Line capacity planning for contract manufacturers
Nameplate speed is not capacity. How to work out the hours you can genuinely sell, and why the number you quote should be lower than the one on the machine.
Capacity planning goes wrong in the same place at almost every site: someone multiplies the line’s rated speed by the hours in a shift and treats the result as sellable. A line rated at 12,000 units an hour does not produce 96,000 in an eight-hour shift, and quoting as though it does is how you end up running weekends for free.
What you can actually sell is nameplate speed minus changeover, minus startup and shutdown, minus planned maintenance, minus the stoppages that happen every week whether or not anyone plans for them. On most lines that lands somewhere between 55 and 75 per cent of theoretical — and the gap is not waste, it is the real shape of the operation.
The number worth managing is not utilisation. A line at 95 per cent utilisation has no slack, which means the first late delivery cascades into every booking behind it. Somewhere around 80 to 85 per cent is where most sites find they can absorb a bad week without ringing four brands to move dates.
What to actually do
- Measure availability before you sell itTake a month of actual production hours against scheduled hours. The ratio is your real availability, and it is almost never what the sales conversation assumes.
- Count changeover as sold time, not lost timeIt is hours the line cannot do anything else. If it is not in the quote it comes out of your margin.
- Sequence by allergen and intensity, not by who asked firstRunning low-allergen to high across a week, and citrus last, can recover more hours than any speed improvement you could buy.
- Leave deliberate slackBooking to 95% means a single late ingredient delivery moves four brands. Around 80–85% is what most sites find absorbs a normal bad week.
- Publish availability rather than answering emails about itEvery "when could you fit us in" email is capacity spent on admin. A calendar a brand can see removes the question.
NextBatch gives you one calendar across every brand you make for, with your changeover rules and tank availability applied, so what a brand can book is only ever a slot that can physically run. It is free for manufacturers, permanently.