Home / Tools / Warehouse Shift Capacity Calculator
FREE TOOL: NO SIGNUPWhether that shift actually clears the work
Backlog plus forecast is what is due. Headcount times hours times rate is what you wish you had. This works out what the shift really produces once shrinkage and attendance take their cut, what backlog you close with, and how many people it would take to hit your target.
Everything runs in this page. Nothing you type is uploaded, stored on a server, or seen by me.
| Units due (backlog plus forecast) | - |
|---|---|
| Expected people on the floor | - |
| Productive hours available | - |
| Capacity this shift | - |
| Utilisation | - |
| Closing backlog | - |
|---|---|
| Acceptable carry at your target | - |
| Units at risk beyond target | - |
| Extra person-hours to clear them | - |
-
One function is not a building
This sizes a single function for a single shift. A real building has receiving, putaway, picking, packing and shipping competing for the same people, and the constraint moves between them during the day. Clearing one function while starving the one downstream is not a win, and nothing here can see that.
It also does not cost the answer. Being short by eight people has three different prices depending on whether you cover it with overtime, temps, or by deferring the work, and the cheapest option is not always the obvious one. A single rate per hour hides all of that.
The paid tool plans every function together, compares overtime against temps against deferral on cost, stress-tests an attendance shock, and produces a prioritised plan for the shift huddle.
Warehouse Labor & Capacity Control Room: $99
Would rather not run it yourself? The operations diagnostic applies this analysis to your actual numbers and writes the findings up for your leadership team.
The paid version carries a 30-day usefulness guarantee: load real data, follow the instructions, and if it does not produce a usable staffing or backlog decision, request a refund within 30 days.
How the numbers are produced
- Units due = opening backlog plus forecast units.
- Productive hours per rostered person = shift hours, times one minus shrinkage, times attendance.
- Capacity = planned people, times productive hours per person, times units per hour.
- Closing backlog = units due minus capacity, floored at zero.
- Acceptable carry = units due multiplied by your target closing backlog percentage.
- People required = the work above that carry, divided by what one rostered person produces, rounded up.
- Status is SHORT when units are at risk beyond target, TIGHT above 90 percent utilisation, otherwise COVERED.
Units per hour is assumed steady across the shift and across people. Real rates vary by shift, by tenure and by what is in the trailer, so treat the output as a plan to check against yesterday's actuals rather than a measurement.
Common questions
- Does anything I type get sent anywhere?
- No. The model runs in your browser as JavaScript on this page. There is no account, no upload and no server call.
- Why is my capacity lower than headcount times hours times rate?
- Because two things come out first. Shrinkage removes paid time that is not on the task: breaks, huddles, training, cleanup, equipment problems. Attendance removes the share of the roster that does not turn up. Multiply the raw number and you will plan a shift that has never once happened.
- What is the difference between planned people and expected people?
- Planned people is who is on the roster. Expected people is how many of them the attendance rate says will actually be there. Capacity is built from the expected number, which is why an optimistic attendance assumption quietly inflates every downstream figure.
- What does the target closing backlog do?
- It is the backlog you are willing to carry into the next shift, as a percentage of the work due. Setting it to zero demands you clear everything today, which usually raises required headcount sharply. Most operations carry some backlog on purpose; this makes that choice explicit instead of accidental.
- What does TIGHT mean if I am covered?
- Utilisation above 90 percent. The plan works on paper and has almost no room in it, so one late trailer, one jam, or one extra absence turns it into a miss. Covered and tight are not the same as covered and safe.
- What does the paid tool add?
- Every function planned together instead of one, a costed comparison of overtime versus temps versus deferring work, an attendance-shock stress test, cost per unit, a prioritised huddle plan, and CSV or JSON import and export. One-time purchase, runs offline the same way.