Enter the total number of defects, the total number of units sampled, and total opportunities per unit into the calculator. The calculator will evaluate the defects per million opportunities (DPMO).
- PPM Calculator
- Cost of Goods Manufactured Calculator (COGM)
- Days In Inventory Calculator
- Manufacturing Overhead Calculator
- Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) Calculator
- Defect Rate Calculator
- Rejection Percentage Calculator
DPMO Formula
The following equation is used to calculate the defects per million opportunities of a manufactured good.
DPMO = 1000000 x D / (U x O)
- Where DPMO is the defects per million opportunities
- D is the number of defects
- U is the number of units
- O is the number of opportunities per unit.
In the case of the equation above equation, this is considering that there may be more than 1 opportunity for defect per manufactured good.
DPMO Definition
DPMO stands for defects per million opportunities. In manufacturing, it’s a measure of how many defects would occur in a lot of goods with 1 million opportunities. It’s important to understand that it’s 1 million opportunities and not 1 million units, although they could be equal. This is because units often have more than one point of failure or opportunity for failure.
DPMO Example
How to calculate DPMO?
- First, determine the total number of defects.
Measure the total number of defects in a sample of product.
- Next, determine the total number of units.
Measure the total number of units in the sample.
- Next, determine the total number of opportunities.
Determine the total number of opportunities for defects per unit.
- Finally, calculate the DPMO.
Using the formula, calculate the total defects per million opportunities.
FAQ
DPMO stands for defects per million opportunities. It’s a measure of how many defects a production of goods contains per million defect opportunities.

