Batch & Production Planning
Batch Capacity Planner
This tool turns machine capacity, cycle duration, utilization and dry yield into a planning picture for a period you choose: how many batches fit in theory, how many in practice, how much fresh food that means, and roughly how much dry product comes out. Utilization is your input, not an assumption: real production includes loading, unloading, defrost, cleaning, maintenance and downtime.
What This Tool Does
It multiplies the machine's usable time through how many batches fit in a period, then scales that by how much each batch holds and how much survives as dry product.
Your input, e.g. 90. Loading, unloading, defrost, cleaning, maintenance and downtime all cost time.
You choose the period; the machine is treated as running around the clock within it.
Theoretical Batches
–
Period hours ÷ cycle, ignoring downtime
Practical Batches
–
Theoretical × your utilization
Fresh Input Capacity
–
Practical batches × capacity per batch
Dry Output Estimate
–
Fresh input × dry yield
What the Result Means
Theoretical batches is what the clock alone allows if the machine ran around the clock with no gaps. Practical batches applies the utilization you entered, which is the honest number for planning: it bakes in loading, unloading, defrost, cleaning, maintenance and downtime. Fresh input capacity is the practical number of batches times what each batch holds, and the dry output estimate is that fresh weight times the dry yield: the product you would actually have to sell or store.
The Formula
- Theoretical Batches = Planning Days × 24 ÷ Cycle Hours
- Practical Batches = Theoretical × Utilization % ÷ 100
- Fresh Input Capacity = Practical Batches × Wet Capacity per Batch
- Dry Output Estimate = Fresh Input Capacity × Dry Yield % ÷ 100
Important Limitations
- Utilization is deliberately your input. If you enter 100%, that is your claim, not the tool's: real production never achieves uninterrupted machine time.
- The planning period treats the machine as running 24 hours a day inside the period. If you only run 8 hours a day, the numbers overstate capacity.
- The machine's wet capacity is a physical limit that real loads rarely reach: not all foods can be loaded to machine maximum.
- The dry output is only as good as the dry yield you enter, and it assumes every batch comes out at that yield.