Capacity calculation of a team

Very carefully.

I will guarantee you that if I felt like I was over worked and someone did some calculation to show me I wasn’t I would immediately be willing to do a lot more.
Actually you probably don’t need to do much. Just make some stuff up and present it to them because it doesn’t matter if you are right or wrong this is just going to irritate them.
The other person was right. Get out from infront of your computer and go find out why they think they are over worked. Here is something you may not have considered – maybe they are right.
Just my opinion.

Hi Anthony
You should ideally break your team’s entire activity into unique identifiable activities. Each activity should have a standard delivery/execution time permitted, with a margin for efficiency/learning curve. These standard units then become your unit of measurement.
You will have to be careful to factor in the training, adminstrative activity, lag in delivery etc in the calculation.
Since I do not know the specifics of your task, I cannot provide exact details.
Cheers
Deepak Maheshwari
 
 
 
 
 

Hi,
To start with, you need to ascertain the following first:
1. Target units of work based on their compensation.
2. Target Quality Standards to be maintained if any, and
3.  Target cycle time if any.
Whatever the team’s production is, you can always compare the actual work done against their targets.
Lets take an example. Adam has been give a target of producting 100 units of work per an 8 hour shift where 2% of rejection is allowed.
To put it more clearly, Adam has to produce 98 units of defect-free work consuming an average time of 4.2 minutes per unit (considering two 15 min breaks and 30 min lunch break)
Suppose if he has produced 90 units of defect free work, then his capacity utilization is 90% (100/90).
Please let me know if you want it more clearly.

We did a similar calcuation in order to bid a job.  It was determined that the Engineer could do 1 heat map ( for a wireless access point placement) in 22 minutes.  The person who did this did not take into account the time identify the store to be completed, pulling down the file from a respository, reviewing the file, then placing the completed map into a respository and recording the completion with details on a spread sheet.  In addition, meetings, break time, lunch time etc was not calculated into the overall equation
As a result the time to do this with the development of the map was more like 35-40  minutes – thus, the team was not as productive and our hours charged much higher than anticipated.  We will be reviewing this to make sure we are adding in all the time that must be accounted for not just the actual item the engineer is charged with producing.
So if you have extraneous tasks that your people are responsible to do – like attend meetings and update reports – you need to make those allowances also.

I’ve been in similar situations, sometimes as the person who thinks that more could be done, and sometimes as the person trying to convince more senior management that they’re out of touch with the workload and day to day operations.It seems to me that there are two likely drivers for your concern over productivity. One would be more senior management expectations or requirements, possibly with a desire to keep your jobs. Another may be a general observation that people aren’t working hard enough (too much time around the water cooler, as it were).In both cases, the solution is essentially the same. Work with the team to document the current process and motivate them to find ways to improve effectiveness and efficiency. The usual Six Sigma and Lean tools will help you. Your goal should be to increase the throughput of the work product, and simple solutions that the team members themselves can control and use will prove highly effective. Look for ways that make the work load visible and improve flow, such as Kanban boards, 5S and “spaghetti” diagrams. Just standardizing the work, if it is not already standardized, can net you a ten-time improvement in efficiency.If this is being driven by external factors, such as management expectations, then you will need to spend extra effort in managing those expectations. You’ll need to show them that there is a disconnect in perception between them and the line workers, and you will need to keep them apprised of both your approach to solving the problem as well as what you learn, so that you adjust their perceptions. The good news, for you, is that external factors make it easy to get buy-in from the team members and to ensure that they see you as being on their side.If this is being driven internally, then you will need to look to your own motivational and leadership skills to ensure that you achieve buy-in from the team members and do not develop a reputation as an uncaring or disconnected boss, as such a reputation will result in team member actions that undermine your goal (work slowdowns, padding estimates, “malicious compliance”). You should still look to “manage up” effectively so that your team’s improvements are visible to, and rewarded by, more senior management.Good luck.

Hi Pam,
I think you can do the following, if have not done so far
Step 1. Ascertain how many maps need to be done by an engineer in a month to make the business profitable depending upon the individual’s CTC.  You can further divide this figure by the number of working days in a month.  So you arrive at the actual number of maps one needs to do per day to make the service of the personnell profitable.
Step 2. Ascertain the average time spent in doing the non-value adding routine for each map.  i.e., the time identify the store to be completed, pulling down the file from a respository, reviewing the file, then placing the completed map into a respository and recording the completion with details on a spread sheet.  May be you can do a time and motion study.  Also you can fix the duration of the meetings etc in a day and club it with the non-value adding time spent in a day.
Step 3:  After the above 2 steps you will know how many maps need to be done in how much time in a day to make the business profitable, and also time to be spent on each map.  If step 3 is giving any practical, feasible result, then fine.  Else I think you need to rethink on the processing time of each map.
Please me know you views on this.
Regards,
Srikanth