How many people do I need?
Enter the work that arrives, the hands-on tasks each job needs and your shift pattern. A simulation of your area tries several headcounts, with real variation, walking and breaks, and shows the fewest people per shift that keep up.
How it works
Dividing the total task time by the hours in a shift gives the fewest people who could ever do the work. Real areas need more: jobs arrive unevenly, task times vary, people walk between benches and take breaks, and a job waits whenever everyone is busy.
This calculator builds a small model of your area, one bench per task, and simulates two weeks of work minute by minute for each headcount, three times with different random arrivals. It recommends the fewest people per shift who finish at least 98% of the work without being busy more than 85% of their paid time, which leaves room for the unexpected.
For equipment, automated runs, skills, assignments and your real floor layout, open the model in Linewise and carry on from there.