Home / Lean Six Sigma / Work measurement & methods
Add up available hours, downtime and standard hours earned for each operator, cell or shift and see how much paid time turns into output, where the losses are and what they cost.
Pre-sizing and estimating tool: results do not replace design, calculations or reports signed by a licensed professional, nor verification against the applicable codes and standards.
Sorted by overall efficiency; dashed lines: efficiency alert limits.
Downtime by reason and hours worked below standard (pace and method), with the cumulative percentage.
Hours, ratios, losses and alerts for each operator, cell or shift.
Take this page’s results to another calculator with the fields already filled in.
The calculation report gathers this page's inputs, results, equations, assumptions and references, with fields for project, engineer and revision. The full report also includes the charts and interpretations, in color. In the print dialog, choose Save as PDF.
Utilization is the share of available hours actually spent working: hours worked ÷ available hours. Efficiency (or performance) compares output with time worked: standard hours ÷ hours worked. Overall efficiency is the product of the two: standard hours ÷ available hours. In the example the crew had 88.5% utilization, 95.6% efficiency and 84.6% overall efficiency.
Good output times each item’s standard time: 3,700 brackets at 2.4 min give 148 standard hours for Alice. Standard times come from time studies, work sampling or the routing in your ERP. If your system already totals standard hours per person, type them in their column.
Six operators logged 992 available hours in the month, 114 hours of downtime and 839.1 standard hours earned. 196.7 hours were lost: 114 in downtime and 82.7 worked below standard, about $7,475 at $38 an hour. Material shortage is the top cause (40 h). Frank ranks first but at 125% efficiency, which calls for a review of the Cover B standard; Dan, at 65.9%, needs support.
Because nobody can sustainably work far above normal pace. When someone stays above 120%, the usual causes are a loose standard (the method improved and the time was never revised), a counting error or under-reported hours. Review the standard before using the figure for targets or bonuses; the 120% limit is a practical rule and can be changed.
Not necessarily. Below 70%, first check whether the person is in training, uses the same method and tools as the others, has unreported downtime, or works on an item with a tight standard. Only then does it make sense to treat it as individual performance.
It simulates the cost of a tiered bonus table, it does not set the rule. In the U.S., nondiscretionary production bonuses must be included in the regular rate when computing overtime under the FLSA, and union contracts often govern incentive pay. Before adopting one, validate the standards, write the rules with HR and legal counsel and keep targets within safe, ergonomic work paces.
The ratios are only as good as the standard times and the logging of hours and downtime: bad data gives unfair rankings. It does not deal with scrap (use good output only) or indirect labor, and pace losses count only for people below standard. For machines, use OEE; to find out where unlogged time goes, run a work sampling study.
Important notice: Indus Metrics tools produce estimates and pre-sizing results from the data you enter and from published engineering methods. They do not replace design, calculations or reports signed by a licensed professional engineer (PE), nor verification against the applicable codes, standards and regulations, such as OSHA rules and the ASME codes. Material and fuel properties vary: check manufacturer data or your own process analyses before deciding. By using this site you agree to the Terms of Use.
© 2026 Indus Metrics. Found an error? Write to contato@seudominio.com.