Capacity
Monitor capacity constraints and anticipate bottlenecks.
The Capacity module lets you manage and monitor your capacity units — such as assembly lines, production plants, or supplier throughput. It ensures that your supply plan is feasible not just from an inventory standpoint, but also from an operational standpoint: can your factories and suppliers actually produce and deliver the planned quantities on the required schedule? When planned orders exceed available capacity, Flowlity flags the conflict so you can act before it becomes a bottleneck.
What you can model
Capacity constraints can be defined at different levels to match your operational reality:
Factory or line capacity — A production line can only produce a certain number of units per day or week. Flowlity ensures that planned production orders do not exceed what the line can handle.
Supplier capacity — A supplier can only deliver a limited quantity per period across all products. Flowlity allocates capacity among products and alerts you if total demand exceeds what the supplier can fulfill.
Batch sizes and minimum runs — A production process may require a minimum batch (e.g. at least 1,000 units per campaign) or orders in multiples of a lot size. Capacity planning accounts for these requirements.
Production hierarchies — Capacity can be defined at multiple levels — total plant, individual production line, or specific machine — so that products sharing the same resource are planned together.
Capacity constraints are configured in the settings (under Suppliers or Production). See Supplier constraints for details on how constraints are set up.
Capacity utilization view
Once capacity constraints are active, the module shows a utilization chart for each capacity unit. The chart displays, per period (e.g. weekly), how much of the available capacity is consumed by planned orders versus the total capacity available — typically in hours or units.
When planned orders fit within the available capacity, the bars stay within the limit.
When a period exceeds capacity, it is highlighted and an alert is raised. Flowlity will either cap the recommended orders at the available capacity or spread production across adjacent periods to stay within limits.
If capacity is the binding constraint, some demand may remain unmet — this shows up as a backlog or a shortfall in the stock projection on the Planning page. This signals that you may need to take action: plan production earlier, shift orders to an alternate supplier with free capacity, schedule overtime, or accept longer lead times.
When to use it
Use Capacity when you need to validate that your supply plan is feasible given your production or supplier constraints. It is especially useful before releasing orders, during S&OP reviews, or whenever you want to proactively identify periods where demand may outstrip your ability to deliver. If you notice that recommended orders in Planning are capped below the forecast, check the Capacity module — it is likely a capacity constraint at work, signaling a need for action.
Learn more
Supplier constraints and order management — How supplier constraints complement capacity constraints.
Planning — Where capacity-constrained order recommendations appear.
Alerts — Alert types and how to act on them.
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