jar with an Eco C2 wick. Working days 1–2 are set-up, days 3–22 are 20 production days at 100 good candles a day, days 23–25 are set, QC and packing, and delivery is day 26. Your supplier's lead time is 4 working days (worked; CSI publishes none, so ask). The planned loss is 5% on wax and oil and 6% on pieces.

Option B's day-0 wax (273 kg) covers working days 3 to 16. Every number after that is decided by what the first days of production measure, which is the whole point of staging.

Price: why staging costs nothing extra at CSI

Buying everything up front is often justified by price breaks. Check whether there are any. On 7 October 2026, Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 is ₹507.40 a kilo in the 1 kg bag, the 5 kg and the 10 kg. Woody Oud is ₹4.53 a gram at 100 g, 500 g and 1 kg. Citrus Lemon is ₹2.83 a gram at 1 kg and ₹2.84 at 500 g, a difference too small to matter on a top-up. Eco C2 is ₹9.44 a wick in every pack. So on these lines a midway top-up costs, per unit, exactly what the same quantity would have cost on day 0.

That is not true of every supplier or every CSI product: some oils are cheaper per gram at 1 kg than at 500 g, and on a few the 1 kg costs more than two 500 g packs, so check the per-gram figure for your own oils before assuming. CSI lists no packs above 10 kg for this wax and none above 1 kg for oils; larger quantities and any volume pricing are a WhatsApp conversation, not a published price, and this page does not promise a discount. If your other supplier does give a real break on the full quantity, put its value in the comparison below; it belongs on option A's side.

What each option really risks

Read the table from the bottom up. The cash benefit of staging is small: deferring ₹58,858.40 for about eight days is worth roughly ₹235.43 at a worked 1.5% a month. Staging is not a money-saving device. It earns its place in two other ways: when the cash genuinely is not there on day 0 (the advance has not cleared, or covers only part of the materials; see the post on whether the advance should cover non-reusable materials), and when your loss rate is uncertain enough that a guessed buffer is likely to be wrong.

The stop is the real cost, not the rupees

A day with no wax is a day of idle people and a delivery date at risk. At a worked ₹2,400.00 a day in wages for three people (your rates), two lost days cost more than every rupee of cash deferral above, and a missed corporate delivery costs more than that. So option B is only as good as its top-up date. That is why the settling number is about days, not rupees.

The lot is the hidden cost

A top-up of the same CSI product can arrive from a different production lot, and CSI does not promise lot continuity. For wax, a new lot is checked side by side (pour, compare set and colour, short burn) before it goes into the order: about three calendar days. For a fragrance oil, a lot difference can be smelt across a client's set of candles, which is why oils are bought in full here even though staging them would cost nothing extra. How to run the check on a new oil lot is in the post on continuing with a new fragrance lot; for wax lots, the post on managing multiple wax lots.

Three loss rates, two options

Option A buys the plan's 5% loss buffer before production. Option B buys 273 kg, measures the real wax per good candle over the first production days, and on day 8 tops up to the measured need plus 1%. Run both against three actual loss rates:

Three findings. At 3% loss, option A leaves 8.12 kg of wax (₹4,120.09); for a standard wax that is reusable stock, not a loss, so the cost is cash and space. At 5%, both work and option A is simpler. At 7%, option A runs 6.60 kg short, roughly 34 candles' worth, discovered around day 22 with a lead time of 4 days and a lot check still to come; that is a stop. Option B handled 7% the same way it handled 3%: a measured top-up on day 8. So the honest summary is that option A also becomes a top-up when the buffer is wrong, just an unplanned and late one. Whether a given overrun is reasonable for your process is the post on judging a 4% variance.

Argued against our own interest: the answer to "what if loss is 7%?" is not to buy option A with a 10% buffer. On 368 kg of wax that is 18 kg more than the plan's 5%, ₹9,133.20 of stock you probably will not use on this order. If you are unsure of your loss rate, measure it (stage the wax), rather than over-buy it.

The worked decision, and what must not be skipped

Count back from the day option B's first wax runs out. 273 kg covers production to day 16. Subtract a safety day (1), the lot check on the new wax (3 days) and your lead time (4 days): the top-up must be ordered by day 8. Real usage is known after three production days, on day 5. Slack = 8 − 5 = 3 days.

What must not be skipped: the lot check on the staged top-up (three calendar days, built into the order-by day), the measurement itself (a per-batch log from day 3, as in the post on tracking consumption after every batch), and a confirmed dispatch date before day 8. If any of those three is missing, slack is effectively zero and the answer becomes "buy it all". Reorder timing across a much longer contract, with several reorders per material, is a different calculation, covered in the post on reordering during a multi-week 10,000-candle contract; reserving everything for a confirmed order and the cash plan behind it is the post on reserving all materials before batch one.

Commercial protection (practical judgement, not legal advice): the materials you buy in full on day 0 (both oils especially) are the ones the advance should cover, because a one-off scent is the part you cannot easily reuse if the client cancels. The staged wax is standard stock either way. Put quantities, the approved sample, the advance and cancellation terms in a written order before you buy; the question of how much advance is in the post on how much advance to collect.

The four lines and how each is bought

Chosen on page statements, price and stock on 7 October 2026. Each card says whether its line is staged or bought in full in the worked decision, and why the price does or does not matter.

The honest summary: at CSI's prices, staging versus buying it all is not a price decision for these lines. Buy what would change the candle in full, stage what you can measure and check in time, and keep the top-up to the measured number.

Frequently asked questions