Production Planning
The faster loom is not automatically the right one. Subtract the hourly cost and a slow cheap machine sometimes wins.
— /h
From whichever machine type wins
Output is the mechanical rate at 100% efficiency; multiply by the real running efficiency, which differs systematically between machine types and is often the factor that reverses the ranking. Width utilisation is reported because a narrow order on a wide loom wastes capacity rather than material — that cost is real but appears as under-recovery elsewhere, not in this margin. Style-dependent constraints decide most allocations in practice: not every construction runs on air-jet, weft colour changes and heavy or delicate yarns push work to rapier regardless of contribution, and warp changeover time is excluded here entirely.
Loom Allocation Matrix & Contribution per Machine Hour — free, with the formula and a worked example, at Textile School.