Capacity Planning

The capacity of your company to meet expected demand should be measured in both the short-term and the long-term. Properly managed capacity can have great benefits for the small business.

The decision to increase your company's capacity is critical and costly. Before making this leap, make sure it's the right decision for your company.

Lead, lag or match? Capacity planning strategies are essential for maximizing efficiency and profitability in a small business. But if your capacity planning strategy isn't tailored to your company's business model, you could plan yourself right into a crisis.

In simple layman's terms, Resource Requirements Planning (RRP) boils down to a sanity check on a company's Sales & Operations Plan. If your business is prepared to meet changing marketplace demand, no problem. But if you're not, you may need to make some difficult decisions.

Is your Master Production Schedule viable from a capacity perspective? Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. For a definitive answer, you'll need to turn to a tried and true capacity planning tool, Rough-Cut Capacity Planning.

Sooner or later, you're going to have to drill down to the nitty-gritty of capacity planning. When that day arrives you'll need to rely on Detail Capacity Planning -- a planning strategy that focuses on the specifics of how workflows play out on the shop floor.

Looking for information on capacity planning for business services? Now you're thinking outside of the box. Although capacity planning has its roots in traditional manufacturing, it's becoming an increasingly relevant topic for business services companies.