Balance efficiency
The work the stream needs, in operator-equivalents, over the operators actually assigned to it. Deliberately uncapped: above 100% means the work exceeds the people, which is a gap and not a triumph. This is a staffing ratio, not the line balance efficiency of textbooks.
Formula
In practice
This figure is uncapped, and above 100% means short-staffed. It was once clamped into a nought-to-one range, and an office needing 5.3 operator-equivalents from four people reported a comfortable 100% while the staffing plan beside it said two short. The bar in the interface may stop at full; the figure may not.
Note also what it is not. This is a staffing ratio — required operator-equivalents over assigned operators — and not the classical line-balance formula of work content over stations × bottleneck cycle. Both are called balance efficiency in the field, and a reader arriving from a textbook that means the other one should know which is on the screen before comparing it to anything.
How this is calculated
Common questions
How can balance efficiency be above 100%?
Because the work needs more operator-equivalents than the line has people. Clamping it at 100% would turn a staffing shortfall into a figure that reads as perfect, which is the specific failure this uncapped reading exists to prevent.
Is this the same formula my textbook gives?
Probably not. The classical formula divides total work content by stations multiplied by the bottleneck cycle time. This one divides required operator-equivalents by assigned operators, which answers a staffing question rather than a station-loading one.
Related terms
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Required operators
Manual work content divided by takt. What the flow needs, not what is rostered. The range beside it is the same figure…
This definition is the one the product itself shows, read from its interface catalogue at build time.