Learn how to define weekly throughput to improve production deadline estimates based on your team’s real capacity.
What is weekly throughput?
Weekly throughput is the total number of productive hours your workshop can use for production operations in a typical week.
It does not include breaks, admin time, or time spent on non-productive tasks.
Katana uses weekly throughput to automatically calculate production deadlines for manufacturing orders (MOs). This helps align your production planning with your actual operational capacity.
How to enable production deadline calculations
To enable automatic deadline calculations based on throughput:
Go to the Make screen.
Click Configure deadlines in the top-right corner.
Enable the toggle for Calculate production deadlines.
Set your weekly throughput value based on your team's productive hours.
Tip: The "Last 7 days actual" value will be displayed here too for comparison.
How deadline estimation works
Katana uses:
Planned production time (set in the Product operations tab on the product card), plus your weekly throughput → to estimate when production will be completed for each MO.
This ensures more accurate delivery timelines based on your actual capacity.
Example: How to calculate weekly throughput
Let’s say you have:
3 full-time production employees, each working 40 hours/week
This gives you a theoretical total of 120 hours/week
But when accounting for:
Breaks
Time lost searching for materials
Admin or unproductive hours
You estimate that each employee is productive for ~33 hours/week.
Set your weekly throughput to: 3 × 33 = 99 hours
Using “Last 7 days actual” for calibration
When configuring production deadlines, you'll see a “Last 7 days actual” metric.
This shows the total production hours from all completed MOs in the last 7 days.
If this number is very different from your configured weekly throughput, it might be time to:
Adjust your throughput estimate, or
Review production operation times for your products.
Pro tips
Always base throughput on productive time, not total scheduled hours.
Review throughput regularly to reflect changes in your team or workflows.
Use real historical data to guide adjustments and ensure realistic deadlines.
Your feedback is invaluable. Let us know your thoughts on this article or anything in Katana you'd like to see improved: [email protected]