Capacity Planning Tools
What is Capacity Planning?
Capacity planning is the process of figuring out how much your production lines in your factory can produce in a given period of time. It is used to match production capacity with sales demand. Capacity planning is also used to forecast resource requirements, such as inventory, equipment, manpower, and capital investments needed to meet the future demands of the products.
An important type of capacity planning is rough-cut capacity planning (RCCP), which used to calculate the total capacity available in your production environment and see if enough capacity is available to fulfill the master production schedule.
Capacity planning and project planning are also closely tied together, since capacity planning is an important part of effective scheduling, ensuring that teams are not overloaded and the work is properly distributed among them.
What Tools are Used for Capacity Planning?
There are several tools and methods that go into effective capacity planning, with each one providing a valuable service. Here are some of the most commonly used;
Waiting Line Models
Essentially, WLM is a way of predicting bottlenecks in your project. A literal example of WLM would be analyzing the layout of a queue for an information kiosk or ticket counter, factoring in the number of entrances, clerks, and lines that can be formed. Complex WLM analysis requires computer simulation, which can be handled by WLM software.
Decision Trees
Decision trees allow you to layout as many potentialities as you can think of so that you can explore different courses of action and their consequences. This tool is especially useful when considering changes to the structure of your team to add capacity.
Supply Chain Management
For projects that rely on external materials and products, supply chain management is an essential tool in the smooth running of the project. Identifying issues before they have the chance to grind the project to a halt, improving efficiency, and reducing costs are just some advantages of supply chain management.
Why is Capacity Planning Necessary
Whether tendering for a new contract, quoting a one-off job, or as part of an ongoing project, you will need to know your capacity to know whether your organization can handle the workload. If the capacity required for a potential contract is five times what you can currently handle, you might be looking at passing on the contract. Alternatively, if you are quoting a one-off job that is a little beyond your capacity, you could factor in the cost of increasing your capacity to meet the demands of the project in your quote.
How Do You Do Capacity Planning?
Knowing what tools are used and having those tools is only part of the battle; you need to use them effectively. Thoroughly analyze your team, supply chains, and systems for bottlenecks and areas where workloads can be better distributed. Use decision trees to plan a course of action that accounts for high-probability eventualities. Be ruthless if waiting line models identify problem areas.
Capacity planning is vital to a successful project, but it is only effective when used correctly.
