Short answer
The best-documented case is textile dyeing. A project in Bangladeshi dyehouses found about 20% of fabric being re-shaded and about 10% re-dyed, and costed that at US$90,946 a year for a factory dyeing a million kilograms, on 2005 costs. An American cotton-industry bulletin repeats a rule of thumb that each correction adds up to 30% to the cost of a dyeing. For printing and car painting the routes by which an off-colour batch becomes waste are documented, but no first-run rate or rework cost has been published.
Dyeing is the one industry where the cost of missing a colour has been written down in public. A booklet produced for small and medium dyehouses in Bangladesh by a research project of the Stockholm Environment Institute, the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies and the University of Leeds reports that errors in recipes, or recipes not followed on the factory floor, could leave around 20% of fabric to be re-shaded and around 10% to be re-bleached and re-dyed. It then works an example from dyeing costs the factories supplied: a factory dyeing 1,000,000 kg a year at those rates incurs 5,796,000 taka, or US$90,946, of avoidable cost annually in extra dye, chemicals, energy and labour. The booklet adds that time spent re-dyeing is time not spent on other orders, and tells each factory to put in its own figures. The costs are from 2005 and the sample size is not given.
Cotton Incorporated's technical bulletin on matching laboratory dyeings to production states that 'it has been reported' that each colour correction, or 'add', can raise dyeing costs by as much as 30%, and that a lot which has to be stripped and redyed can cost an additional 170% compared with a normal dyeing. No study is named, so the figures are best read as a trade rule of thumb from around 2005, not a measurement. The same bulletin describes something more telling: dyers traditionally subtract 10–15% from the laboratory recipe before the first production lot, because laboratory and bulk dyeings agree poorly. Starting light and adding dye is safer than overshooting, since a shade that is too deep can only be stripped. A plant that works this way has made the correction step part of the normal process, and pays for it on every lot.
Printing has its own version. The EU reference document for solvent-using industries lists, among the sources of ink waste in packaging printing, the case where mixing gives the wrong colour: the mistake is corrected by adding more ink, so more is prepared than the job needs, and the surplus is disposed of as waste or distilled for its solvent. It sets against that the effect of computer-controlled mixing, which doses the exact quantity at the right colour so that no correction is needed, and says the amount of waste ink may be reduced by 75% depending on how often inks are mixed. That is a statement of what the technique can achieve, not an average across plants. The same section notes that returned inks can be sorted by approximate colour and used as ingredients for new mixes, which is rework turned into a routine.
For vehicle painting the reference document describes the route but not the rate. Bodies are inspected in a finish zone; small defects are repaired in booths with repair paint systems, and a body with larger defects is sanded, masked and put back through the whole topcoat line for a second run. The finishes with the thickest films leave least scope for repair, which is why the document lists scrappage among the consequences of four-coat pearls. For plastics, one laboratory study measured what a colour change throws away: on a two-nozzle hot-runner mould, going from blue to uncoloured ABS took 148 cycles to reach 99% clean when the injection unit and hot runner were purged together, every one of them an off-colour part. Purging the injection unit first cut the hot-runner stage to 34 cycles.
No public source gives a first-run rate, a share of bodies resprayed or a cost of rework for a named car plant, and none gives a rejected-batch rate for paint, ink or plastics colour compounding. Equipment and software suppliers publish improvement claims for their own products, and those are not used here. What the documents do support is the mechanism common to all four industries. An off-colour batch is rarely scrapped outright; it is corrected, and the correction repeats part of the process, makes surplus material and occupies the machine. The saving from getting the colour right first time is therefore mostly time and capacity, which is harder to see in accounts than wasted material. The colour control section covers the other half of the question: how a batch is judged, and how to trace a miss to recipe, process or measurement.
