Capacity planning answers one question: in each week of next year, will you have enough technician and crew hours for the work that is likely to arrive? In a heating company the honest answer is usually "too many hours in July, far too few in the fortnight after the first hard frost". This chapter of the plan measures that gap and sets out what to do about it.
What it is
It is a weekly model with two lines. The first is expected demand: installs by system type, service calls and agreement visits, built from your own history. The second is available capacity: the hours your technicians and crews can deliver, after travel, callbacks, training and holidays.
Where demand runs above capacity, the plan chooses a response: hire, subcontract, approve overtime, move work earlier, or accept a waiting list. Where capacity runs above demand, the plan chooses how to fill it, usually with agreement visits, off-season campaigns or a second product line.
Who it is for
- Owners who lose calls or quotes every fall because nobody was free to answer or visit.
- Companies deciding whether to add a crew, a technician or a subcontractor.
- Furnace or boiler shops adding heat pumps, which changes the summer as much as the winter.
- Companies with a large agreement base whose visits pile into the same weeks as the rush.
What's included
- A demand calendar by week for the peak months and by month for the rest of the year, separated into installs, repair calls and planned visits.
- A capacity calendar from your roster: working hours per person per week, minus travel, callbacks, vacation and training.
- The gap table. Weeks where demand exceeds capacity, by how much, and which kind of work causes it.
- A response for each gap, with a deadline. For example, a hire date set back from the peak by the time a new installer needs to become productive.
- A shoulder-season fill plan that moves agreement visits, tune-ups and planned replacements into the months where hours sit idle.
A worked example
A boiler and furnace company has eight service technicians who each deliver about 30 billable hours a week after travel. That is 240 hours. An average repair call takes two hours including the drive, and an agreement visit takes 1.5 hours.
In a normal October week the company sees 70 repair calls and 40 agreement visits: 140 + 60 = 200 hours, so there is slack. In the week after the first deep cold, repair calls jump to 120. That is 240 hours of repairs alone, with no room left for the 40 scheduled visits. The plan's answer is not more technicians for one week. It is to finish most agreement visits in September and early October, before the cold, and to hold a small reserve of hours for no-heat calls. Your own numbers will differ; the method stays the same.
Timeline
The capacity model is built after the baseline and demand calendar, because it depends on both. Once it exists, it is updated at each plan checkpoint. The full schedule for the engagement is confirmed in writing in your proposal.
How results are measured
Three measures tell you whether the capacity plan worked:
- Unanswered or abandoned calls in peak weeks, from your phone system.
- Quote-to-visit time for replacement enquiries, from the first contact to the in-home estimate.
- Idle hours in the shoulder months, from your dispatch or timesheet data.
If the first two fall without the third rising, the plan has moved work rather than just added cost.
Mistakes to avoid
- Counting heads instead of hours. Eight technicians is not eight technicians' worth of capacity once travel, callbacks and training are subtracted.
- Scheduling agreement visits in the peak. It feels efficient to visit members when they think of heating, but it spends the hours you need for no-heat calls.
- Hiring for the peak, in the peak. A December hire helps next December, not this one.
- Marketing into a full calendar. When the gap table shows no capacity, the marketing budget should step back, not forward. The marketing budget chapter is built from this model for that reason.
For the planning calendar as a whole, see the written annual growth plan. To see how your province's climate shapes the peak, start from the areas we cover.
Frequently asked questions
Why weekly rather than monthly?
Because heating demand spikes inside a month. A November that looks fine in total can hide two weeks where calls doubled after a cold snap. Weekly detail during the peak shows where you actually ran out of people.
Does adding heat pumps really flatten the year?
It can, because a heat pump sells as cooling in early summer as well as heating in the fall. Whether it does for you depends on your region's summers and how you market it; the model tests that with your numbers.
Should I hire before or after the season?
The model gives a date, not a rule. A new installer usually needs time to become productive, so the hire date sits well before the peak you are hiring for. That lead time is one of the inputs you provide.
Can the plan reduce overtime?
Often, by moving work. Tune-up campaigns in late summer and early fall pull some replacement decisions out of the peak, and agreement visits scheduled in the shoulder months free technicians for no-heat calls.