Using the Capacity Module
Last updated November 6, 2025
Flowlity’s Capacity module allows planners to incorporate production and supplier capacity constraints into the planning process. This is essential for ensuring that the supply plan is feasible not just from an inventory standpoint, but also from an operational standpoint – i.e., can your factories and suppliers actually produce and deliver the plan quantities on the required schedule.
With the Capacity planning features, you can model:
- Factory or Line Capacities: For example, a production line can only produce 100 units per day, or a supplier can only deliver 500 units per week. Flowlity lets you set these limits so that planned orders do not exceed what can be made.
- Batch Sizes and Minimum Runs: If a production process requires a minimum batch (say you must produce at least 1000 units per campaign) or multiples of a certain lot size, those can be configured. Similarly, a supplier might only ship in pallet loads – capacity planning takes that into account.
- Production Hierarchies: Capacity can be defined at different levels – e.g., total plant capacity vs individual production line vs specific process or machine. Flowlity’s module is evolving to handle multiple levels (for instance, a product family might share a capacity pool).
In the Planning tab interface, once capacity constraints are active, you will see additional information like capacity utilization charts. These could be visualized as part of the product’s planning detail or a separate view. For example, you might have a chart showing each week how much of a certain production line’s capacity is used by the planned production orders versus its total capacity (often in hours or units). If a plan tries to exceed capacity, the system either will not suggest that extra production, or it will flag it clearly.
Supplier Capacity is similarly handled. If a supplier can only supply X units per month across all products, Flowlity will attempt to not recommend orders beyond that. It might allocate capacity among products or issue alerts if demand exceeds what the supplier can fulfill.
To use capacity planning effectively, you would configure the constraints in Flowlity’s settings (under the Suppliers or Production settings – e.g., set daily or weekly production rates, machine availability, downtime, etc.). Then, when computing the supply plan, Flowlity constrains the order recommendations to respect those limits. This means sometimes the forecast might not fully be met if capacity is insufficient – leading to backlogs or showing that you need more capacity.
For example, if demand spikes to 200 units but your capacity is 100 units per day, Flowlity might schedule production over 2 days, or if limited by week, it might show an unmet portion and raise an alert. This helps planners either adjust the plan (maybe produce overtime, or prioritize some products over others) or negotiate increased capacity.
In the UI, an Analytics or Gantt view could be available for capacity: showing when each production order is scheduled (like a timeline) and how it fits into the available slots. If Flowlity identifies that capacity is a bottleneck, it will highlight the constraint (e.g., “Production capacity maxed out on Week 35”).
Capacity planning is a newer addition to Flowlity (as of 2024) and is being expanded. Current capabilities include basic capacity constraints and will grow to cover more complex production planning scenarios. The goal is to ensure that the recommendations you get aren’t just optimal in theory, but actually executable given real-world limitations of your resources. By using the Capacity module, planners can proactively manage those limitations – for instance, plan production earlier if a future week’s capacity looks insufficient, or shift orders to an alternate supplier with free capacity.
In summary, the Production & Capacity Planning features of Flowlity allow you to visualize and manage constraints such as limited production output or supplier throughput. This leads to more realistic plans and helps prevent situations where an ideal plan fails because it didn’t account for a factory being at full load. Always check the capacity utilization indicators in Flowlity if you’ve configured them, especially when you see that despite high demand, recommended orders are capped – that’s likely the capacity constraint at work, and it signals a need for action (either increase capacity or accept longer lead times).
(Note: To set up or modify capacity constraints, you may need to work with Flowlity’s team initially, as these settings can be part of the advanced configuration. Once set, end-users can monitor the outcomes in the app.)