When the Problem Isn’t Machine Capacity — It’s Labor Allocation
- Matt Ulepic
- Nov 18
- 2 min read
How one manufacturer uncovered hidden capacity across shifts using Machine Tracking
Most manufacturers face the same pressure when jobs start falling behind:
“We need more machines.”
More machines = more capacity… or at least that’s the assumption.
But as one customer recently discovered, assumptions can be expensive — and very wrong.
The Complaints Were Coming In
This manufacturer was struggling to keep up with demand.
Jobs weren’t getting completed on time.
Orders were backing up.
The complaints — especially from the 1st shift — kept mounting.
Naturally, the conclusion was:
“We need to buy more equipment.”
But the head of operations wasn’t convinced.
Instead of adding more machines, he wanted to validate the concern before making a costly decision.
Using Data Instead of Assumptions
That’s when his team deployed Machine Tracking’s Machine Utilization Trackers — simple devices that capture real machine uptime, downtime, and utilization across every shift.
The goal?
Get a clear, objective picture of how much capacity they truly had.
What happened next surprised everyone.
The Shocking Insight: They Had Plenty of Machine Capacity
Once the data came in, the truth was obvious:
The machines were not the bottleneck.
They had more than enough capacity to meet demand.
The issue wasn’t equipment — it was labor allocation.
Shift 1 was overloaded and constantly under pressure.
But shifts 2 and 3 had significantly more available capacity than anyone realized.
With real uptime data across all three shifts, the head of operations instantly saw the imbalance.
The Fix Was Simple — Align the Shifts
Once priorities were adjusted across shifts:
The backlog cleared
Throughput stabilized
Complaints stopped
And the facility avoided buying new machines unnecessarily
Even better, with the extra capacity they uncovered, they were able to in-source additional work, reducing outside service costs and boosting profitability.
A Rapid Expansion of Visibility
The value of the data was so clear, so quickly, that this customer immediately doubled the number of machines being monitored.
When you give your team a simple, accurate way to understand machine uptime and utilization, improvements stop being theoretical — they become obvious.
A Quote Worth Sharing
The head of operations said it best:
“You all made it simple to get the necessary data — and you weren’t trying to sell us an overly complicated solution that’s overly expensive.”
That’s exactly why Machine Tracking exists.
What Was Learned
When production is behind, it’s easy to blame machine capacity.
But in reality, the bottleneck is often hidden in plain sight — and only becomes visible when you have the right data across all shifts.
Sometimes the answer isn’t more machines.
It's better visibility.
📈 Ready to See If You Have Hidden Capacity?
Machine Tracking gives manufacturers the real-time uptime and utilization data they need to make smart decisions — without complex integrations, long deployments, or expensive systems.