Role
Production capacity planning
What do you not know about your capacity until you take an order you should not have taken? The question about capacity is usually asked in sales, and the answer has to be ready beforehand.
Intro call
Four questions we would start with
What do you not know about available capacity until you set plan against delivery?
Most often that paper capacity and real capacity are two different numbers - and that the difference is usually repeatable rather than random.
When is the decision to take an order with a tight date made?
If it is in a sales conversation, with no check of the load, then capacity planning describes the past rather than supporting a decision.
How many people does the question "can we get this done by the end of the quarter" touch?
Usually four or five, each with a different part of the picture, and none with the whole.
How long does it take to answer sales about a date?
If it is two days, some enquiries are lost before the answer arrives. If it is half an hour, the answer is sometimes based on an impression.
We take over calculating the scenarios, you keep the judgement of risk
Assembling the picture of capacity, recalculating the load, preparing variants and pointing out bottlenecks can be taken off the desk. Judging whether the risk is acceptable stays with a person.
- Capacity is calculated from delivery, not only from the standard. - The difference between the two is measured and enters the plan as a figure rather than as a margin drawn from experience.
- The answer to sales has a basis. - An enquiry about a date is calculated against the current load, and the result is an indication - a person confirms it.
- A bottleneck is visible before it blocks. - A resource overloaded in the fourth week is visible in the first, while a decision still changes something.
Scope
What can be taken off capacity planning
Nineteen example tasks. Each one has a human approval point. Below is a selection, and the scope we fit to your resource structure.
The picture of available capacity
- Nominal capacity by resource
- Comparing nominal capacity with actual delivery
- Accounting for planned shutdowns and holidays
- Updating the picture of capacity after every change in the machine park
Sales enquiries about dates
- Calculating an enquiry against the current load
- Pointing out the earliest realistic date (confirmation: the planner)
- A signal that a date would require overtime or subcontracting
- A register of promised dates with the basis of the calculation
Load scenarios
- The load if every enquiry in progress is accepted
- The load under an optimistic and a cautious scenario
- The effect of moving a large order by a week
- The variants compared in one summary (choice: the planner)
Bottlenecks
- Pointing out the resource with the highest load over the horizon
- A signal when a resource exceeds availability in any week
- How often a given resource has been the bottleneck
- Judging the effect of adding a shift or a machine (decision: the planner)
Investment decisions
- The load over a one-year horizon
- The figures for an investment case
- Comparing an investment variant with a subcontracting variant (recommendation: the planner)
A day's work
Today
- You assemble the picture of capacity in a spreadsheet once a month, by hand
- You calculate capacity from the standards, although you know delivery departs from them
- You answer sales about a date two days later or from feel
- An alternative scenario means recalculating everything from scratch
- You recognise a bottleneck once it is already blocking production
- You justify an investment case with a description rather than with figures
With AI assistance
- The picture of capacity is current rather than reconstructed once a month
- Capacity is calculated from delivery, with the difference against the standard quantified
- You have the answer to a date enquiry the same day, with its basis
- The load variants stand side by side in one summary
- You see a resource overloaded in the fourth week in the first
- The investment case rests on the yearly load rather than on an impression
- Promised dates you can rely on
fewer dates promised and missed
the answer has a calculated basis rather than a feel
- Use of capacity
fewer idle resources next to overloaded ones
the load is visible by resource, not as a total
- Recognising a capacity limit
a bottleneck is a subject for a decision rather than a breakdown
exceeding availability is flagged ahead of time
- A basis for an investment decision
the case rests on the load over the horizon
the yearly summary comes from load data rather than from a collection round the departments
We start with the difference between paper and real capacity, because everything else depends on it.
- Step 1
We measure real capacity
Comparing standards with delivery by resource. The result usually changes the way you talk about capacity.
- Step 2
The current picture of load
Orders in progress and confirmed against available capacity, refreshed without manual work.
- Step 3
Answers to date enquiries
The enquiry calculated against the load, with the indication confirmed by the planner.
- Step 4
Scenarios and the yearly horizon
Load variants and material for investment decisions. Last, because it needs a reliable basis from step 1.
Common questions
Questions that come up at the first meeting
How is this different from a production planner?
The horizon and the moment. Capacity planning answers the question before an order is taken: can we do it at all, over weeks and months. The production planner sequences what has already been taken, over days. If those two roles are one person in your company, it usually shows in the short horizon eating the long one - the current week is always more urgent.
What will this picture not show?
It will not show capacity you have never measured - for example the reserve that overtime gives, if you have never used it. That stays a human judgement and should enter a scenario as an assumption, not as data.
Will this role survive if the load calculates itself?
The load calculates itself, but the answer to "can we do it" is never only arithmetic - it contains a judgement of how much can be squeezed out and what must not be promised. A person makes that judgement and bears the consequences. What changes is that they make it on the day of the enquiry rather than after two days of calculating.
Does this fall under the AI Act?
Capacity planning is not a high-risk use. The line concerns data about people's availability: we work at the level of competences and the staffing of positions, without building productivity profiles of individual employees.
Still have a question that is not here? Book a call
Next step
By how much does your real capacity differ from the paper one?
We will show you what capacity planning based on delivery looks like, where the answer to a date enquiry has a calculated basis.