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Capacity is unclear

Understand available capacity before promising new work.

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01 · What is usually happening?

Sales asks whether the factory can take another order, and the answer is a guess. Nobody has a number for how many hours each machine has free, so the plant is either over-promised or under-used.

Both mistakes cost money, and neither shows until the month is over.

The question people usually ask“Can we take this order?”
The more useful question“How many hours does each machine or cell have free, and for which jobs?”
02 · Common causes
  1. 01Standard times for jobs are not recorded
  2. 02Machine hours available are not tracked
  3. 03Breakdowns and changeovers are not counted in
  4. 04The bottleneck machine is not identified
  5. 05Capacity is judged by the planner's memory
  6. 06Actual hours are not compared with the estimate
03 · What to check now0 of 6 checked
Open Late Order Root Cause Check →Send checklist on WhatsApp
04 · What good looks like
  1. 01The limiting machine is known and watched.
  2. 02Standard times exist for the common jobs.
  3. 03Free hours are visible per week.
  4. 04Sales gets an answer the same day.
  5. 05Estimates are corrected from actual hours.
05 · Where this connects

This rarely stays in one department

What it can lead to: Orders are taken that cannot be made, or capacity sits idle.

Start from a problem
Work flows left to right, top to bottomKEYMost important for manufacturing

These support every part of the business

Problem

Capacity is unclear

Usually connected to

How it spreads

  1. Production

What it can lead to: Orders are taken that cannot be made, or capacity sits idle.

Read the guide →Late Order Root Cause Check
lamplamp could work out free hours on the limiting machine each week.
06 · Related processesProduction plan to output
07 · Useful toolsDiagnosticLate Order Root Cause CheckChecklistDaily Production Review
Related guidesHow to identify production bottlenecks
08 · lamp

lamp could keep this moving

lamp is not available yet. These are things it is being built to do.

See how lamp worksJoin the waitlist
  • lamp could work out free hours on the limiting machine each week.
  • lamp could answer a capacity question for a new order.
  • lamp could learn standard times from actual job hours.
  • lamp could warn when the plan asks for more than the machine has.
Does your business handle this differently?Tell us what we have missed: a cause, a check, or a better way of handling it.
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