Lean tool · from the plant floor

Bakery capacity & resource calculator

Start from the order and work backwards: boxes become pieces, pieces become trays, trays become batter, batter becomes drums, and every area gets its need in its own unit, with the people and hours it takes. The slowest area sets the earliest ship date, not a fixed lead time.

Every number below is an illustrative default that keeps the structure of a real bakery, not anyone's data. Change any input; everything is calculated in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere. The story behind the model is on From the plant floor.

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What this order really needs

Bottleneck–

Earliest ship date–

Trolleys in rotation–

Takt–

Per area, in each area's own unit

Area	Need (own unit)	Hours	Days	People / shift	In rotation	Load

Waste flags

WIP: why 90 trolleys in front of a 75-tray cutter help nobody

The backward explosion, per SKU

SKU	Boxes	Pallets	Pieces	Items	Trays net → +loss	Batter lb	Oven batches	Trolley loads

COPQ: the broken ultrasonic knife

How it calculates (Lean terms)

Backward explosion: boxes × pack config = pieces → items (slabs, cakes, minis) → trays, rounded up, plus the production loss → batter oz → lb → whole drums per batter type.
Hours per area = units × time per unit with that area's standard crew; parallel resources (mixers, ovens, lines) share the load. Days = hours ÷ net hours per day (shifts × (shift − breaks)). The freezer runs 24 h.
Bottleneck (TOC): the area with the most days of work. It sets the pace; everything else is subordinated to it.
Takt vs cycle: takt = available time in the window ÷ trays ordered; if the bottleneck's cycle per tray is longer, the window is too short.
Earliest ship date (capable-to-promise): bottleneck days + one tray's flow time + freezing (12 h ≈ 0.5 day) + QA release, counted in working days.
WIP cap: trolleys per flow = slowest-step rate × loop time ÷ trays per trolley, + 1 buffer (Little's law). Without the cap, filling pushes until the trolleys run out and they queue in the FIFO cooling lane; past the maximum dwell they are scrap (COPQ).
Pull vs push: pull gives mixing one signal per drum, so about two drums per running line are in rotation and batter stays fresh; push fills every drum ahead.
Heijunka: the brownie packaging line runs either IWP or clams; more, smaller campaigns level the mix at the cost of changeovers.

Want this for your plant?

Zenilify Consulting builds this backward explosion with your own SKUs, routings and rates, finds the real constraint and sets the WIP caps and pull signals around it.

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