Capacity, Bottlenecks & Batching

The bottom panel of the scheduling board turns the schedule into actionable signals: how loaded your resources are, where the bottleneck is, and which jobs you could combine to save setup time. The panel is resizable and can be collapsed when you need more board space.

For the board itself, see Production Scheduling (Overview).

Metrics panel

Aggregate health for the visible date range:

• Utilization — average work-center utilization across the range, with a ring gauge. Turns red above 85%.
• On-Time — on-time delivery percentage, plus the number of operations scheduled in the range.
• Bottleneck — the most-loaded work center, its average load % across the range, and how many critical periods it has. Shows "No bottlenecks detected" when load is healthy.
• Setup Time — total setup time across scheduled operations.
• Conflicts — count of scheduling conflicts from the last scheduling action (click to view details).
• Alerts — the top over-utilized work centers (flagged at the 85% threshold), each showing its average load and how many consecutive days it's been over the line.

Reading utilization

• Below ~85% — healthy headroom.
• At/above 85% — the work center is a constraint; expect queueing and at-risk due dates.
• Sustained vs one-off — a work center is flagged as a bottleneck only for sustained load: at or above 85% for two working days in a row, on at least half its working days, or on average across the whole range. A single busy day is not enough to trigger it.

Bottleneck analysis

The bottleneck is the work center most likely to make orders late. Use the Alerts list and the Bottleneck card to:

• Identify the constraining resource and its average load.
• See the critical periods where it's overloaded.
• Decide how to respond — move work to another center, add a shift, or offload part of the run elsewhere.

A good habit is to schedule the bottleneck first, then arrange everything else around it.

Batching opportunities

The scheduler analyzes pending work orders for the same item that could be combined into one larger run, eliminating repeated setup/changeover.

• Click Analyze Work Orders (or the refresh icon) to generate suggestions.
• The panel header totals the setup time you could save across all pending suggestions.

Each suggestion shows

• The item and how many work orders and total units it combines.
• The setup time saved by batching.
• Expandable detail: the individual work orders (number, quantity, due date, linked sales order) and a recommended schedule window.

Actions

• Apply — creates the combined work order from the batched jobs.
• Dismiss — removes the suggestion.

Watch the due dates. Batching pulls jobs together; before applying, confirm the combined run still meets the earliest due date in the group.

Putting it together

1. After a round of scheduling, check Utilization and Bottleneck.
2. If a bottleneck appears, rebalance work (drag operations to other centers or times) and re-check.
3. Review Batching Opportunities and apply those that save meaningful setup without breaking due dates.
4. Re-read the metrics to confirm you haven't created a new overload.

Tips

• Maintain accurate work-center capacity and shift calendars — every metric here derives from them.
• Treat the 85% utilization line as your planning ceiling, not a hard limit to chase.
• Batch high-changeover items aggressively; for low-setup items the savings rarely justify combining.

Related Features

• Production Scheduling (Overview)
• Scheduling Work Orders
• Work Centers
• Capacity Planner