| What it concerns | Colour or finish factor | Published figure | Where and when | Kind of evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Batch dyeing of cotton fabric | A colour correction (an 'add') to bring a lot on shade | up to 30 % added to dyeing cost per correction | Not stated (United States publisher); Bulletin dated 2005 | Documented industry practice |
| Batch dyeing of cotton fabric | A lot stripped of dye and dyed again | 170 % additional cost compared with a normal dyeing | Not stated (United States publisher); Bulletin dated 2005 | Documented industry practice |
| Scaling a laboratory dye recipe to a production lot | Poor agreement between laboratory and bulk dyeing | 10 to 15 % subtracted from the laboratory recipe | Not stated (United States publisher); Bulletin dated 2005 | Documented industry practice |
| Winch dyeing of knit fabric in small and medium factories | Fabric not on shade first time | about 20 % of fabric re-shaded | Bangladesh; 2005 | Measured cost |
| Winch dyeing of knit fabric in small and medium factories | Re-shading a fifth and re-dyeing a tenth of output | 90,946 US dollars a year for a factory dyeing 1,000,000 kg | Bangladesh; 2005 | Measured cost |
| Ink preparation in a printing plant | A colour mixed by hand and corrected until it matches | up to 75 % reduction in waste ink | European Union; Information exchange to 2018; published 2020 | Documented industry practice |
| Ink mixing for packaging printing | A mix that comes out the wrong colour | No figure published | European Union; Information exchange to 2018; published 2020 | Documented industry practice |
| Finish and repair zone of a vehicle paint shop | Bodies with larger paint defects | No figure published | European Union; Information exchange to 2018; published 2020 | Documented industry practice |
| High-pearlescent finishes on vehicle bodies | The extra film thickness of three- and four-coat colours | No figure published | European Union; Information exchange to 2018; published 2020 | Documented industry practice |
| Colour changeover in a hot-runner injection mould | Parts moulded while the old colour is still bleeding through | 148 cycles to 99% clean with injection unit and hot runner purged together | Laboratory, Budapest; 2022 | Measured cost |
| What it concerns | How the source got it | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Batch dyeing of cotton fabric | An industry research body's technical bulletin, which introduces the figure with 'it has been reported' | medium |
| Batch dyeing of cotton fabric | An industry research body's technical bulletin, which introduces the figure with 'it has been reported' | medium |
| Scaling a laboratory dye recipe to a production lot | An industry research body's description of common dyehouse practice | medium |
| Winch dyeing of knit fabric in small and medium factories | Factory research by a university and research-institute project funded by the UK's development ministry | medium |
| Winch dyeing of knit fabric in small and medium factories | Worked example built from dyeing costs supplied by Bangladeshi factories (5,796,000 taka) | medium |
| Ink preparation in a printing plant | EU reference document compiled from an exchange of information between member states, industry and the Commission | medium |
| Ink mixing for packaging printing | EU reference document compiled from an exchange of information between member states, industry and the Commission | high |
| Finish and repair zone of a vehicle paint shop | EU reference document compiled from an exchange of information between member states, industry and the Commission | high |
| High-pearlescent finishes on vehicle bodies | Car-industry comment recorded by the technical working group | medium |
| Colour changeover in a hot-runner injection mould | Fitted saturation curve to image-analysis measurements of each moulded part | medium |
Why: The figure is a second-hand rule of thumb for cotton dyeing, hedged as 'as much as' by its own source.
Fix: Give it as a reported upper figure for batch dyeing around 2005, and use the plant's own cost per lot for any decision.
Why: Most off-shade batches are corrected, so the loss is machine time, energy and delayed orders.
Fix: Record corrections and re-runs per lot as well as rejects, and cost the hours.
Why: Product literature reports best cases for one system.
Fix: Treat such figures as claims, and look for the method and the baseline before relying on them.
Each statement is labelled by kind — established fact, a standard’s requirement, observed market data, a convention, or Colourwise’s own interpretation or analysis — with the strength of the evidence behind it.
Observed market dataModerate evidence· Bangladesh· 2005
Research in Bangladeshi dyehouses suggested about 20% of fabric was re-shaded and about 10% re-bleached and re-dyed, and a worked example from factory costs put the loss at US$90,946 a year for a factory dyeing 1,000,000 kg.
Measured: Small and medium winch-dyeing factories studied by the project. Method: Factory research and a worked cost example using dyeing costs supplied by factories
Caveat: Sample size is not stated, the rates are described as what research 'suggests', and costs are at 2005 levels for one scale of factory.
Source: Alternative Production and Cost Savings in Winch-Dyeing
ConventionLimited evidence
Cotton Incorporated's technical bulletin reports, without naming a study, that each colour correction can increase dyeing costs by as much as 30% and that stripping and redyeing can cost an additional 170%.
Caveat: Introduced by the bulletin with 'it has been reported'; a trade rule of thumb from about 2005, with no geography, dye class or sample.
Source: Technical Bulletin ISP 1014: Lab-to-Plant Correlation in Dyeing
FactModerate evidence
The EU reference document states that in printing, computer-controlled ink mixing may reduce waste ink by 75%, because exact dosing removes the need for colour corrections that leave surplus ink.
Caveat: The document says the reduction depends on how often inks are mixed and in what amounts; an achievable benefit, not a measured average.
FactModerate evidence
In a laboratory study, changing from blue to uncoloured ABS on a two-nozzle hot-runner injection mould took 148 cycles to reach 99% clean when the injection unit and hot runner were purged together.
Caveat: One machine, mould, polymer and colour pair; cleanliness was judged by image analysis, not by a customer's tolerance.
Source: Developing a method for evaluating color changeover in a hot-runner multi-cavity injection mold
Colourwise interpretationLimited evidence
Across dyeing, printing, painting and moulding, the documented cost of a colour miss is mainly repeated processing and occupied capacity, not scrapped material.
Based on: Colourwise's reading of the dyehouse booklet's cost breakdown, the EU reference document's account of ink correction and paint-shop second runs, and the moulding study.
Caveat: No source compares the two kinds of cost directly, and no first-run or rejection rate is published for paint, ink or plastics.
Reviewed 6 October 2026. Colourwise summarises its sources in its own words and does not reproduce standards text or proprietary colour data. Spotted an error? Tell us.