Production Capacity Planner
Turn cycle time and available time into daily capacity, the takt time demand requires, and the resulting gap.
Sensitivity to demand
| Scenario | Demand | Capacity gap |
|---|---|---|
| Demand -20% | 160/day | -80/day |
| Demand -10% | 180/day | -60/day |
| Base case | 200/day | -40/day |
| Demand +10% | 220/day | -20/day |
| Demand +20% | 240/day | 0/day |
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Based on your results, these related decisions are available.
How this works
A process's capacity is available time divided by cycle time: how many units it can make. Takt time is available time divided by demand: how fast it needs to run to exactly match demand. Comparing cycle time to takt time expresses the same gap as a pace rather than a raw unit count, which is often more actionable on the shop floor, since "you're running 25% slower than you need to" reads more directly than a units-per-day delta.
A capacity number that looks adequate next to demand can still hide a pace problem: this engine reports both the unit-count gap and the pace ratio so neither view is missed.
Key terms
- Cycle time: minutes to make one unit at this process.
- Available time: total minutes per day the process runs.
- Capacity: units per day the process can produce (available time / cycle time).
- Takt time: the pace demand requires, minutes per unit needed to exactly keep up (available time / demand).
Assumptions
- Cycle time is a steady-state average, not a distribution
- No changeover or setup time is modeled
- Single process, a multi-step line is Bottleneck Capacity Analyzer's job
Limitations
- Does not model multiple process steps in series
- Does not model variability or downtime within the available-time figure
- Does not account for changeover time between product variants
Sources
Takt time and cycle-time-vs-takt comparison follow Rother and Shook, Learning to See, standard lean manufacturing methodology, consistent with the capacity conversion already used in Bottleneck Capacity Analyzer.
Worked example
A process with a 2-minute cycle time and 480 minutes available per day has 240 units/day of capacity. Against 200 units/day of demand, that's 40 units/day to spare, and the takt time of 2.4 minutes/unit is slower than the process's actual 2-minute cycle time, confirming the spare capacity. Slow the cycle time to 2.5 minutes against 240 units/day of demand and capacity drops to 192, now 48 units/day short, and the takt time (2.0 minutes/unit) is faster than the process can actually run, which is the pace version of the same shortfall.
Common use cases
- Checking whether a single process can support a demand forecast
- Explaining a capacity shortfall as a pace problem rather than just a unit-count gap
- Sizing available time (shift length, days per week) needed to hit a demand target
- Feeding a capacity figure into Bottleneck Capacity Analyzer for a multi-step line
Frequently asked
- How is daily capacity derived from cycle time?
- Available time divided by cycle time gives units producible per day; comparing that to demand produces the capacity gap and the takt time demand actually requires.
- What does a negative capacity gap mean?
- It means demand exceeds what current cycle time and available time can produce, a real shortfall that needs either more available time, a faster cycle time, or reduced demand commitment.
- Does available time already account for downtime and breaks?
- Only if you enter it net of those; the calculation takes available time as given, so an optimistic entry that ignores real downtime will overstate capacity.
- How is this different from the takt time comparison?
- This engine starts from cycle time and available time to find capacity and the resulting takt time; the takt time vs cycle time engine instead checks each of four stations against a known takt time to find the constraining one.