ERP & MRP Planning calculator

Rough Cut Capacity Planning Calculator

Rough Cut Capacity Planning checks whether the master production schedule is broadly feasible before detailed finite scheduling. It is best for product-family, work-center, or weekly capacity reviews.

What this calculator does

  • Calculate rough-cut capacity utilization from required master-schedule hours and available work-center hours.
  • a master scheduler needs to see whether MPS demand overloads key work centers
  • It measures how heavily a rough-cut capacity plan loads available work-center hours.

Formula used

  • Rough-cut utilization = required MPS load hours ÷ available rough-cut capacity hours × 100
  • Gap to target = target rough-cut utilization - actual rough-cut utilization

Inputs explained

  • Required MPS load hours: Use master-schedule demand multiplied by rough-cut bills of capacity or routing standards.
  • Available rough-cut capacity hours: Use available labor or machine hours after holidays, shifts, and planned downtime.
  • Target rough-cut utilization: Use the planning target that leaves room for variation, maintenance, and schedule changes.

How to use the result

  • Use it during ERP cleanup, MRP review, production scheduling, S&OP prep, purchasing decisions, shortage meetings, capacity planning, or daily shop-floor execution reviews.
  • This is a planning estimate. Confirm final commitments against current ERP/MRP records, released BOMs and routings, inventory accuracy, supplier commitments, open work orders, quality holds, and shop-floor constraints.

Common questions

  • What is the Rough Cut Capacity Planning calculator for? It measures how heavily a rough-cut capacity plan loads available work-center hours.
  • What information do I need before using it? You need required MPS load hours, available rough-cut capacity hours, and target utilization.
  • How should I use the result? Use it to adjust the master schedule, add shifts, move demand, or start detailed constraint review.
  • When is the result only an estimate? It is only an estimate when demand, inventory, lead time, routing hours, setup time, yield, supplier dates, or work-center capacity comes from forecast assumptions or stale ERP data instead of current orders and recent execution history.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.