How do you calculate crew utilization?

Divide the crew hours actually charged to productive work by the total crew hours available, then express it as a percentage. Eight charged hours out of 250 available is 3.2 percent utilization.

What is a good crew utilization for a relining team?

For a planned outage, well-run refractory crews run 80 to 90 percent utilization during the active window. The 95 percent target in this example is aggressive but appropriate for a tightly scheduled outage.

Why is the utilization so low in the example?

Only 8 of 250 available hours were charged, giving 3.2 percent and a 91.8-point gap to the 95 percent target. That pattern usually means the crew was on standby waiting for furnace cooldown, material delivery, or a permit.

What does the gap to target tell me?

The gap is the shortfall in percentage points between your target and actual utilization. Here it is 91.8 points, a clear signal that almost the entire available window went unused productively.

Is utilization the same as efficiency?

No. Utilization measures how much available time was charged to work; efficiency measures how much work got done per charged hour. A crew can be highly utilized but still inefficient if they are re-gunning failed patches.

Should idle standby hours count against utilization?

Yes, if the crew was on the clock. Standby waiting on cooldown is exactly the loss this metric is meant to expose so you can schedule crews to arrive when the furnace is ready.

Refractories, Furnace Linings & Foundry Consumables calculator

Crew Utilization Calculator

Crew Utilization measures how much of a refractory relining crew's available time is actually charged to productive lining work versus idle standby, waiting on furnace cooldown, or material delays. Refractory contractors and in-house maintenance managers watch it because relining crews are expensive and furnace outages are on a fixed clock. A low utilization number during a planned outage is a red flag that your crew is waiting rather than working, which stretches the outage and burns furnace availability. This calculator gives you the utilization rate and, critically, the gap in points to your target so you know how far off you are.

What this calculator does

Crew Utilization measures how much of a refractory relining crew's available time is actually charged to productive lining work versus idle standby, waiting on furnace cooldown, or material delays.
Use it when crew utilization in refractories, furnace linings and foundry consumables needs a clean rate and gap-to-target you can put on a tier board.
It computes the ratio of charged crew hours to total available crew hours as a percentage, and the point gap to your target utilization.

Formula used

Crew Utilization rate = affected amount ÷ total amount
Gap to target = target rate - calculated rate

Inputs explained

Relining crew hours actually charged:
Total crew hours available in window:
Target crew utilization:

How to use the result

Use it during and after a furnace relining outage to judge how effectively crew time was used, or to track a contractor's productivity week over week.
Utilization says nothing about work quality or whether the crew was staffed correctly; a crew can be 95 percent utilized and still miss the outage window if it was undersized.

Current U.S. benchmarks

As of May 2026, U.S. manufacturing runs at 75.6% of capacity (Federal Reserve via FRED), up 0.2 points from a year earlier. Enter your own plant's utilization; the national figure is a reference point for how loaded the industry is.
The producer price index for steel mill products stands at 348.53 (BLS, May 2026), up 6.7% from a year earlier. Quotes priced off last quarter's material cost miss this move.
Industrial electricity averages 8.66 cents per kWh across the U.S. (EIA, Apr 2026), up 5.5% from a year earlier. Energy-intensive steps carry this directly into unit cost.
The U.S. has 3,569 primary metal manufacturing establishments employing about 354,911 workers (Census County Business Patterns, 2023).

Common questions

How do you calculate crew utilization? Divide the crew hours actually charged to productive work by the total crew hours available, then express it as a percentage. Eight charged hours out of 250 available is 3.2 percent utilization.
What is a good crew utilization for a relining team? For a planned outage, well-run refractory crews run 80 to 90 percent utilization during the active window. The 95 percent target in this example is aggressive but appropriate for a tightly scheduled outage.
Why is the utilization so low in the example? Only 8 of 250 available hours were charged, giving 3.2 percent and a 91.8-point gap to the 95 percent target. That pattern usually means the crew was on standby waiting for furnace cooldown, material delivery, or a permit.
What does the gap to target tell me? The gap is the shortfall in percentage points between your target and actual utilization. Here it is 91.8 points, a clear signal that almost the entire available window went unused productively.
Is utilization the same as efficiency? No. Utilization measures how much available time was charged to work; efficiency measures how much work got done per charged hour. A crew can be highly utilized but still inefficient if they are re-gunning failed patches.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.