Production planning
Check work center capacity
Compare the hours each work center offers with the hours its released work orders need over the next 7, 30 or 90 days, and spot overloaded centers early.
2 min readLast updated
In this article
Capacity planning answers one question: can the factory make what has been released in the time available? It compares, for each work center, the hours it can offer with the hours its scheduled operations need, so you can move dates or shift work before a center becomes a bottleneck.
Before you start
Each work center needs a realistic Efficiency. See Set up work centers.
Routings need setup and run times, because the load is calculated from them. See Create and approve a routing.
Steps
Open Manufacturing › Production Planning › Capacity Planning.
Choose the horizon: Next 7 days, Next 30 days or Next 90 days. The page shows the horizon in use.
Read one line per work center:
Capacity / hr: the output per hour recorded on the work center.
Available hours: eight working hours per day over the horizon, multiplied by the work center's efficiency.
Scheduled load (hrs): the hours needed by the unfinished operations of released and in-progress work orders whose planned dates fall in the horizon. For each operation this is the setup time plus the run time for the order's quantity.
Utilization: the load as a percentage of the available hours.
Overloaded appears when the utilization is above 100%. Bottleneck marks the centers you flagged as bottlenecks.
Act on the result
Overloaded center: move the planned dates of some work orders, split a plan into smaller batches, or route work to another center.
Low utilization: the center can take more work. Bring forward orders that use it.
Bottleneck flagged: watch it on the shop floor dashboard during the run.
Common questions
Why is a work center at zero? None of its operations belong to a released or in-progress order in the chosen horizon, or the routing times are zero.
Can I change the eight-hour day? No. The board always uses eight working hours per day, adjusted by each center's efficiency.
Who can see this page? Users with the capacity planning permission. Others see You do not have permission to view capacity planning.