Shop Resource Capacity and Load Calculator for Infor VISUAL
Load against capacity is the first check a scheduler makes before promising dates. This calculator turns shift pattern, efficiency and downtime into available standard hours and compares them with the load from your work orders.
Your numbers
Standard hours earned divided by clock hours worked.
Sum of setup plus run standard hours from released and planned orders.
Your results
A planning aid only. Real capacity depends on routing mix, tooling, labor skills and bottleneck sequencing.
Load percentage vs efficiency
Sweeps Efficiency from 50 to 100, holding your other inputs fixed.
Live load versus capacity from your ERP
Optional: we can show weekly load by work center from your order data on your own network.
Optional. The tool and every export work without this. No spam.
How to use it
Enter the number of machines, shifts, shift length and days worked. Enter efficiency and planned downtime. Then enter the load hours for the week, taken from your scheduling report or work order operations as setup plus run standard hours. The result shows available hours, load percent, overload and how many resources would carry the plan. Run it for the constraint work center first.
- Use standard hours, not clock hours, for load
- Apply efficiency only once
- Test one-shift and two-shift scenarios
- Check each week of the horizon, not just the average
The formula behind it
Gross hours are resources times shifts times hours per shift times days. Available standard hours multiply that by efficiency and by one minus planned downtime. Load percent is load hours divided by available hours. Resources needed is load divided by the available hours of a single resource, rounded up. If efficiency is the earned-hours ratio, then load measured in standard hours compares correctly with the efficiency-adjusted capacity.
Reading the result
Loads above 100% mean finite scheduling will push orders out, or overtime and outsourcing are needed. Between about 85% and 95% the shop is tight, and any breakdown creates late orders because queues grow quickly at high utilization. The chart shows how sensitive load is to efficiency: a few points lost can tip a stable week into overload. Use it to decide whether to chase efficiency, add a shift or move work.
Common mistakes
A common mistake is double counting efficiency, once in the standards and again in the capacity. Another is using nameplate hours and ignoring breaks, changeovers and maintenance. Planners also average load across weeks and miss peaks that cause late orders. Finally, remember the constraint can move: after you fix one overloaded center the next one becomes the limit, so repeat the check on the downstream operations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What efficiency should I enter?
Use measured efficiency from recent history, earned standard hours divided by clock hours. If you lack data, begin with 75% to 85% for discrete machining and adjust once you have real numbers.
Is load percent the same as utilization?
Not quite. Load compares planned standard hours with capacity. Utilization is how much of the time the machine was actually running. They are related but come from different data.
How do I handle several resources with different rates?
Run the calculator per resource group, or use the average efficiency as an approximation. For mixed routings, a detailed finite schedule is more reliable than a single ratio.
What load is too high?
Anything over 100% cannot be delivered in the period. Above roughly 90% queue times rise sharply, so many planners treat that as the practical ceiling for a constraint work center.
If you want capacity and load reported automatically from live orders in your ERP, we can build that view without changing the scheduling setup.
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