Production capacity is the most you can make in a given time with the equipment, space and people you have. To calculate it, work out how many units each station (slicer, fryer, oven, packing table) can turn out in an hour, find the slowest one, because that's the bottleneck and it sets the pace for everything, then multiply its rate by the hours it runs and by a realistic efficiency for heat-up, cleaning and changeovers. Compare that with your orders and you have your utilization: how full you are. Below is the formula, a small kitchen worked through station by station, what doubling the orders does, and a free calculator.
The short version
- Capacity = bottleneck's units an hour × hours it runs × efficiency.
- Units an hour, for each station = units per batch ÷ minutes per batch × 60.
- The bottleneck is the slowest station. Speeding up anything else changes nothing.
- Efficiency covers heat-up, cleaning and changeovers; 80% to 85% is a sensible start.
- Utilization = what you make ÷ capacity. Near 100% means no room for a bad day.
- When orders outgrow it: more hours, a second machine at the bottleneck, or a co-packer.
- TaroStack plans each week against your work centers' real hours. More below.
The formula
Units an hour (per station) = units per batch ÷ minutes per batch × 60
Capacity per week = bottleneck's units an hour × hours it runs × efficiency
Utilization = units made (or ordered) ÷ capacity
The units have to be the same at every station, so convert to finished units. If a station works in kilos of raw ingredient, multiply by how many finished units a kilo becomes.
A small kitchen, station by station
Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, makes 5 oz bags of taro chips. A kilo of raw taro fries down to 0.325 kg of chips, and a bag holds 0.142 kg, so a kilo of raw taro makes 2.289 bags.
| Station | Per batch | Minutes per batch | Bags an hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Slicing | 15 kg taro (34.3 bags) | 15 | 137.3 |
| Frying | 5 kg taro (11.4 bags) | 15 | 45.8 |
| Seasoning and cooling | 7.5 kg chips (52.8 bags) | 30 | 105.6 |
| Bagging, 2 people | 100 bags | 60 | 100.0 |
The fryer is the bottleneck at 45.8 bags an hour. The slicer could feed three fryers, and the baggers spend half their time waiting.
Fryer runs 3 days × 6 hours = 18 hours a week
Efficiency 85% (heat-up, oil changes, cleaning)
Capacity 45.8 × 18 × 0.85 = 700 bags a week
Orders 700 bags a week
Utilization 700 ÷ 700 = 100%
That's a kitchen with no slack at all. One slow Tuesday, a fryer element, or a sick day, and an order goes out short. My suggestion is to plan for no more than about 85%, which here is about 600 bags a week, and treat anything above it as borrowed time.
What doubling the orders does
A grocer wants another 700 bags a week. Three ways to get to 1,400:
| Option | Capacity a week | What limits it next |
|---|---|---|
| Fry 5 days instead of 3 | 1,168 | The fryer, which never rests; not enough |
| A second fryer, same 3 days | 1,401 | Bagging at 100 an hour; enough, barely |
| A co-packer makes the grocer's 700 | 700 here | Their minimums and price |
Look at the second row closely: doubling the bottleneck doesn't double capacity forever, because the next-slowest station is right behind it. With two fryers, bagging at 100 an hour is the new limit, and a third person bagging is the next thing to buy. That chain is why it's worth listing every station, not only the obvious one. When a co-packer makes sense instead, see what is a co-packer.
Bottlenecks in other kinds of business
| Business | The usual bottleneck | Measure it in |
|---|---|---|
| Bakery | Oven decks, or proofing space | Loaves per bake × bakes per shift |
| Coffee roaster | Roaster batch size and cycle time | Kilos roasted an hour |
| Soap maker | Curing racks: bars sit for weeks | Bars the racks hold ÷ weeks of cure |
| Candle maker | Cooling and curing space | Candles per tray × trays |
| Jam or sauce maker | Kettle size and kitchen hours | Jars per batch × batches per slot |
For soap and anything else that cures, capacity is space over time, not machine speed: 1,200 bars of rack space with a six-week cure is 200 bars a week, however fast you pour.
Get the calculator
Download the production capacity calculator. List each station with its batch size, yield and minutes; it works out every station's rate, names the bottleneck, and shows a week's capacity against your demand, with utilization above 85% in red. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
The capacity number feeds straight into a weekly plan, covered in how to prepare a production plan and laid out day by day in a production schedule example.
Where this stops working
The calculation is right on the day you do it. Then the yield drifts (a new taro supplier fries down to 0.30, not 0.325), a batch takes 18 minutes because the oil is old, a second product starts sharing the fryer, and the weekly plan in the spreadsheet still assumes 45.8 bags an hour. Orders get promised against capacity that isn't there, and the week ends with a Saturday shift nobody planned.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps capacity in the plan, not in a spreadsheet beside it.
Work centers have real hours. Each station, like the fryer or the oven, is a work center with the hours it's available, and recipes say how long their batches take there. Planning turns your orders and your sales history into what to make and when, and checks it against those hours, so a week's plan doesn't promise more fryer time than you have. When it can't fit, it says so in plain words, with what will run short.
The yield is measured, not assumed. Every batch you record notes what went in and what came out good, so the real yield is in your own history. Recipe truth checks whether a recipe yields what it claims, and once a few batches have been timed, how long a batch really takes against the hours the recipe books. So the day the new taro starts frying down to 0.30, or old oil stretches a batch to 18 minutes, it shows up as a number rather than a mystery shortfall.
The week is laid out. A week's schedule per site shows what's being made when, with the day's picking reachable from it, and production orders carry each batch from plan to record. Planning also knows shelf life, and flags a batch made too early for a customer's minimum days-left before it's made. Every suggestion is a draft you approve.
And ingredients are part of capacity. "What could I make right now" answers from what's on your shelves, and the reorder list shows each ingredient in days of cover, so the fryer isn't waiting on taro that wasn't ordered.
| The question | On a spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| How many bags can we make this week? | A capacity sum from last spring | The plan, against each work center's hours |
| Is the yield still 0.325? | Nobody knows | Every batch's actual yield, and recipe truth |
| Will this week fit? | Find out on Saturday | Planning says what won't fit, in plain words |
| Do we have the taro? | Check the walk-in | What could I make right now; days of cover |
Planning, work centers, recipes and batches are on Standard at $99 a month; stock, lots and the reorder list are on every plan, from $49. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card, and everything is included during the trial. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.