Quantifying the value of early detection: how we built the Eyer ROI calculator

Early detection is valuable. Most industrial operations can say that. Quantifying exactly how valuable — in currency, per year, for a specific operation — is harder than it sounds. Here is the framework behind roi.eyer.ai and how to use it.

The problem with standard ROI models for operational intelligence

Standard ROI models for predictive or condition-based monitoring tend to use industry-average statistics: average unplanned downtime as a percentage of operating time, average cost per hour of downtime by sector, average maintenance cost reduction from moving from reactive to predictive schedules.

These numbers exist and they are large. But they are not your numbers. An operation with dense sensor coverage in a high-consequence sector will capture a very different value from early detection than one with sparse sensors in a lower-margin sector. Applying an industry average obscures this variation and produces a number that nobody in your organisation will trust.

What the Eyer ROI calculator actually models

The Eyer ROI calculator at roi.eyer.ai takes operation-specific inputs: the number of monitored assets, the average cost per hour of unplanned downtime, the current alarm volume and the estimated false-positive rate, the typical early detection window (based on the historical data profile), and the proportion of failure events that historical analysis suggests would have been detectable earlier.

From these inputs, the calculator derives three value components: avoided downtime value (the revenue and cost protection from catching failures earlier), alarm management value (the productivity and decision quality improvement from reducing false-positive alarm volume), and knowledge capture value (the operational risk reduction from encoding institutional knowledge in the operational fingerprint rather than leaving it in retiring operators' heads).

What we do not include

We do not include unsubstantiated multipliers or generic 'productivity improvement' factors. We do not claim a 3:1 ROI or 85% noise reduction — these are figures that appear in vendor marketing and cannot be substantiated for a specific operation without running the analysis.

What we can say, and what the calculator reflects: the salmon producer case detected a water chemistry anomaly two to three hours before operational impact. The value of that window, for that operation, is specific and calculable — it depends on the cost of the outcome that the window enables the operator to prevent. That cost is what the calculator asks you to input, because you know it and we do not.

Using the calculator as a starting point

The ROI calculator at roi.eyer.ai is a starting point for a business case conversation, not a final number. The inputs are estimates, and the outputs are sensitive to those estimates in ways that are visible in the calculator's sensitivity analysis.

The most reliable way to build a specific business case for your operation is to run Eyer on your historical data and see what it actually finds. The Fast Forward delivers a POV report in one week that shows specific anomaly patterns, their timing relative to operational impact, and the early detection windows that existed in your data. That is the evidence base from which a credible business case is built.