Capacity

How it is used

Used in planning meetings, budgets and customer talks. Plants add, increase or free up capacity, run at full capacity or have spare capacity. Capacity planning compares what you can make with what customers want.

Example sentences

1. We are running at 95% capacity, so we can't take another big order before March.

2. A third shift would add about 30% more capacity without buying new machines.

Common collocations

• full capacity
• spare capacity
• capacity planning
• increase capacity
• capacity constraint

Related terms

• utilizationThe percentage of available time that a machine, person or plant is actually busy working.
• bottleneckThe slowest step or resource in a process, which limits the output of the whole system, just as the neck of a bottle limits how fast liquid flows out.
• throughputThe number of good units a process, line or plant actually produces in a period of time, such as parts per hour.
• production scheduleA plan that shows which products will be made, in what quantity, on which line or machine and when, usually for the coming days or weeks.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

• capacity · Medicine
• capacity · Healthcare Management
• capacity · Project Management
• capacity · Contract & Commercial Law

More terms: Production Planning and Control

• lead time
• bill of materials
• MRP
• ERP
• demand forecast
• line balancing
• master production schedule
• make-to-order
• ramp up