Should I plan a Saturday or push for better uptime?

Look at uptime needed first. If your better weeks have reached it, fixing the top downtime causes may close the gap; if not, schedule the extra day that production days needed reports.

Can overtime cover the gap instead of a Saturday?

Yes, when the hours fit your crews. Divide the shortfall by good units per production day, then multiply by planned hours per day. At the defaults, 1,338 ÷ 4,532 × 15 is about 4.4 hours across the week.

Which uptime should I use for a weekly plan?

Use run time ÷ planned production time over several recent weeks, not your best week. A weekly figure already carries restarts after weekend shutdowns and the usual changeovers.

How do I enter a week with a short Friday?

Enter the week's average planned production time per day: total the planned hours across all production days and divide by the number of days. Gross and good weekly capacity then come out exact.

Conveyors calculator

Weekly Capacity Calculator

See whether a week's schedule makes weekly demand, and how many production days it takes if not. You need line rate, planned production time per day, production days, measured uptime, yield and weekly demand.

What this calculator does

Good units a line makes in a week from line rate, hours, days, uptime and yield, against weekly demand.

Formula used

Gross weekly capacity = line rate × planned production time per day × production days per week
Good weekly capacity = gross × uptime % ÷ 100 × first-pass yield % ÷ 100
Good units per production day = good weekly capacity ÷ production days per week
Production days needed = CEILING(weekly demand ÷ good units per production day)
Uptime needed = weekly demand ÷ (gross × yield % ÷ 100) × 100

Inputs explained

Line Rate: Bottleneck units per running hour: total count ÷ run time.
Planned Production Time per Day: Hours of all shifts in a day, minus breaks and meals.
Production Days per Week: Days the line is scheduled to run, not calendar days.
Uptime: Run time ÷ planned production time from downtime logs, changeovers included.
First-Pass Yield: Units good the first time ÷ total count, from inspection records.
Weekly Demand: Good units per week that orders or the schedule require.

How to use the result

Best suited to deciding whether the week needs a Saturday, checking the order book against line capacity.
Uses the average uptime of recent weeks; a long breakdown or a slow restart can pull one week below it. Assumes the bottleneck is never starved or blocked beyond what the uptime record shows.

Current U.S. benchmarks

The U.S. has 21,668 machinery manufacturing establishments employing about 1,086,146 workers (Census County Business Patterns, 2023).

Common questions

Should I plan a Saturday or push for better uptime? Look at uptime needed first. If your better weeks have reached it, fixing the top downtime causes may close the gap; if not, schedule the extra day that production days needed reports.
Can overtime cover the gap instead of a Saturday? Yes, when the hours fit your crews. Divide the shortfall by good units per production day, then multiply by planned hours per day. At the defaults, 1,338 ÷ 4,532 × 15 is about 4.4 hours across the week.
Which uptime should I use for a weekly plan? Use run time ÷ planned production time over several recent weeks, not your best week. A weekly figure already carries restarts after weekend shutdowns and the usual changeovers.
How do I enter a week with a short Friday? Enter the week's average planned production time per day: total the planned hours across all production days and divide by the number of days. Gross and good weekly capacity then come out exact.

Last reviewed 2026-10-01.