Note
Can You Take the Next Project? A Capacity Check
A prospect calls. Factory rooftop, 80 kWp. They want ten technicians on site for three weeks, starting in six weeks. You say you will check and call them back. Then you spend twenty minutes on WhatsApp trying to piece together what the team is doing that month. You come back with an estimate. If the estimate is wrong, you find out on the day the project is supposed to start.
This is the commitment problem. It is not about having too few technicians. It is about not knowing, in the moment someone asks, how many of your technician-days are already spoken for in the relevant weeks. A quick capacity check turns that estimate into an answer.
What “capacity” actually means
Capacity is not headcount. A team of 20 technicians has a headline number, but the number that matters is available technician-days in the specific window you need. The unit underneath that, one technician on site for one full day, is what the rest of this check runs on.
- A senior technician already assigned to a long solar installation is not available, regardless of headcount
- A technician finishing one project on Friday and starting a new one Monday is available for exactly one day in between
- Technicians kept on standby for warranty callbacks or inspection rounds are not part of your schedulable pool
The formula is straightforward:
Available technician-days = (total technicians) x (working days in target window) minus (already committed days in that window)
The difficult part is producing the “already committed days” number quickly and accurately.
What does your current commitment load look like?
Before you make any commitment, you need a picture of what is already committed across your team in the relevant period. Most contractors cannot produce this in under five minutes. The information exists: in a spreadsheet, in the foreman’s head, in a LINE thread. But it is not in a form that answers the next question fast.
The goal is a single view of all current project commitments expressed as technician-days by week, not project names or end dates. Weekly technician-days tell you whether a window is open or full.
Running the check: a worked example
Take a contractor with 16 technicians. A new factory solar project needs 9 technicians for 15 working days, starting at week 7 (about six weeks from now). The check runs against weeks 7, 8, and 9.
Current commitments in that window:
- Project A (rooftop solar, 300 kWp): 6 technicians committed for all 15 days = 90 technician-days
- Project B (LED retrofit, warehouse): 4 technicians for the first 8 days only = 32 technician-days, then free
- Warranty standby: 1 technician blocked for urgent callbacks, not schedulable
Week 7 available: 16 minus 6 minus 4 minus 1 = 5 technicians free.
Project B completes partway through week 8. Those 4 technicians become free. By week 8, day 5, the contractor has 9 available technicians.
That means the new project can start at full staffing from week 8, or start with 5 technicians on preparatory and survey work in week 7 and add the remaining 4 once Project B closes.
The contractor can call the prospect back with a real answer: “We can start with a partial crew in week seven and bring full staffing from week eight. We need a confirmed start date this week to hold those days.” That is a committed answer, not a guess.
What inflates apparent capacity?
Three things make your available days look larger than they are:
Committed-but-not-dispatched work. If you signed a project last month and have not yet sent anyone to site, those technician-days are already sold. They do not belong in the available pool.
Float work. Projects with loose end dates tend to absorb available technicians when the schedule looks quiet. That float disappears the moment two projects compete for the same week. Count any signed project as committed, regardless of how relaxed the timeline looks.
Warranty and inspection holds. Technicians kept on call for warranty response or upcoming inspection rounds cannot be dispatched to new project work. They appear in your headcount but not in your schedulable capacity.
Does the skill mix matter?
Yes, though it is a second-level check. Raw technician-days is the first filter. If the numbers are tight, the project is a risk regardless of skill distribution. If the numbers look comfortable, then verify whether the right skills are free in that window.
For a Thai electrical contractor doing both solar and LED work, the distinction matters: a mounting crew comfortable on factory rooftops is not the same as an electrician doing MDB and inverter termination work, and an LED retrofit team working high-bay fixtures in a warehouse has a different profile again. All three are in your headcount. They are not interchangeable on every scope.
A practical approach: tag your technicians by primary scope (rooftop, electrical, LED), then filter by the scope the new project needs when you run the check.
FAQ
How far ahead should I check?
Look at the target window plus a two-week buffer on each side. If the window falls inside the March to May stretch when demand and available days move in opposite directions, check earlier than that. Projects often run long on the front end (factory access delays, materials arriving late to site) and can slip at the back end. A current project overrunning by one week eats directly into the new project’s start.
What if I cannot produce a committed technician-day count quickly?
That is the real signal. If it takes 30 minutes to find out what your team is doing six weeks from now, any date you give a prospect is an estimate, and the risk of a wrong estimate sits with you after you have signed. The capacity check is only as useful as the data behind it.
Should subcontracted scopes count against my capacity?
Only if you are managing and coordinating those subs directly. A sub who brings their own crew and manages their own schedule operates outside your capacity. Track only the days your own technicians are responsible for delivering.
One last point
A capacity check is not about being conservative. It is about giving a prospect a confident answer instead of a hopeful one, and avoiding the scramble that follows an overcommit. A board view of your team’s technician-days, broken down by week, makes the check a two-minute exercise rather than a chain of calls.
If you want to see how that board gets set up, the TRACE 30 program puts it in place in 30 days.